Things got on so that afther dark people only wentured out in couples or in crowds, an’ in pint of piety that parish was growin’ into an example an’ patthron for the naytion.
But of all the persons whom thim conditions complicayted you may be sure that the worst harried an’ implicayted was the knowledgeable man, Darby O’Gill.
There was a weight on his mind, but he couldn’t tell why, an’ a dhread in his heart that had no raysonable foundaytion. He moped an’ he moothered. Some of the time he felt like singin’ doleful ballads an’ death keens, an’ the rest of the time he could hardly keep from cryin’. His appetite left him, but what confuged him worse than all the rest was the fondness that had come over him for hard worruk—cuttin’ turf an’ diggin’ petaties, an’ things like that.
To make matters more onsociable, his friend, Brian Connors, the King of the Fairies, hadn’t showed a nose inside Darby’s door for more than a fortnit; so the knowledgeable man had no one to adwise with.
In thim dismal sarcumstances Darby, growin’ dusperate, harnessed the pony Clayopathra one morning and dhrove up to Clonmel to see the Masther Doctor—the raynowned McNamara. Be this you may know how bad he felt, for no one, till he was almost at the pint of dissolation, ever wint to that crass, brow-batin’ ould codger.
So, loath enough was our own hayro to face him, an’ hard-hearted enough was the welcome the crabbed little docthor hilt out to Darby whin they met.
“What did you ate for breakwus?” the physician says, peerin’ savage from undher his great eyebrows at Darby’s tongue.
“Only a bowl of stirabout, an’ a couple of petaties, an’ a bit of bacon, an’ a few eggs.” He was countin’ on his fingers, “an’—an’ somethin’ or other I forgot. Do you think I’ll go into a daycline, Doctor, agra?”
“Hump! ugh! ugh!” was all the comfort the sick man got from the blinkin’ ould blaggard. But turnin’ imaget to his medicine-table the surgent began studyin’ the medicines. There was so much of it ferninst him he might have give a gallon an’ never missed it. There was one foine big red bottle in particular Darby had his eye on, an’ thought his dose ’ud surely come out of that. But NcNamara turns to a box the size of your hat, an’ it filled to the top with little white, flat pills. Well, the stingy ould rascal counts out three and, handing them to Darby, says: “Take one before breakwus, another before dinner, an’ the last one before suppher, an’ give me four silver shillings, an’ that’ll cure ye,” he says.
You may be sure that Darby biled up inside with madness at the onraysonableness of the price of the pills, but, houlding himself in, he says, very cool an’ quite: “Will you write me out a rayceipt for the money, Doctor McNamara, if you plaze?” he says. An’, whilst the ould chayter was turned to the writing, be the hokey if our hayro didn’t half fill his pockets with pills from the box. By manes of them, as he dhrove along home, he was able to do a power of good to the neighbour people he met with on the road.
Whin you once get in the habit of it there’s no pleasure in life which ayquils givin’ other people medicine.
Darby ginerously med ould Peggy O’Callaghan take six of the little round things. He gave a swally to half-witted Red Durgan, an’ a good mouthful to poor sick Eileen McCarthy (only she had to gulp them whole, poor thing, an’ couldn’t ate them as the others did—but maybe ’twas just as good). An’ he gave a fistful aich to Judy Rafferty an’ Dennis Hogan; an’ he stood handsome thrate to a sthranger, who, the minute he got the taste well intil his mouth, wanted to fight Darby. Howsumever, the two only called aich other hard names for a while, then Darby joggled along, doin’ good an’ growin’ lighter-hearted an’ merrier-minded at every sthop he med. ’Twas this way with him till, just in front of Mrs. Kilcannon’s, who should he see, scratching himself agin the wall, but Solomon, an’ the baste lookin’ bitther daynunciation out of the corner of his eye. Darby turned his head, ashamed to look the misthrayted donkey in the face. An’ worse still nor that, just beyant Solomon, laning agin the same wall, was Bothered Bill Donahue, the deef tinker. That last sight dashed Darby entirely, for he knew as well as if he had been tould that the tinker was layin’ in wait to ride home with him for a night’s lodging.
It wasn’t that Darby objected on his own account to takin’ him home, for a tinker or a beggarman, mind you, has a right, the worruld over, to claim a night’s lodgin’ an’ a bit to ate wherever he goes; an’ well, these honest people pay for it in the gossip an’ news they furnish at the fireside an’ in the good rayport of your family they’ll spread through the counthry aftherwards.
Darby liked well to have them come, but through some unknown wakeness in her char-ack-ther Bridget hated the sight of them. Worst of all, she hated Bothered Bill. She even went so far as to say that Bill was not half so bothered as he purtendid—that he could hear well enough what was agreeable for him to hear, an’ that he was deef only to what he didn’t like to listen to.
Well, anyhow there was the tinker in the road waitin’ for the cart to come up, an’ for a while what to do Darby didn’t well know.
He couldn’t rayfuse one who axed food to ate or shelther for a wandherer’s four bones during the night (that would be a sin, besides it
