King talked, some of the fairies outside rapped on the window-panes and pressed their little faces against the glass to smile and nod at those within, thin scurried busily off agin intil the darkness. Once the wail of a child rose above the cry of the storm, and Maureen caught the flash of a white robe against the window-pane.
“It’s a child we’ve taken this night from one Jude Casey down in Mayo,” says King Brian Connors. “But fill my noggin with fresh punch, Maureen, and dhraw closter till I tell you about the omadhaun.” And the Master of the Good People crossed his legs and settled into telling the story, comfortable as comfortable could be.
“The way the throuble began was foine and innocent as the day is long,” said the King. “Five or six years ago it was on the day Roger was first sent to college at Dublin Misther and Misthress O’Brien, mighty lonesome an’ down-hearted, were dhriving over the estate whin who should they spy standing, modest and timid, at her own gate, but purty little Norah Costello. Though the child was only fourteen years old, Misthress O’Brien was so taken with her wise, gentle ways that Norah next day was sint for
