Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/244

Rh rent, an’ the lad’s heart began clunking up an’ down like a churn-dash.

“Lave off, lave off!” he cried, as soon as he could ketch his breath. “Do you take me for the banshee?” says he, giving a dusperate lurch an’ rowling himself on top of the other.

“Who are you, then? If you’re not a ghost you’re the divil, at any rate,” gasped the stone-cutter.

“Bad luck to ye!” cried Darby, clasping both arrums of the haunted man. “I’m no ghost, let lone the divil—I’m only your friend, Darby O’Gill.”

Lying there, breathing hard, they stared into the faces of aich other a little space till the poor stone-cutter began to cry.

“Oh, is that you, Darby O’Gill? Where is the banshee? Oh, haven’t I the bad fortune,” he says, sthriving to raise himself.

“Rise up,” says Darby, lifting the man to his feet an’ steadying him there. The stone-cutter stared about like one stunned be a blow.

“I don’t know where the banshee flew, but do you go back to Eileen as soon as you can,” says the friend of the fairies. “Not that way, man alive,” he says, as Cormac started to climb the foot-bridge, “it’s Rh