Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/240

Rh slow an’ solemn on the hearth, an’ from somewhere outside came the sorrowful cry of a whipperwill. All at once a thought of the broken bridge an’ of the black, treacherous waters caught him like the blow of a whip, an’ for a second drove from his mind even the fear of the banshee.

In that one second, an’ before he rayalised it, the lad was out undher the dhripping trees, and running for his life toward the broken foot-bridge. The night was whirling an’ beating above him like the flapping of thraymendous wings, but as he ran Darby thought he heard above the rush of the water and through the swish of the wind Cormac’s woice calling him.

The friend of the fairies stopped at the edge of the foot-bridge to listen. Although the storm had almost passed, a spiteful flare of lightning lept up now an’ agin out of the western hills, an’ afther it came the dull rumble of distant thunder; the water splashed spiteful against the bank, and Darby saw that seven good feet of the bridge had been torn out of its centre, laving uncovered that much of the black, deep flood.

He stood sthraining his eyes an’ ears in wondhera- Rh