Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/184

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170
SHIANA
great wonder that your fairy lover did not tell you I'd give you that dressing? Be off now, and you have something to tell him that he did not know before. And if I ever see you coming near my house again I'll give you a greater adventure than that to tell to your fairy lover." Nell was frightened lest the woman should curse them. But Edmund used to say that he would care no more for that than if she were to sing to them.
Nora.—Oh, dear! I would not like to have her cursing me, at any rate.
Kate.—What harm could her curses do you when you had not done anything wrong?
Nora.—How would I know but some of them might fall on me in some way?
Kate.—It is on herself they would fall when you had not deserved them from her. Is it not, Peg?
Nora.—Why, perhaps I might imagine that I had not deserved them, and still perhaps I might. Whether I should have deserved them or not, I would not like to have her calling them down upon me.
Kate.—Oh, but when you could not help it! When she would come and say that you were to die before the year was up, and that her fairy lover told it to her!
Sheila.—How did she come to have a fairy lover, Peg? Isn't it a great wonder that the fairy would not have something else to do besides following the like of her!
Kate.—I heard some one say that the fairies are the fallen angels and the demons of the air,