Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/272

Rh him into it, an’ that ’ud be the last ever heard of Darby O’Gill in the land of the livin’.

With thim wild thoughts jumpin’ up an’ down in his mind he stood in the dark an’ in the rain, gawmin’ vacant over toward the shadowy ruin. An’ he bein’ much agitayted, the lad, without thinkin’, did the foolishest thing a man in his sitiwaytion could well a-complish—he took out of his pocket the enchanted sliver of goold an’ hildt it to his two eyes for a look.

The consequences came suddin’, for as he stuck it back into the tobaccy there burst from the darkness of the willows the hallowest, most blood-curdlin’ laugh that ever fell on mortial ears. “Ho! ho! ho!” it laughed.

The knowledgeable man’s hair lifted the hat from his head.

An’ as if the laugh wasn’t enough to scatther the wits of anyone, at the same instant it sounded, an’ quick as a flash, every windy in the ould mill blazed with a fierce blue light. Every batthered crack an’ crevice seemed bursting with the glare for maybe the space of ten seconds, an’ then, oh, Millia Murther! there broke from the upper floor three of the bitterest shrieks of pain an’ terror ever heard in this Rh