Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/45



news that Darby O’Gill had spint six months with the Good People spread fast and far and wide.

At fair or hurlin’ or market he would be backed be a crowd agin some convaynient wall and there for hours men, women, and childher, with jaws dhroppin’ and eyes bulgin’d, stand ferninst him listening to half-frightened questions or to bould, mystarious answers.

Alway, though, one bit of wise adwise inded his discoorse: “Nayther make nor moil nor meddle with the fairies,” Darby’d say. “If you’re going along the lonely boreen at night and you hear, from some fairy fort, a sound of fiddles, or of piping, or of sweet woices singing, or of little feet patthering in the dance, don’t turn your head, but say your prayers an’ hould on your way. The pleasures the Good People’ll share with you have a sore sorrow hid in them, an’ the gifts they’ll offer are only made to break hearts with.”

Things went this a-way till one day in the market, Rh