Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/230

Rh sthrame were undher rather than over the actwil conditions.

Fearin’ that the wooden foot-bridge might be swept away, as it had been the year purvious, he hurried on.

Most times this sthrame was only a quiet little brook that ran betwixt purty green banks, with hardly enough wather in it to turn the broken wheel in Chartres’ runed mill; but to-night it swept along an angry, snarlin’, growlin’ river that overlept its banks an’ dhragged wildly at the swaying willows.

Be a narrow throw of light from McCarthy’s side windy our thraveller could see the maddened wather sthrivin’ an’ tearing to pull with it the props of the little foot-bridge; an’ the boards shook an’ the centre swayed undher his feet as he passed over. “Bedad, I’ll not cross this way goin’ home, at any rate,” he says, looking back at it.

The worruds were no sooner out of his mouth than there was a crack, an’ the middle of the foot-bridge lifted in the air, twishted round for a second, an then hurled itself into the sthrame, laving the two inds still standing in their place on the banks.

“Tunder an turf!” he cried, “I mustn’t forget Rh