Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/297

Rh an’ grow wide; the eyelids half closed, an’ the head gave a hoarse sob; the tears thrickled down its nose. The head was cryin’.

First Darby grew oncomfortable, then he felt insulted to be cried at that way be a total sthranger. An’ as the tears rowled faster an’ faster, an’ the sobs came louder an’ louder, an’ the ugly eyes kep’ leering at him affectionate, he grew hot with indignaytion.

Seeing which, the head spoke up, snivelling:

“Plaze don’t get pugnaycious nor yet disputaytious,” it begged, betwixt sobs. “’Tisn’t yer face that hurts me an’ makes me cry. I’ve seen worse—a great dale worse—many’s the time. But ’tis the amazin’ fam’ly raysimblance that’s pathrifying me heart.”

The dhriver lifted the tail of his coat an’ wiped the head’s two weepin’ eyes. “’Twas in Ballinthubber I was born an’ in Ballinthubber I was rared; an’ it’s there I came to me misfortune through love of a purty, fair maid named Margit Ellen O’Gill. There was a song about it,” he says.

“I’ve heerd it many an’ many the time,” says the King, noddin’, sympathisin’, “though not for the last Rh