Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/245

Rh broke in the middle; go down an’ cross the stone bridge. I’ll be afther you in a minute,” he says.

Without a word, meek now and biddable as a child, Cormac turned, an’ Darby saw him hurry away into the blackness.

The raysons Darby raymained behind were two: first an’ foremost, he was a bit vexed at the way his clothes were muddied an’ dhraggled, an’ himself had been pounded an’ hammered; an’ second, he wanted to think. He had a quare cowld feeling in his mind that something was wrong—a kind of a foreboding, as one might say.

As he stood thinking a rayalisation of the caylamity sthruck him all at once like a rap on the jaw—he had lost his fine brier pipe. The lad groaned as he began the anxious sarch. He slapped furiously at his chist an’ side pockets, he dived into his throwsers and greatcoat, and at last, sprawlin’ on his hands an’ feet like a monkey, he groped savagely through the wet, sticky clay.

“This comes,” says the poor lad, grumblin’ an’ gropin’, “of pokin’ your nose into other people’s business. Hallo, what’s this?” says he, straighten- Rh