Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/132

Rh horses, and such as are Christian animals, ye know. In his mind and in his heart a goat is a pagen. He wouldn’t ask any betther divarsion than for me to thry and lay me hands on him,” says the King, wiping his eyes.

“But,” says he agin, standing up on the stool and houlding his pipe over his head, “Anthony Sullivan’s goat is the gallusest baste that roams the fields! There’s more fun in him, and no more fear in him, than in a yallow lion. He’d do anything for sport; he’d bunt the King of Russia, he’d ba-a at a parish priest, out of pure, rollicking divilment,” says the King. “If the Good People had a friend, a rale friend,” says he, looking hard at Darby, “that wouldn’t be afeard to go into our home within the mountain once more, just once, and bring with him that goat⸺”

“Say no more,” says Darby, hoarsely, and turning white with fear—“say no more, Brian Connors! Not all the goold in Sleive-na-mon would tempt me there agin! It’s make a presner of me for ever you would. I know your thricks.”

The look of scorn the little man flung at Darby would have withered the threes. Rh