Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/254



For a little while afther Darby O’Gill sint the banshee back her comb, there was the duckens to pay in that townland. Aich night came stormier than the other. An’ the rain—never, since Noey the Phnaycian histed sail for Arrayat was there promised such a daynudherin’ flood. (In one way or another we’re all, even the Germin min an’ the Fardowns, dayscendints of the Phnaycians.)

Even at that the foul weather was the laste of the throuble—the counthry-side was ha’nted. Every ghost must have left Croaghmah as soon as twilight to wander abroad in the lonesome places. The farmyards and even the village itself was not safe.

One morning, just before cock-crow, big Joey Hooligan, the smith, woke up sudden, with a turrible feeling that some gashly person was lookin’ in at him through the windy. Startin’ up flurried in bed, what did he see but two eyes that were like burnin’ coals of fire, an’ they peerin’ study into the room. Rh