Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/204

Rh last night outside Cormac McCarthy’s. An’ you know the banshee cried but once at Rafferty’s, but never rayturned the second time. The informaytion left Julia, and all the wide worruld knows, even the King of Spain might know if he’d send to ax, that Julia Rafferty, as strong as a horse, was diggin’ petaties in her own field as late as yesterday.”

“The banshee comes three nights before anyone dies, doesn’t it, daddy?” says little Mickey, waking up, all excited.

“It does that,” says Darby, smilin’ proud at the child’s nowledgeableness; “and it’s come but once to Eileen cCarthy.”

“An’ while the banshee cries, she sits combing her hair with a comb of goold, don’t she, daddy?”

Bridget sat onaisy, bitin’ her lips. Always an’ ever she had sthrove to keep from the childher tidings of fairies and of banshees an’ ghosts an’ other onnatural people. Twice she trun a warning look at Darby, but he, not noticin’, wint on, strokin’ the little .lad’s hair, an’ sayin’ to him:

“It does, indade, avick ; an’ as she came but once to Mrs. Rafferty’s, so we have ray son to hope she’ll come no more to Cormac McCarthy’s.” Rh