Carrol asked him, did he see anything in the graveyard.

'I did,' said Lawrence, 'and my mother's body would be gone, but that
I was guarding it.'

'Was it dead or alive, the person you saw?' said Carrol.

'I don't know was it dead or alive,' said Lawrence; 'there was nothing
in it but a head without a body.'

'Weren't you afraid?' says Carrol.

'Indeed I wasn't,' said Lawrence; 'don't you know that nothing in the
world ever put fear on me.'

'I'll bet again with you that you haven't the courage to watch
to-night again,' says Carrol.

'I would make that bet with you,' said Lawrence, 'but that there is a
night's sleep wanting to me. Go yourself to-night.'

'I wouldn't go to the graveyard to-night if I were to get the riches
of the world,' says Carrol.

'Unless you go your mother's body will be gone in the morning,' says
Lawrence.

'If only you watch to-night and to-morrow night, I never will ask of
you to do a turn of work as long as you will be alive,' said Carrol,
'but I think there is fear on you.'

'To show you that there's no fear on me,' said Lawrence, 'I will
watch.'

He went to sleep, and when the evening came he rose up, put on his
sword, and went to the graveyard. He sat on a tombstone near his
mother's grave. About the middle of the night he heard a great sound
coming. A big black thing came as far as the grave and began rooting
up the clay. Lawrence drew back his sword, and with one blow he made
two halves of the big black thing, and with the second blow he made
two halves of each half, and he saw it no more.

Lawrence went home in the morning, and Carrol asked him did he see
anything.

'I did,' said Lawrence, 'and only that I was there my mother's body
would be gone.'

'Is it the head-without-body that came again?' said Carrol.

'It was not, but a big black thing, and it was digging up my mother's
grave until I made two halves of it.'

Lawrence slept that day, and when the evening came he rose up, put on
his sword, and went to the churchyard. He sat down on a tombstone
until it was the middle of the night. Then he saw a thing as white as
snow and as hateful as sin; it had a man's head on it, and teeth as
long as a flax-carder. Lawrence drew back the sword and was going to
deal it a blow, when it said--

'Hold your hand; you have saved your mother's body, and there is not a
man in Ireland as brave as you. There is great riches waiting for you
if you go looking for it.'

Lawrence wen