“He’ll get her another good husband yet,” said Darby.
“Oh, never!” says Maureen, crying like a child. “She’ll die of a broken heart.”
“I’ve seen in me time,” says the King, “people die from being pushed off houses, from falling in wells, and every manner of death you can mention, and I saw one ould woman die from ating too much treacle,” he says, “but never a person die from a broken heart.”
This he said to make light of what he had been telling, because he saw by Maureen’s face that she was growing sick with pity. For Maureen was thinking of the black days when she herself was a presner in Sleive-na-mon.
For an answer to the jest, the girl, with her clasped hands held up to the King, moaned, “Oh, King, King, lave the poor lad go! lave him go. Take the black spell off him and send him home. I beg you lave him go!”
“Don’t bother him,” says Darby; “what right have we to interfere with the Good People?” Though at the same time he took the pipe from his mouth and looked kind of wistful at the little man.
