’Twas a quare idee, but not so onraysonable afther all whin one comes to think of it; an’ the knowledgeable man fell to dayliberatin’ whether he’d have the hardness to folly it out if the chanst came. Sometimes he thought he would, then agin he was sure he wouldn’t. For Darby O’Gill was one who bint quick undher trouble like a young three before a hurrycane, but he only bint—the throuble never broke him. So, at times his courage wint down to a spark like the light of a candle in a gust of wind, but before you could turn on your heel ’twas blazing up sthrong and fiercer than before.
Whilst thus contimplatin’ an’ meditaytin’, his foot sthruck the bridge in the hollow just below the berrin’-ground, an’ there as the boy paused a minute, churning up bravery enough to carry him up the hill an’ past the mystarious gravestones, there came a short quiver of lightning, an’ in its sudden flare he was sure he saw not tin yards away, an’ comin’ down the hill toward him, a dim shape that took the breath out of his body.
“Oh, be the powers!” he gasped, his courage emptying out like wather from a spilt pail.
It moved, a slow, grey, formless thing without a head, an’ so far as he was able to judge it might be about the size of an ulephant. The parsecuted lad swung himself sideways in the road, one arrum over his eyes an’ the other stretched out at full length, as if to ward off the turrible wisitor.
The first thing that began to take any shape in his bewildhered brain was Peggy O’Callaghan’s adwice. He thried to folly it out, but a chatterin’ of teeth was the only sound he made. An’ all this time a thraymendous splashin’, like the floppin’ of whales, was coming nearer an’ nearer.
The splashin’ stopped not three feet away, an’ the ha’nted man felt in the spine of his back an’ in the calves of his legs that a powerful, unhowly monsther towered over him.
Why he didn’t swoonge in his tracks is the wondher. He says he would have dhropped at last if it weren’t for the distant bark of his own good dog, Sayser, that put a throb of courage intil his bones. At that friendly sound he opened his two dhry lips an’ stutthered this sayin’:
“Whoever you are, an’ whatever shape ye come in, take heed that I’m not afeared,” he says. “I command ye to tell me your throubles an’ I’ll be your boneyfactor. Then go back dacint an’ rayspectable where you’re buried. Spake an’ I’ll listen,” says he.
He waited for a reply, an’ getting none, a hot splinther of shame at bein’ so badly frightened turned his sowl into wexation. “Spake up,” he says, “but come no furder, for if you do, be the hokey I’ll take one thry at ye, ghost or no ghost!” he says. Once more he waited, an’ as he was lowering the arrum from his eyes for a peek, the ghost spoke up, an’ its answer came in two pitiful, disthressed roars. A damp breath puffed acrost his face, an’ openin’ his eyes, what should the lad see but the two dhroopin’ ears of Solomon, Mrs. Kilcannon’s grey donkey. Foive different kinds of disgust biled up into Darby’s throat an’ almost sthrangled him. “Ye murdherin’, big-headed imposture!” he gasped.
Half a minute afther a brown hoot-owl, which was shelthered in a nearby blackthorn three, called out to his brother’s fambly which inhabited the belfry of the chapel above on the hill that some black-minded spalpeen had hoult of Solomon Kilcannon be the two ears an’ was kickin’ the ribs out of him, an’ that the langwidge the man was usin’ to the poor baste was worse than scan’lous.
Although Darby couldn’t undherstand what the owl was sayin’, he was startled be the blood-curdlin’ hoot, an’ that same hoot saved Solomon from any further exthrayornery throuncin’, bekase as the angry man sthopped to hearken there flashed on him the rayilisation that he was bating an’ crool maulthraytin’ a blessing in dishguise. For this same Solomon had the repitation of being the knowingest, sensiblist thing which walked on four legs in that parish. He was a fayvourite with young an’ old, especially with childher, an’ Mrs. Kilcannon said she could talk to him as if he were a human, an’ she was sure he understhood. In the face of thim facts the knowledgeable man changed his chune, an’ puttin’ his arrum friendly around the disthressed animal’s neck, he said:
“Aren’t ye ashamed of yerself, Solomon, to be payradin’ an’ mayandherin’ around the churchyard Halloween night, dishguisin’ yerself this away as an outlandish ghost, an’ you havin’ the foine repitation for daciency an’ good manners?” he says, excusin’ himself. “I’m ashamed of you, so I am, Solomon,” says he, hauling the baste about in the road, an’ turning him till his head faced once more the hillside. “Come back with me now to Cormac McCarthy’s, avourneen. We’ve aich been in worse company, I’m thinkin’; at laste you have, Solomon,” says he.
At that, kind an’ friendly enough, the forgivin’ baste turned with him, an’ the two keeping aich other slitherin’ company, went stumblin’ an’ scramblin’ up the hill toward the chapel. On the way Darby kept up a one-sided conwersation about all manner of things, just so that the ring of a human woice, even if ’twas only his own, would
