Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/24

Rh saw lost people there from every parish in Ireland, both commoners and gentry. Each was laughing, talking, and divarting himself with another. Off to the sides he could see small cobblers making brogues, tinkers mending pans, tailors sewing cloth, smiths hammering horse-shoes, every one merrily to his trade, making a divarsion out of work.

To this day Darby can’t tell where the beautiful red light he now saw came from. It was like a soft glow, only it filled the place, making things brighter than day.

Down near the centre of the mountain was a room twenty times higher and broader than the biggest church in the worruld. As they drew near this room there arose the sound of a reel played on bagpipes. The music was so bewitching that Darby, who was the gracefullest reel-dancer in all Ireland, could hardly make his feet behave themselves.

At the room’s edge Darby stopped short and caught his breath, the sight was so entrancing. Set over the broad floor were thousands and thousands of the Good People, facing this way and that, dancing to a reel; while on a throne in the middle of the room sat ould Brian Connors, King of the Fairies, blowing Rh