But at length an’ at last he daycided, with a sigh, to put the whole case before Bill an’ then let him come or stay.
Whilst he was meditaytin’ on some way of conveyin’ the news that’d be complaymintary to the tinker, an’ that’d elevayte instid of smashing that thraveller’s sinsitiveness, Bill came up to the cart.
“The top iv the day to you, dacint man,” he says. “ ’Tis gettin’ toward dark an’ I’ll go home with ye for the night, I’m thinkin’,” says he. The tinker, like most people who are hard of hearin’, roared as though the listener was bothered.
Darby laid down the lines an’ hilt out a handful of the little medicines.
“There’s nothin’ the matther with me, so why should I ate thim?” cried Bill.
“They’re the best thing in the worruld for that,” says Darby, forcing them into Bill’s mouth. “You don’t know whin you’ll nade thim,” he says, shoutin’. “It’s betther meet sickness halfway,” says he, “than to wait till it finds you.”
And thin, whilst Bill, with an open hand aginst his ear, was chawin’ the pills an’ lookin’ up plaintiff into Darby’s face, the knowledgeable man wint on in a blandishin’ way to pint out the sitiwation.
“You see, ’tis this away, Wullum,” he says. “It’s only too daylighted I’d be to take you home with me. Indade, Bridget herself has wondherful admiraytion for you in an ord’nary way,” says he. “She believes you’re a raymarkable man intirely,” he says, dayplomatic, “only she thinks you’re not clane,” says he.
The tinker must have misundherstood altogether, for he bawled, in rayply, “Wisha good luck to her,” he says, “an’ ain’t I glad to have so foine opinion from so foine a woman,” says he. “But sure, all the women notice how tidy I am, an’ that’s why they like to have me in the house. But we best be movin’,” says he, coolly dhropping his bags of tools intil the cart, “for the night’s at hand, an’ a black an’ stormy one it’ll be,” says Bill.
He put a foot onto the wheel of the cart. As he did so Darby, growin’ very red in the face, pressed a shilling into the tinker’s hand. “Go into Mrs. Kilcannon’s for the night, Wullum,” he says, “an’ come to us for your breakwus, an’ your dinner an’ maybe your supper, me good fellow,” says he.
But the deef man only pocketed the shillin’ an’ clambered up onto the sate beside Darby. “Faith, the shillin’s welcome,” he says; “but I’d go to such a commodious house as yours any time, Darby O’Gill, without a fardin’s pay,” says he, pattin’ Darby kindly on the back. But Darby’s jaw was hangin’ for the loss of the shillin’ right on top of the unwelcome wisitor.
“We’d betther hurry on,” says the tinker, lighting his pipe; “for afther sundown who knows what’ll catch up with us on the road,” says he.
Sure, there was nothing for it but to make the best of a bad bargain, an’ the two went on together, Darby gloomy an’ vexed an’ the deef man solemn but comfortable till they were almost at McHale’s bridge. Then the tinker spoke up.
“Did ye hear the black threats Sheelah Maguire is makin’ agin you?” he says.
“No,” says Darby; “what in the worruld ails her?” says he.
“Bless the one of me knows,” says the tinker, “nor anybody else for that matther. Only that last Halloween night Sheelah Maguire was bate black an’ blue from head to foot, an’ she lays the raysponsibility on you, Darby,” he says.
The knowledgeable man had his mouth open for a question whin who should go runnin’ acrost the road in front of them but Neddy McHale himself, an’ his arrum full of sticks. “Go back! go back!” cries Neddy, wavin’ an arrum wild. “The bridge’s butther-worruks are washed out be the flood an’ McDonald’s bridge is down, too, so yez must go around be the mill,” says Neddy.
Now here was bitther news for ye! ’Twas two miles out of the way to go be Chartres’ mill, an’ do the best possible they’d be passing that ha’nted place in the pitch dark.
“Faith, an’ I’ve had worse luck than in pickin’ you up this night, Bothered Bill Donahue,” says Darby, “for it’s loath I’d be to go alone—”
He turned to speak just in time, for the tinker had gathered up his bag an’ had put his right foot on the cartwheel, purparin’ for a jump. Darby clutched the lad be the back of his neck an’ joulted him back hard into the sate.
“Sit still, Wullum, till we raich me own house, avourneen,” he says, sarcastic, “for if ye thry that move agin I’ll not lave a whole bone in your body. I’ll never let it be said,” he says, lofty, “that I turned one who axed me for a night’s lodgin’ from me door,” he says. An’ as he spoke he wheeled the cart quick around in the road.
“Lave me down, Misther O’Gill! I think I’ll stop the night with Neddy McHale,” says Wullum, shiverin’. “Bridget don’t think I’m clane,” says he, as the pony started off.
“Who tould ye that, I’d like to know?” shouted Darby, growin’ fierce; “who dared say that of ye? You’re bothered, Wullum, you know, an’ so you misthrupit langwidge,” he says.
But Bill only cowered down sulky, an’ the pony galloped down the side lane intil the woods, strivin’ to bate the rain an’ the darkness. But the elements were too swift-footed, an’ the rain came down an’ all the shadows met together, an’ the dusk whirled quick intil blackness before they raiched the gloomy hill.
Ever and always Chartres’ mill was a misfortunit place. It broke the heart of an’ runed and kilt the man who built it; an’ itself was a rune these last tunty years.
Many was the wild tale known throughout the counthry-side
