Well, as you may aisy see, the poor man, her husband, hadn’t a chanst in the worruld afther that. Of course, to rightify himself, he’d face all the ghosts in Croaghmah. So, in a minute, he was standing in his greatcoat with his hand on the latch. There was a packet of tay in his pocket, an’ he was a subdued an’ conquered man.
He looked so woeful that Bridget raypented an’ almost raylinted.
“Raymember,” he says, mournful, “if I’m caught this night be the Costa Bower, or be the banshee, take good care of the childher, an’ raymember what I say—I didn’t mane, Bridget, to hit ye with that sod of turf.”
“Oh, ain’t ye the foolish darlin’ to be afeared,” smiled Bridget back at him, but she was sayrious, too. “Don’t you know that when one goes on an errant of marcy a score of God’s white angels with swoords in their hands march before an’ beside an’ afther him, keeping his path free from danger?” With that she pulled his face down to hers, an’ kissed him as she used in the ould courtin’ days.
There’s nothing puts so much high courage an’ clear, steadfast purpose in a man’s heart, if it be properly given, as a kiss from the woman he loves. So, with the warmth of that kiss to cheer him, Darby set his face agin the storm.
II
The Banshee’s Halloween
I
Halloween night, to all unhappy ghosts, is about the same as St. Patrick’s Day is to you or to me—’tis a great holiday in every churchyard. An’ no one knew this betther or felt it keener than did Darby O’Gill, that same Halloween night, as he stood on his own doorstep with the paper of black tay for Eileen McCarthy safely stowed away in the crown of his top-hat.
No one in that barony was quicker than he at an act of neighbourly kindness, but now, as he huddled himself together in the shelter of his own eaves, and thought of the dangers before, an’ of the cheerful fire an’ comfortable bed he was leaving behint, black raybellion rushed shouting across his heart.
“Oh, my, oh, my, what a perishin’ night to turn a man out into!” he says. “It’d be half a comfort to know I was goin’ to be kilt before I got back, just as a warnin’ to Bridget,” says he.
The misthrayted lad turned a sour eye on the chumultuous weather, an’ groaned deep as he pulled closer about his chowldhers the cape of his greatcoat an’ plunged into the daysarted an’ flooded roadway.
Howsumever, ’twas not the pelting rain, nor the lashing wind, nor yet the pitchy darkness that bothered the heart out of him as he wint splashin’ an’ stumbling along the road. A thought of something more raylentless than the storm, more mystarious than the night’s blackness put pounds of lead into the lad’s unwilling brogues; for somewhere in the shrouding darkness that covered McCarthy’s house the banshee was waiting this minute, purhaps, ready to jump out at him as soon as he came near her.
And, oh, if the banshee nabbed him there, what in the worruld would the poor lad do to save himself?
At the raylisation of this sitiwation, the gooseflesh crept up his back an’ settled on his neck an’ chowldhers. He began to cast about in his mind for a bit of cheer or a scrap of comfort, as a man in such sarcumstances will do. So, grumblin’ an’ sore-hearted, he turned over Bridget’s parting words. “If one goes on an errant of marcy,” Bridget had said, “a score of God’s white angels with swoords in their hands march before an’ beside an’ afther him, keeping his path free from danger.”
He felt anxious in his hat for the bit of charitable tay he was bringin’, and was glad to find it there safe an’ dhry enough, though the rest of him was drenched through an’ through.
“Isn’t this an act of charity I’m doin’, to be bringin’ a cooling drink to a dyin’ woman?” he axed himself aloud. “To be sure it is. Well, then, what rayson have I to be afeared?” says he, pokin’ his two hands into his pockets. “Arrah, it’s aisy enough to bolsther up one’s heart with wise sayin’ an’ hayroic praycepts when sitting comodious by one’s own fire; but talkin’ wise words to one’s self is mighty poor comfort when you’re on the lonely high road of a Halloween night, with a churchyard waitin’ for ye on the top of the hill not two hundred yards away. If there was only one star to break through the thick sky an’ shine for him, if there was but one friendly cow to low or a distant cock to break the teeming silence, ’twould put some heart into the man. But not a sound was there only the swish and wailing of the wind through the inwisible hedges.
“What’s the matther with the whole worruld? Where is it wanished to?” says Darby. “If a ghost were to jump at me from the churchyard wall, where would I look for help? To run is no use,” he says, “an’ to face it is—”
Just then the current of his misdoubtings ran whack up against a sayin’ of ould Peggy O’Callaghan. Mrs. O’Callaghan’s repitation for truth and voracity, whin it come to fairy tales or ghost stories, be it known, was ayquil if not shuparior to the best in Tipperary. Now, Peggy had towld Ned Mullin, an’ Ned Mullin had towld Bill Donahue, the tinker, an’ the tinker had adwised Darby that no one need ever be afeared of ghosts if he only had the courage to face them.
Peggy said, “The poor crachures ain’t roamin’ about shakin’ chains an’ moanin’ an’ groanin’, just for the sport of
