Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/63

Rh behold! a great dark coach with flashing lamps, and drawn by four coal-black horses, dashed up the hill and stopped beside them. Two shadowy men were on the driver's box.

“Is this Lord Darby O'Gill?” axed one of them, in a deep, muffled woice. Before Darby could reply Bridget took the words out of his mouth.

“It is!” she cried, in a kind of a half cheer, “an’ Lady O’Gill an’ the childher.”

“Then hurry up!” says the coachman. “Your supper’s gettin’ cowld.”

Without waiting for anyone Bridget flung open the carriage-door, an’ pushin’ Darby aside jumped in among the cushions. Darby, his heart sizzlin’ with vexation at her audaciousness, lifted in one after another the childher, and then got in himself.

He couldn’t undherstand at all the change in his wife, for she had always been the odherliest, modestist woman in the parish.

Well, he’d no sooner shut the door than crack went the whip, the horses gave a spring, the carriage jumped, and down the hill they went. For fastness there was never another carriage-ride like that before nor since. Darby hildt tight with both hands to the Rh