Well, when he came back to Ireland he went to Charley Lambert, and asked him to ride on his horse.  Charley said he would not ride, and told the gentleman the danger he’d be in.  Then the gentleman told him the way he had put all his property on the horse, and at last Charley asked where the races were to be, and the hour and the day.  The gentleman told him.

’Let you put a horse with a bridle and saddle on it every seven miles along the road from here to the racecourse on that day,’ said Lambert, ‘and I’ll be in it.’

When the gentleman was gone, Charley stripped off his clothes and got into his bed.  Then he sent for the doctor, and when he heard him coming he began throwing about his arms the way the doctor would think his pulse was up with the fever.

The doctor felt his pulse and told him to stay quiet till the next day, when he would see him again.

The next day it was the same thing, and so on till the day of the races.  That morning Charley had his pulse beating so hard the doctor thought bad of him.

‘I’m going to the races now, Charley,’ said he, ’but I’ll come in and see you again when I’ll be coming back in the evening, and let you be very careful and quiet till you see me.’

As soon as he had gone Charley leapt up out of bed and got on his horse, and rode seven miles to where the first horse was waiting for him.  Then he rode that horse seven miles, and another horse seven miles more, till he came to the racecourse.

He rode on the gentleman’s horse and he won the race.

There were great crowds looking on, and when they saw him coming in they said it was Charley Lambert, or the devil was in it, for there was no one else could bring in a horse the way he did, for the leg was after being knocked off of the horse and he came in all the same.

When the race was over, he got up on the horse was waiting for him, and away with him for seven miles.  Then he rode the other horse seven miles, and his own horse seven miles, and when he got home he threw off his clothes and lay down on his bed.

After a while the doctor came back and said it was a great race they were after having.

The next day the people were saying it was Charley Lambert was the man who rode the horse.  An inquiry was held, and the doctor swore that Charley was ill in his bed, and he had seen him before the race and after it, so the gentleman saved his fortune.

After that he told me another story of the same sort about a fairy rider, who met a gentleman that was after losing all his fortune but a shilling, and begged the shilling of him.  The gentleman gave him the shilling, and the fairy rider—­a little red man—­rode a horse for him in a race, waving a red handkerchief to him as a signal when he was to double the stakes, and made him a rich man.

Then he gave us an extraordinary English doggerel rhyme which I took down, though it seems singularly incoherent when written out at length.  These rhymes are repeated by the old men as a sort of chant, and when a line comes that is more than usually irregular they seem to take a real delight in forcing it into the mould of the recitative.  All the time he was chanting the old man kept up a kind of snakelike movement in his body, which seemed to fit the chant and make it part of him.