Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/228

Rh soon he galloped, an’ Darby wint gallopin’ with him, till two yallow blurs of light across in a field to the left marked the windys of the stone-cutter’s cottage.

’Twas a few steps only, thin, to the stile over into Nolan’s meadow, an’ there the two stopped, lookin’ helpless at aich other. Solomon had to be lifted, and there was the throuble. Three times Darby thried be main strength to hist his compagnen up the steps, but in vain, an’ Solomon was clane dishgusted.

Only for the tendher corn on our hayro’s left little toe, I think maybe that at length an’ at last the pair would have got safe over. The kind-hearted lad had the donkey’s two little hoofs planted on the top step, an’ whilst he himself was liftin’ the rest of the baste in his arrums, Solomon got onaisy that he was goin’ to be trun, an’ so began to twisht an’ squirm; of course, as he did, Darby slipped an’ wint thump on his back agin the stile, with Solomon sittin’ comfortable on top of the lad’s chist. But that wasn’t the worst of it, for as the baste scrambled up he planted one hard little hoof on Darby’s left foot, an’ the knowledgeable man let a yowl out of him that must have frightened all the ghosts within miles.

Seein’ he’d done wrong, Solomon boulted for the Rh