Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/209

Rh pitying, good-hearted, daytermined look, such as a man wears when he goes into the sty to kill one of his own pigs for Christmas.

Malachi, being a wise an’ expayieranced baste, daycided to take no chances, so he backed through the door again an’ hid undher the dhresser to listen.

“I was just thinking, Darby avourneen,” says the woman, half whuspering, “how we might this blessed night earn great credit for our two sowls.”

“Wait!” says the sly man, straightening himself, an’ raising a hand. “The very thing you’re going to spake was in my own mind. I was just dayliberatin’ that I hadn’t done justice to-night to poor Eileen. I haven’t said me prayers farvint enough. I niver can whin we’re praying together, or whin I’m kneeling down. Thin, like every way else, there’s something quare about me. The foinest prayers I ever say is whin I’m be myself alone in the fields,” says the conniving villyan. “So, do you, Bridget, go in an’ kneel down by the childher for a half hour or so, an’ I’ll sit here doing my best. If you should happen to look out at me ye might aisily think,” he says, “that I was only sittin’ here comfortably smok- Rh