Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/205

Rh “Hush that nonsinse!” says Bridget, lookin’ daggers; “sure Jack Doolan says that ’twas no banshee at all that come to Rafferty’s, but only himself who had taken a drop too much at the fair, an’ on his way home sat down to rest himself by Rafferty’s door. He says that he stharted singin’ pious hymns to kape off the evil spirits, and everyone knows that the same Jack Doolan has as turrible a woice for singin’ as any banshee that ever twishted a lip,” she says.

The woman’s conthrayriness vexed Darby so he pounded his knee with his fist as he answered her: “You’ll not deny, maybe,” he says, “that the Costa Bower sthopped one night at the Hall, and⸺”

“Whist!” cried Bridget; “lave off,” she says; “sure that’s no kind of talk to be talkin’ this night before the childher,” says she.

“But mammy, I what the Costa Bower is,” cried little Mickey, sitting up straight in Darby’s lap an’ pinting his finger at his mother; “’tis I that knows well. The Costa Bower is a gr-r-reat black coach that comes in the night to carry down to Croagmah the dead people the banshee keened for.” Rh