Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/23

Rh whiskers, and pinching wouldn’t take long to tell. In troth, he was just about to let go his hould and take the chances of a fall when the hillside opened and—whisk! the cow turned into [sic] the mountain. Darby found himself flying down a wide, high passage which grew lighter as he went along. He heard the opening behind shut like a trap, and his heart almost stopped beating, for this was the fairies’ home in the heart of Sleive-na-mon. He was captured by them!

When Rosie stopped, so stiff were all Darby’s joints that he had great trouble loosening himself to come down. He landed among a lot of angry-faced little people, each no higher than your hand, every one wearing a green velvet cloak and a red cap, and in every cap was stuck a white owl’s feather.

“We’ll take him to the King,” says a red-whuskered wee chap. “What he’ll do to the murtherin’ spalpeen’ll be good and plenty!”

With that they marched our bould Darby, a prisoner, down the long passage, which every second grew wider and lighter and fuller of little people.

Sometimes, though, he met with human beings like himself, only the black charm was on them, they having been stolen at some time by the Good People. He Rh