Page:Beside the Fire - Douglas Hyde.djvu/186

 124 growing up by his own door, and to boil it and give it to her and she'd be well," said another voice.

"That's true for you."

"He is an omadawn."

"Don't bother your head with him, we'll be going."

"We'll leave the bodach as he is."

And with that they rose up into the air, and out with them of one roolya-boolya the way they came; and they left poor Guleesh standing where they found him, and the two eyes going out of his head, looking after them, and wondering.

He did not stand long till he returned back, and he thinking in his own mind on all he saw and heard, and wondering whether there was really an herb at his own door that would bring back the talk to the king's daughter. "It can't be," says he to himself, "that they would tell it to me, if there was any virtue in it; but perhaps the sheehogue didn't observe himself when he let the word slip out of his mouth. I'll search well as soon as the sun rises, whether there's any plant growing beside the house except thistles and dockings."

He went home, and as tired as he was he did not sleep a wink until the sun rose on the morrow. He got up then, and it was the first thing he did to go out and search well through the grass round about the house, trying could he get any herb that he did not recognize. And, indeed, he was not long searching till he observed a large strange herb that was growing up just by the gable of the house.

He went over to it, and observed it closely, and saw that there were seven little branches coming out of the stalk, and seven leaves growing on every brancheen of them, and that there was a white sap in the leaves. "It's very wonderful," said he to himself, "that I never noticed