“When the cock crows the Good People must be safe at home. After cockcrow they have no power to help or to hurt, and every mortal eye can see them plain.”
“I thank you kindly,” says Darby, “and I bid you good evening, ma’am.” He turned away, leaving her standing there alone, looking after him; but he was sure he heard voices talkin’ to her, and laughin’ and tittherin’ behind him.
It was dark night when Darby stretched himself on the ground in Hagan’s meadow; the yellow rim of the moon just tipped the edge of the hills.
As he lay there in the long grass amidst the silence there came a cowld shudder in the air, an’ afther it had passed the deep cracked voice of a nearby bullfrog called loudly an’ ballyraggin’:
“The Omadhaun! Omadhaun! Omadhaun!” it said.
From a sloe three over near the hedge an owl cried, surprised and thrembling:
“Who‑o‑o? who‑o‑o?” it axed.
At that every frog in the meadow—an’ there must have been tin thousand of them—took up the answer, an’ shrieked shrill an’ high together. “Darby O’Gill! Darby O’Gill! Darby O’Gill!” sang they.
“The Omadhaun! The Omadhaun!” cried the wheezy masther frog again. “Who-o? Who-o?” axed the owl. “Darby O’Gill! Darby O’Gill!” screamed the rollicking chorus; an’ that way they were goin’ over an’ over agin until the bould man was just about to creep off to another spot whin, sudden, a hundred slow shadows, stirring up the mists, crept from the mountain way toward him. First he must find was Rosie among the herd. To creep quiet as a cat through the hedge and raich the first cow was only a minute’s work. Then his plan, to wait till cockcrow, with all other sober, sensible thoughts, went clane out of the lad’s head before his rage; for cropping eagerly the long, sweet grass, the first baste he met, was Rosie.
With a leap Darby was behind her, his stick falling sharply on her flanks. The ingratitude of that cow almost broke Darby’s heart. Rosie turned fiercely on him, with a vicious lunge, her two horns aimed at his breast. There was no suppler boy in the parish than Darby, and well for him it was so, for the mad rush the cow gave would have caught any man the laste thrifle heavy on his legs, and ended his days right there.
As it was, our hayro sprang to one side. As Rosie passed, his left hand gripped her tail. When one of the O’Gills takes hould of a thing, he hangs on like a bull terrier. Away he went, rushing with her.
Now began a race the like of which was never heard of before or since. Ten jumps to the second, and a hundred feet to the jump. Rosie’s tail standing straight up in the air, firm as an iron bar, and Darby floating straight out behind; a thousand furious fairies flying a short distance after, filling the air with wild commands and threatenings.
Suddenly the sky opened for a crash of lightning that shivered the hills, and a roar of thunder that turned out of their beds every man, woman, and child in four counties. Flash after flash came the lightning, hitting on every side of Darby. If it wasn’t for fear of hurting Rosie, the fairies would sartenly have killed Darby. As it was, he was stiff with fear, afraid to hould on and afraid to lave go, but flew, waving in the air at Rosie’s tail like a flag.
As the cow turned into the long, narrow valley which cuts into the east side of the mountain, the Good People caught up with the pair, and what they didn’t do to Darby, in the line of sticking pins, pulling whiskers, and pinching wouldn’t take long to tell. In troth, he was just about to let go his hould, and take the chances of a fall, when the hillside opened and—whisk! the cow turned into the mountain. Darby found himself flying down a wide, high passage which grew lighter as he went along. He heard the opening behind shut like a trap, and his heart almost stopped beating, for this was the fairies’ home in the heart of Sleive-na-mon. He was captured by them!
When Rosie stopped, so stiff were all Darby’s joints, that he had great trouble loosening himself to come down. He landed among a lot of angry-faced little people, each no higher than your hand, everyone wearing a green velvet cloak and a red cap.
“We’ll take him to the king,” says a red-whiskered wee chap. “What he’ll do to the murtherin’ spalpeen’ll be good and plenty!”
With that they marched our bould Darby, a prisoner, down the long passage, which every second grew wider and lighter, and fuller of little people.
Sometimes, though, he met with human beings like himself, only the black charm was on them, they having been stolen at some time by the Good People. He saw lost people there from every parish in Ireland, both commoners and gentry. Each was laughing, talking, and divarting himself with another. Off to the sides he could see small cobblers making brogues, tinkers mending pans, tailors sewing cloth, smiths hammering horseshoes, everyone merrily to his trade, making a divarsion out of work.
To this day Darby can’t tell where the beautiful red light he now saw came from. It was like a soft glow, only it filled the place, making things brighter than day.
Down near the centre of the mountain, was a room twenty times higher and broader than the biggest church in the world. As they drew near this room, there arose the sound of a reel played on bagpipes. The music was so bewitching that Darby, who was the gracefullest reel dancer in all Ireland, could hardly make his feet behave themselves.
At the room’s edge Darby stopped short and caught his breath, the sight was so entrancing. Set over the broad floor were thousands and thousands of the Good People, facing this way
