Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/222

Rh “Oh, be the powers!” he gasped, his courage emptying out like wather from a spilt pail.

It moved, a slow, grey, formless thing without a head, an’ so far as he was able to judge it might be about the size of an ulephant. The parsecuted lad swung himself sideways in the road, one arrum over his eyes an’ the other stretched out at full length, as if to ward off the tumble wisitor.

The first thing that began to take any shape in his bewildhered brain was Peggy O’Callaghan’s adwice. He thried to folly it out, but a chatterin’ of teeth was the only sound he made. An’ all this time a thraymendous splashin’, like the floppin’ of whales, was coming nearer an’ nearer.

The splashin’ stopped not three feet away, an’ the ha’nted man felt in the spine of his back an’ in the calves of his legs that a powerful, unhowly monsther towered over him.

Why he didn’t swoonge in his tracks is the wondher. He says he would have dhropped at last if it weren’t for the distant bark of his own good dog, Sayser, that put a throb of courage intil his bones. At that friendly sound he opened his two dhry lips an’ stutthered this sayin’: Rh