Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/252

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THE BANSHEE’S COMB

front,” she says, as Darby put up his hand to feel. “It’s stuck in the back. Your caubeen’s twishted,” she says.

Whilst Darby was standing with the comb in one hand an’ the pipe in the other, smiling daylighted, the comb was snatched from his fingers and he got a welt in the side of the head from the crutch. Looking up, he saw Sheelah tunty feet in the air, headed for Chartres’ mill, an’ she cacklin’ an’ screechin’ with laughter. Rubbing his sore head an’ mutthering unpious words to himself, Darby started for the new bridge.

In less than no time afther, he had found the seven crossed rushes undher McCarthy’s door-step, an’ had flung them into the stream. Thin, without knocking, he pushed open McCarthy’s door an’ tiptoed quietly in.

Cormac was kneelin’ beside the bed with his face buried in the pillows, as he was when Darby first saw him that night. But Eileen was sleeping as sound as a child, with a sweet smile on her lips. Heavy pursperation beaded her forehead, showing that the faver was broke.

Without disturbing aither of them our hayro

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