--Oh! murther, I'll die o' thirst--Oh! if I had only one dhrop o' wather
--I wish it would rain or hail--Hail, Mary, full o' grace--whisht!
what's that?" Andy crouched lower than before, as he saw a figure rise
from the earth, and attain a height which Andy computed to be something
about twenty feet; his heart shrank to the size of a nut-shell, as he
beheld the monster expand to his full dimensions; and at the same moment,
a second, equally large, emerged from the ground.

Now, as fairies are notoriously little people, Andy changed his opinion of
the parties into whose power he had fallen, and saw clearly they were
giants, not fairies, of whom he was about to become the victim. He would
have ejaculated a prayer for mercy, had not terror rendered him
speechless, as the remembrance of all the giants he had ever heard of,
from the days of Jack and the Bean-stalk down, came into his head; but
though his sense of speaking was gone, that of hearing was painfully
acute, and he heard one of the giants say--

"That pot is not big enough."

"Oh! it howlds as much as we want," replied the other.

"O Lord," thought Andy; "they've got their pot ready for cooking."

"What keeps him?" said the first giant.

"Oh! he's not far off," said the second.

A clammy shivering came over Andy.

"I'm hungry," said the first, and he hiccupped as he spoke.