Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/207

Rh judge of Bridget’s charack-tcr in that house. So, no sooner did he hear the worruds an’ see Bridget start up, than he was on his own four feet, his back arched, his tail straight up, an’ his two goolden eyes searchin’ her face. One look was enough for him. The next instant he lept to the ground an’ started for the far room. As he scampered through the door, he trew a swift look back at his comerades, the childher, an’ that look said plain as any worruds could say:

“Run for it while you’ve time! Folly me; some one of us vagebones has done something murtherin’!”

Malachi was right; there would have been sayrious throuble for all hands, only that a softening thought was on Bridget that night which sobered her temper. She stopped a bit, the frown on her face clearing as she looked at the childher, an’ she only said: “Come out of this! To bed with yez! I’m raising a pack of owdacious young romancers, an’ I didn’t know it. Mickey sthop that whimpering an’ make haste with your clothes. The Lord help us, he’s broke off another button. Look at that, now!” she says.

There was no help for thim. So, with longin’ looks trun back at their father, sittin’ cosey before the fire, Rh