Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/53

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DARBY O’GILL AND THE LEPRECHAUN

It wasn’t quite lonesome enough on the Pig’s Head, so our hayro plunged into the walley an’ climbed the second mountain—the Divil’s Pillow—where ’twas lonesome and desarted enough to shuit anyone.

Beneath the shade of a three, for the days was warm, he sat himself down in the long, sweet grass, lit his pipe, and let his mind go free. But, as he did, his thoughts rose together like a flock of frightened, angry pheasants, an’ whirred back to the owdacious things Bridget had said about his relations.

Wasn’t she the mendageous, humbrageous woman, he thought, to say such things about as illegant stock as the O’Gills and the O’Gradys?

Why, Wullum O’Gill, Darby’s uncle, at that minute, was head butler at Castle Brophy, and was known far an’ wide as being one of the foinest scholars an’ as having the most beautiful pair of legs in all Ireland!

This same Wullum O’Gill had tould Bridget in Darby’s own hearing, on a day when the three were going through the great picture-gallery at Castle Brophy, that the O’Gills at one time had been Kings in Ireland.

[ 39 ]