Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/255

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THE BANSHEE’S COMB

One glance was enough. Givin’ a thraymendous gasp, Joey dhropped back quakin’ into the bed, an’ covered his head with the bed-clothes. How long afther that the two heegous eyes kept starin’ at the bed Joey can’t rightly tell, for he never uncovered his head nor stirred hand nor foot agin till his wife Nancy had lighted the fire an’ biled the stirabout.

Indade, it was a good month afther that before Joey found courage enough to get up first in the morning so as to light the fire. An’ on that same mimorable mornin’ he an’ Nancy lay in bed argyfin’ about it till nearly noon—the poor man was that frightened.

The avenin’ afther Hooligan was wisited Mrs. Norah Clancy was in the stable milking her cow—Cornaylia be name—whin sudden she spied a tall, sthrange man in a topcoat standin’ near the stable door an’ he with his back turned toward her. At first she thought it a shadow, but it a-ppeared a thrifle thicker than a shadow, so, a little afeared, she called out: “God save you kindly, sir!”

At that the shadow turned a dim, grey face toward her, so full of rayproachful woe that Mrs. Clancy let a screech out of her an’ tumbled over with the pail of

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