The only answer to the question was from the tay-kettle. It was singin’ high an’ impident on the hob.
Now, Bridget O’Gill, knowin’ woman that she was, had wisely kept out of the discoorse. She sat apart, calmly knittin’ one of Darby’s winther stockings. As she listened, howsumever, she couldn’t keep back a sly smile that lifted one corner of her mouth.
“Isn’t it a poor an’ a pittiful case,” said Misthress Doyle, glaring savage from one to the other, “that a dacint man, the father of noine childher, eight of them livin’, an’ one gone for a sojer—isn’t it a burnin’ shame,” she says, whumperin’, “that such a daycint man must have his char-ack-ther thrajuiced before his own wife—Will you be so good as to tell me what you’re laughing at, Bridget O’Gill, ma’am?” she blazed.
Bridget, flutthering guilty, thried to hide the misfortunate smile, but ’twas too late.
“Bekase, if it is my husband you’re mocking at,” says Margit, “let me tell you, fair an’ plain, his ayquils don’t live in the County of Tipperary, let alone this parish! ’Tis thrue,” she says, tossin’ her head, “he hasn’t spint six months with the Good People—he knows nothin’ of the fairies—but he has more sinse than those that have. At any rate, he isn’t afeard of ghosts like a knowledgeable man that I could mintion.”
That last thrust touched a sore spot in the heart of Bridget. Although Darby O’Gill would fight a dozen livin’ men, if needful, ’twas well known he had an unraysonable fear of ghosts. So, Bridget said never a worrud, but her brown eyes began to sparkle, an’ her red lips were dhrawn up to the size of a button.
Margit saw how hard she’d hit, an’ she wint on thriumphant.
“My Dan’l John’ud sleep in a churchyard. He’s done it,” says she, crowin’.
Bridget could hould in no longer. “I’d be sore an’ sorry,” she says, “if a husband of mine were druv to do such a thing as that for the sake of a little pace and quiet,” says she, turnin’ her chowlder.
Tare an’ ’ounds, but that was the sthroke! “The Lord bless us!” mutthered Mollie Scanlan. Margit’s mind wint up in the air an’ stayed there whirlin’, whilst she herself sat gasping an’ panting for a rayply. ’Twas a thrilling, suspenseful minute.
The chiney shepherd and shepherdess on the mantel sthopped ogling their eyes an’ looked shocked at aich other; at the same time Bob, the linnet, in his wooden cage at the door, quit his singin’ an’ cocked his head the betther to listen; the surprised tay-kettle gave a gasp an’ a gurgle, an’ splutthered over the fire. In the turrible silence Elizabeth Egan got up to wet the tay. Settin’ the taypot in the fender she spoke, an’ she spoke raysentful.
“Any sinsible man is afeard of ghosts,” says she.
“Oh, indade,” says Margit, ketching her breath. “Is that so? Well, sinsible or onsinsible,” says she, “this will be Halloween, an’ there’s not a man in the parish who would walk past the churchyard up to Cormac McCarthy’s house, where the Banshee keened last night, except my Dan’l!” says she, thriumphant.
The hurt pride in Bridget rose at that an’ forced from her angry lips a foolish promise.
“Huh! we hear ducks talkin’,” she says, coolly rowling up Darby’s stocking, an’ sticking the needle in the ball of yarn. “This afthernoon I was at Cormac McCarthy’s,” she says, “an’ there wasn’t a bit of tay in the house for poor Eileen, so I promised Cormac I’d send him up a handful. Now, be the same token, I promise you my Darby will make no bones of going on that errant this night.”
“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed Margit. “If he has the courage to do it bid him sthop in to me on his way back, an’ I’ll send to you a fine settin’ of eggs from my black Spanish hin.”
What sharp worrud Misthress O’Gill would have flung back in answer no one knows, bekase whin once purvoked she has few ayquils for sarcastic langwidge, but just then Elizabeth Ann put in Bridget’s hand a steaming cup of good, sthrong tay. Now, whusky, ale, an’ porther are all good enough in their places, yer honour—I’ve nothing to intimidate aginst them—but for a comforting, soothering, edayfing buverage give me a cup of foine black tay. So this day the cups were filled only the second time, when the subject of husbands was complately dhropped, an’ the conwersation wandhered to the misdajmeanours of Anthony Sullivan’s goat.
All this time the women had been so busy with their talkin’ an’ argyfyin’ that the creeping darkness of a coming storm had stolen unnoticed into the room, making the fire glow brighter and redder on the hearth. A faint flare of lightning, follyed be a low grumble of thunder, brought the women to their feet.
“Marcy on us!” says Caycelia Crow, glad of an excuse to be gone, “do you hear that? We’ll all be dhrownded before we raich home,” says she.
In a minute the wisitors, afther dhraining their cups, were out in the road, aich hurryin’ on her separate way, an’ tying her bonnet-sthrings as she wint.
’Twas a heavy an’ a guilty heart that Bridget carried home with her through the gathering storm. Although Darby was a nuntimate friend of the fairies, yet, as Margit Doyle said, he had such a black dhread of all other kinds of ghosts that to get him out on this threatening Halloween night, to walk past the churchyard, as he must do on his way to Cormac McCarthy’s cottage, was a job ayquil to liftin’ the Shannon bridge. How she was to manage it she couldn’t for the life of her tell; but if the errant was left undone she would be the laughin’-stock of every
