Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/221

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THE BANSHEE’S COMB

An’ take my worrud for it,” says she, “ye’ll find yourself a boneyfactor to them when you laste expect it,” she says.

’Twas a quare idee, but not so onraysonable afther all whin one comes to think of it; an’ the knowledgeable man fell to dayliberatin’ whether he’d have the hardness to folly it out if the chanst came. Sometimes he thought he would, then agin he was sure he wouldn’t. For Darby O’Gill was one who bint quick undher trouble like a young three before a hurrycane, but he only bint—the throuble never broke him. So, at times his courage wint down to a spark like the light of a candle in a gust of wind, but before you could turn on your heel ’twas blazing up sthrong and fiercer than before.

Whilst thus contimplatin’ an’ meditaytin’, his foot sthruck the bridge in the hollow just below the berrin’-ground, an’ there as the boy paused a minute, churning up bravery enough to carry him up the hill an’ past the mystarious gravestones, there came a short quiver of lightning, an’ in its sudden flare he was sure he saw not tin yards away, an’ comin’ down the hill toward him, a dim shape that took the breath out of his body.

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