Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/288

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THE BANSHEE’S COMB

have a by-worrud bechuxt us. An’ it’ll be poethry,” he says. “So that I’ll know that ’tis you that’s in it ye’ll say ‘Cabbage an’ bacon’; an’ so that ye’ll know that ’tis me that’s in it I’ll answer, ‘Will sthop the heart achin’.’ Cabbage an’ bacon will sthop the heart achin’,” says the King, growin’ unwisible. “That’s good, satisfyin’ poethry,” he says. But the last worruds were sounded out of the empty air an’ a little way above, for the masther of the night-time had wanished. At that Darby wint in to his supper.

I won’t expaytiate to yer honour on how our hayro spint the avenin’ at home, an’ how, afther Bridget an’ the childher were in bed, that a growin’ daysire to meet an’ talk sociable with a ghost fought with tunty black fears an’ almost bate them. But whinever his mind hesitayted, as it always did at the thought of the Costa Bower, a finger poked into his weskit pocket where the broken bit of comb lay hid, turned the scale.

Howandever, at length an’ at last, just before midnight our hayro, dhressed once more for the road, wint splashin’ an’ ploddin’ up the lane toward Conroy’s crass-roads.

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