Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/226

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THE BANSHEE’S COMB

the ghost of Faylix would be celebraytin’ its first Halloween, as a ghost, at the spot where he was kilt?”

You may believe me or believe me not, but at thim worruds Solomon sthopped dead still in his thracks an’ rayfused to go another step till Darby coaxed him on be sayin’:

“Oh, thin, we won’t cross it if you’re afeared, little man,” says he, “but we’ll take the path through the fields on this side of it, and we’ll cross the sthrame by McCarthy’s own wooden foot-bridge. ’Tis within tunty feet of the house. Oh, ye needn’t be afeared,” he says agin; “I’ve seen the cows cross it, so it’ll surely hould the both of us.”

A sudden raymembrance whipped into his mind of how tall the stile was, ladin’ into Nolan’s meadow, an’ the boy was puzzling deep in his mind to know how was Solomon to climb acrost that stile, whin all at once the gloomy western gate of the graveyard rose quick be their side.

The two shied to the opposite hedge, an’ no wondher they did.

Fufty ghosts, all in their shrouds, sat cheek be jowl along the churchyard wall, never caring a ha’porth for the wind or the rain.

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