parish. The roads and fields were empty and silent in the darkness. Not a window glimmered with light for miles around. Many a blaggard who hadn’t said a prayer for years was down on his marrow bones among the dacint members of his family, thumping his craw and roaring his Pather and Aves.
In Darby’s quiet house, against which the cunning, the power, and the fury of the Good People would first break, you can’t think of half the suffering of Bridget and the childher, as they lay huddled together on the settle-bed; nor of the strain on Bob and Darby, who sat smoking their dudeens and whispering anxiously together.
For some rayson or other the Good People were long in coming. Ten o’clock struck, thin eleven, afther that twelve, and not a sound from the outside. The silence, and then no sign of any kind, had them all just about crazy, when suddenly there fell a sharp rap on the door.
“Millia murther,” whispered Darby, “we’re in for it. They’ve crossed the two rings of holly and are at the door itself.”
The childher begun to cry, and Bridget said her prayers out loud; but no one answered the knock.
