Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/196

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THE BANSHEE’S COMB

Bridget, flutthering guilty, thried to hide the misfortunate smile, but ’twas too late.

“Bekase, if it is my husband you’re mocking at,” says Margit, “let me tell you, fair an’ plain, his ayquils don’t live in the County of Tipperary, let alone this parish! ’Tis thrue,” she says, tossin’ her head, “he hasn’t spint six months with the Good People—he knows nothin’ of the fairies—but he has more sinse than those that have. At any rate, he isn’t afeard of ghosts like a knowledgeable man that I could mintion.”

That last thrust touched a sore spot in the heart of Bridget. Although Darby O’Gill would fight a dozen livin’ men, if needful, ’twas well known he had an unraysonable fear of ghosts. So, Bridget said never a worrud, but her brown eyes began to sparkle, an’ her red lips were dhrawn up to the size of a button.

Margit saw how hard she’d hit, an’ she wint on thriumphant.

“My Dan’l John’ud sleep in a churchyard. He’s done it,” says she, crowin’.

Bridget could hould in no longer. “I’d be sore an’ sorry,” she says, “if a husband of mine were druv

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