you hadn’t saved him,” she says. The banshee spoke in a hollow woice, which once in a while’d break into a squeak.
“Let bygones be bygones, ma’am, if you plaze,” says Darby, “an’ I’ve brought back yer comb, an’ by your lave I ax the favour of three wishes,” says he.
Some way or other he wasn’t so afeared now that the King was near, an’ besides one square, cool look at any kind of throuble—even if ’tis a ghost—takes half the dhread from it.
“I have only two favours to grant any mortial man,” says she, “an’ here they are.” With that she handed Darby two small black stones with things carved on thim.
“The first stone’ll make you onwisible if you rub the front of it, an’ ’twill make you wisible again if you rub the back of it. Put the other stone in yer mouth an’ ye can mount an’ ride the wind. So Shaun needn’t dhrive yez back,” she says.
The King’s face beamed with joy.
“Oh, be the hokey, Darby me lad,” says he, “think of the larks we’ll have thravellin’ nights together over Ireland ground, an’ maybe we’ll go across the say,” he says.
