Darby O’Gill and the Good People

melted like April snow. The very threes Darby had seen pulled up by the roots that same afternoon now stood a waving blur below the new moon, an’ a nightingale was singing in their branches. A cricket chirped lonesomely on the same fallen log which had hidden the Leprechaun.

“Bridget! Bridget!” Darby called agin an’ agin. Only a sleepy owl on a distant hill answered.

A shivering thought jumped into the boy’s bewildered sowl⁠—maybe the Leprechaun had stolen Bridget an’ the childher.

The poor man turned, and for the last time darted down into the night-filled walley.

Not a pool in the road he waited to go around, not a ditch in his path he didn’t leap over, but ran as he never ran before, till he raiched his own front door.

His heart stood still as he peeped through the window. There were the childher croodled around Bridget, who sat with the youngest asleep in her lap before the fire, rocking back an’ forth, an’ she crooning a happy, continted baby-song.

Tears of gladness crept into Darby’s eyes as he looked in upon her. “God bless her,” he says to himself. “She’s the flower of the O’Hagans and the O’Shaughnessys, and she’s a proud feather in the caps of the O’Gills an’ the O’Gradys.”

’Twas well he had this happy thought to cheer him as he lifted the door-latch, for the manest of all the little cobbler’s spiteful thricks waited in the house to meet Darby⁠—nayther Bridget nor the childher raymembered a single thing of all that had happened to them during the day. They were willing to make their happydavitts that they had been no farther than their own petatie-patch since morning.

The Convarsion of Father Cassidy

“I tould you how on cowld winther nights whin Bridget and the childher were in bed, ould Brian Connors, King of the Fairies, used to sit visitin’ at Darby O’Gill’s own fireside. But I never tould you of the wild night whin the King faced Father Cassidy there.

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Darby O’Gill sat at his own kitchen fire the night afther Mrs. Morrisey’s burying, studyin’ over a gr‑r‑reat daybate that was heldt at her wake.

Half-witted Red Durgan begun it be asking loud an’ sudden of the whole company, “Who was the greatest man that ever lived in the whole worruld? I want to know purtic’lar, an’ I’d like to know at once,” he says.

At that the dayliberations started.

Big Joey Hooligan, the smith, hildt out for Julius Sayser, bekase Sayser had throunced the widdy woman Clayopathra.

Maurteen Cavanaugh, the little schoolmaster, stood up for Bonyparte, an’ wanted to fight Dinnis Moriarity for disputin’ agin the Frenchman.

Howsumever, the starter of the rale excitement was ould Mrs. Clancy. She was not what you’d call a great histhorian, but the parish thought her a foine, sinsible woman. She said that the greatest man was Nebbycodnazer, the King of the Jews, who ate grass like a cow and grew fat on it.

“Could Julius Sayser or Napoleon Bonyparte do as much?” she axed.

Well, purty soon everyone was talking at once, hurling at aich other, as they would pavin’-stones, the names of poets an’ warriors an’ scholars.

But afther all was said an’ done, the mourners wint away in the morning with nothing settled.

So the night afther, while Darby was warming his shins before his own turf fire in deep meditaytion and wise cogitaytion and ca’m contemplaytion over these high conversations, the Master of the Good People flew ragin’ into the kitchen.

“Darby O’Gill, what do you think of your wife Bridget?” says he, fiercely.

“Faix, I don’t know what particular thing she’s done,” says Darby, rubbing his shins and lookin’ troubled, “but I can guess it’s something mighty disagrayable. She wore her blue petticoat and her brown shawl whin she went away this morning, and I always expect ructions whin she puts on that shuit of clothes. Thin agin, she looked so sour and so satisfied whin she came back that I’m worried bad in my mind; you don’t know how uncomfortable she can make things sometimes, quiet as she looks,” says he.

“And well you may be worried, dacint man!” says the ruler of Sleive-na-mon; “you’ll rage and you’ll roar whin ye hear me. She wint this day to Father Cassidy and slandhered me outrageous,” he says. “She tould him that you and Maureen were colloguing with a little ould, wicked, thieving fairy-man, and that if something wasn’t done at once agin him the sowls of both of ye would be desthroyed entirely.”

Whin Darby found ’twas not himself that was being bothered, but only the King, he grew aisier in his feelings. “Sure you wouldn’t mind women’s talk,” says he, waving his hand in a lofty way. “Many a good man has been given a bad name by them before this, and will be agin⁠—you’re not the first by any manes,” says he. “If Bridget makes you a bad repitation, think how many years you have to live it down in. Be sinsible, King!” he says.

“But I do mind, and I must mind!” bawled the little fairy-man, every hair and whusker bristling, “for this minute Father Cassidy is putting the bridle and saddle on his black hunter, Terror; he has a prayerbook in his pocket, and he’s coming to read prayers over me and to banish me into the say. Hark! listen to that,” he says.

As he spoke, a shrill little voice broke into singing outside the window.

“Oh, what’ll you do if the kittle biles over,
Sure, what’ll you do but fill it agin;
Ah, what’ll you do if you marry a sojer,
But pack up your clothes and go marchin’ with him.”

“That’s the signal!” says the King, all excited; “he’s coming and I’ll face him here at this hearth, but sorrow foot he’ll put over that threshol’ till I give him lave. Then we’ll have it out face to face like men ferninst this fire!”

Whin Darby heard those words great fright struck him.

“If a hair of his Riverence’s head be harmed,” he says, “ ’tis not you but