Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/195

Rh Mollie with a smile, an’ that same smile had loaded guns an’ pistols in it. “An’ will you plaze be so kind an’ condesinden’, Misthress Scanlan,” says she, “to explain what you ever saw or heerd tell of in my Dan’l John’s actions, that’ud make you think he’d contimplate such schoundrel endayvours,” says she, thrimblin’.

The only answer to the question was from the tay-kettle. It was singin’ high an’ impident on the hob.

Now, Bridget O’Gill, knowin’ woman that she was, had wisely kept out of the discoorse. She sat apart, calmly knittin’ one of Darby’s winther stockings. As she listened, howsumever, she couldn’t keep back a sly smile that lifted one corner of her mouth.

“Isn’t it a poor an’ a pittiful case,” said Misthress Doyle, glaring savage from one to the other, “that a dacint man, the father of noine childher, eight of them livin’, an’ one gone for a sojer—isn’t it a burnin’ shame,” she says, whumperin’, “that such a daycint man must have his char-ack-ther thrajuiced before his own wife— Will you be so good as to tell me what you’re laughing at, Bridget O’Gill, ma’am?” she blazed. Rh