“That wish she gives you, that wish she grants you, though it’ll go sore agin the grain,” snarled Sheelah.
“Then,” says Darby, “my second wish is that the black spell be taken from Eileen McCarthy.”
Sheelah flusthered about like an angry hin. “Wouldn’t something else do as well?” she says.
“I’m not here to argify,” says Darby, swingin’ back an’ forrud on his toes.
“Bad scran to you,” says Sheelah. “I’ll have to go an’ ask the banshee herself about that. Don’t stir from that spot till I come back.”
You may believe it or not, but with that sayin’ she bent the head of her crutch well forward, an’ before Darby’s very face she trew—savin’ your presence—one leg over the stick as though it had been a horse, an’ while one might say Jack Robinson the crutch riz into the air an’ lifted her, an’ she went sailing out of sight.
Darby was still gaping an’ gawpin’ at the darkness where she disappeared whin—whisk! she was back agin an’ dismountin’ at his side.
“The luck is with you,” says she, spiteful. “That wish I give, that wish I grant you. You’ll find seven crossed rushes undher McCarthy’s doorstep; uncross them, put them in fire or in wather, an’ the spell is lifted. Be quick with the third wish—out with it!”
“I’m in a more particular hurry about that than you are,” says Darby. “You must find me my brier pipe,” says he.
“You omadhaun,” sneered the fairy-woman, “ ’tis sthuck in the band of your hat, where you put it when you left your own house the night. No, no, not in front,” she says, as Darby put up his hand to feel. “It’s stuck in the back. Your caubeen’s twishted,” she says.
Whilst Darby was standing with the comb in one hand an’ the pipe in the other, smiling daylighted, the comb was snatched from his fingers and he got a welt in the side of the head from the crutch. Looking up, he saw Sheelah tunty feet in the air, headed for Chartres’ mill, an’ she cacklin’ an’ screechin’ with laughter. Rubbing his sore head an’ mutthering unpious words to himself, Darby started for the new bridge.
In less than no time afther, he had found the seven crossed rushes undher McCarthy’s doorstep, an’ had flung them into the stream. Thin, without knocking, he pushed open McCarthy’s door an’ tiptoed quietly in.
Cormac was kneelin’ beside the bed with his face buried in the pillows, as he was when Darby first saw him that night. But Eileen was sleeping as sound as a child, with a sweet smile on her lips. Heavy pursperation beaded her forehead, showing that the faver was broke.
Without disturbing aither of them our hayro picked up the package of tay from the floor, put it on the dhresser, an’ with a glad heart sthole out of the house an’ closed the door softly behind him.
Turning toward Chartres’ mill he lifted his hat an’ bowed low. “Thank you kindly, Misthress Banshee,” he says. “ ’Tis well for us all I found your comb this night. Public or private, I’ll always say this for you—you’re a woman of your worrud,” he says.
III
The Ghosts at Chartre’s Mill
For a little while afther Darby O’Gill sint the banshee back her comb, there was the duckens to pay in that townland. Aich night came stormier than the other. An’ the rain—never, since Noey the Phoenaycian histed sail for Arrayat was there promised such a daynudherin’ flood. (In one way or another we’re all, even the Germin min an’ the Fardowns, dayscendints of the Phoeaycians.)
Even at that the foul weather was the laste of the throuble—the counthry-side was ha’nted. Every ghost must have left Croaghmah as soon as twilight to wander abroad in the lonesome places. The farmyards and even the village itself was not safe.
One morning, just before cockcrow, big Joey Hooligan, the smith, woke up sudden, with a turrible feeling that some gashly person was lookin’ in at him through the windy. Startin’ up flurried in bed, what did he see but two eyes that were like burnin’ coals of fire, an’ they peerin’ study into the room. One glance was enough. Givin’ a thraymendous gasp, Joey dhropped back quakin’ into the bed, an’ covered his head with the bedclothes. How long afther that the two heegous eyes kept starin’ at the bed Joey can’t rightly tell, for he never uncovered his head nor stirred hand nor foot agin till his wife Nancy had lighted the fire an’ biled the stirabout.
Indade, it was a good month afther that before Joey found courage enough to get up first in the morning so as to light the fire. An’ on that same mimorable mornin’ he an’ Nancy lay in bed argyfin’ about it till nearly noon—the poor man was that frightened.
The avenin’ afther Hooligan was wisited Mrs. Norah Clancy was in the stable milking her cow—Cornaylia be name—whin sudden she spied a tall, sthrange man in a topcoat standin’ near the stable door an’ he with his back turned toward her. At first she thought it a shadow, but it a‑ppeared a thrifle thicker than a shadow, so, a little afeared, she called out: “God save you kindly, sir!”
At that the shadow turned a dim, grey face toward her, so full of rayproachful woe that Mrs. Clancy let a screech out of her an’ tumbled over with the pail of milk betwixt her knees. She lay on her back in the spilt milk unconscionable for full fufteen minutes.
The next night a very rayliable tinker, named Bothered Bill Donahue, while wandherin’ near Chartres’ ruined mill, came quite accidental upon tunty skillingtons, an’ they colloguing an’ confabbing together on the flat roof of the mill-shed.
But worst of all, an’ something that sthruck deeper terror into every heart, was the news that six different persons at six different places had met with the turrible phantom coach, the Costa Bower.
Peggy Collins, a wandherin’ beggar woman from the west counthry,
