Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/41

Rh have got out every poor presoner that’s locked in Sleive-na-mon, let alone those from this parish.”

One could have scraped with a knife the surprise off Darby’s face.

“Would yer Reverence have me let out the Corkonians, the Connaught men, and the Fardowns, I ask ye?” he says, hotly. “When Mrs. Malowney there goes home and finds that Tim has married the Widow Hogan, ye’ll say I let out too many, even of this parish, I’m thinkin’.”

“But,” says the priest, “ye might have got two hundred pounds for aich of us.”

“If aich had two hundhred pounds, what comfort would I have in being rich?” axed Darby agin. “To enjoy well being rich there should be plenty of poor,” says Darby.

“God forgive ye, ye selfish man!” says Father Cassidy.

“There’s another rayson besides,” says Darby. “I never got betther nor friendlier thratement than I had from the Good People. An’ the divil a hair of their heads I’d hurt more than need be,” he says.

Some way or other the King heard of this saying, Rh