Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/240

226 Then the thunder grew lower and lower, and the surging and the quivering grew weaker and weaker, the energy slackened, the power lessened, until the thunder was no more than a low murmur. Then the murmur grew fainter and fainter till it was only a breath. And then it stopped.

The cock crew!

The moment the cock crew the Maid of the Liss gave a shriek and fell down in a faint. No one stirred. You would imagine they were all bewitched. At last the big tinker jumped up.

"Why," said he, "what's the matter with you all? Two of you women take that girl and carry her out into the air."

They took her out into the air and she came to.

"Where is the priest?" said somebody.

"He went home early in the night, ever so long ago," said Michael.

Soon the Maid of the Liss came in again, quite well and strong, and arguing petulantly with the women who had carried her out that they need not have taken the trouble; that they were too officious, for there was nothing the matter with her any more than with any of themselves; that they had better have let her alone; what made them so busy?

The piper struck up another tune, in which there was no fairy music, and the dancing went on again as gaily as if it had been the beginning of the night. The cock crew again and again, but neither the Maid of the Liss nor anybody else paid any attention to him. The music and the dancing went on, the pipers playing by turns, and the flagstone being well beaten by the shoes; the food and the drink