Was ever such a dangerous purdicament! Here he was, with ghosts in the threes above him an’ in the hedges, an’ maybe lookin’ over his chowlder, an’ all of them sarchin’ for the bit of enchanted comb that was in his own pocket. If they should find out where it lay what awful things they would do to him. Sure, they might call up the Costa Bower an’ fling him into it, an’ that ’ud be the last ever heard of Darby O’Gill in the land of the livin’.
With thim wild thoughts jumpin’ up an’ down in his mind he stood in the dark an’ in the rain, gawmin’ vacant over toward the shadowy ruin. An’ he bein’ much agitayted, the lad, without thinkin’, did the foolishest thing a man in his sitiwaytion could well a-complish—he took out of his pocket the enchanted sliver of goold an’ hildt it to his two eyes for a look.
The consequences came suddin’, for as he stuck it back into the tobaccy there burst from the darkness of the willows the hallowest, most blood-curdlin’ laugh that ever fell on mortial ears. “Ho! ho! ho!” it laughed.
The knowledgeable man’s hair lifted the hat from his head.
An’ as if the laugh wasn’t enough to scatther the wits of anyone, at the same instant it sounded, an’ quick as a flash, every windy in the ould mill blazed with a fierce blue light. Every batthered crack an’ crevice seemed bursting with the glare for maybe the space of ten seconds, an’ then, oh, Millia Murther! there broke from the upper floor three of the bitterest shrieks of pain an’ terror ever heard in this worruld; an’, with the last cry, the mill quinched itself into darkness agin an’ stood lonely an’ gloomy an’ silent as before. The rain patthered down on the road an’ the wind swished mournful in the threes, but there was no other sound.
The knowledgeable man turned to creep away very soft an’ quiet; but as he did a monsthrous black thing that looked like a dog without a head crawled slowly out from the willows where the turrible laugh had come from, an’ it crept into the gloom of the opposite hedge an’ there it stood, waitin’ for Darby to dhraw near.
But the knowledgeable man gave a leap backwards, an’ as he did from the darkness just behindt him swelled a deep sigh that was almost a groan. From the hedge to his right came another sigh, only deeper than the first, and from the blackness on his left rose another moan, an’ then a groaning, moaning chorus rose all round him, an’ lost itself in the wailing of the wind. He was surrounded—the ghosts had captured Darby.
The lad never rayalised before that minute what a precious thing is daylight. If there would only come a flash of lightening to show him the faces of the surrounding spirrits, horrible though they might be, he’d bid it welcome. But though the rain drizzled an’ the tunder rumpled, not a flare lit up the sky.
One swift, dusperate hope at the last minute saved the boy from sheer dispair; an’ that same hope was that maybe some of the Good People might be flyin’ about an’ would hear him. Liftin’ up his face to the sky an’ crying out to the passin’ wind, he says:
“Boys,” he says, agonised, “lads,” says he, “if there be any of yez to listen,” he cried, “I’ll take it as a great favour an’ I’ll thank ye kindly to tell King Brian Connors that his friend an’ comerade, Darby O’Gill, is in deep throuble and wants to see him imaget,” says he.
“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed the turrible thing in the hedge.
In spite of the laugh he was almost sure that off in the distance a cry answered him.
To make sure he called again, but this time, though he sthrained his ears till their drums ached, he caught no rayply.
And now, out of the murkiness in the road ahead of him, something began to grow slowly into a tall, slender, white figure. Motionless it stood, tightly wrapped in a winding sheet. In its presence a new an’ awful fear pressed down the heart of Darby. He felt, too, that another shade had taken its place behindt him, an’ he didn’t want to look, an’ sthrove against lookin’, but something forced the lad to turn his head. There, sure enough, not foive feet away, stood still an’ silent the tall, dark figure of a man in a topcoat.
Thin came from every direction low, hissing whuspers that the lad couldn’t undherstand. Somethin’ turrible would happen in a minute—he knew that well.
There’s just so much fear in every man, just exactly as there is a certain amount of courage, an’ whin the fear is all spilt a man aither fights or dies. So Darby had always said.
He raymembered there was a gap in the hedge nearly opposite the clump of willows, so he med up his mind that, come what might, he’d make a gran’ charge for it, an’ so into the upland meadow beyant. He waited an instant to get some strength back intil his knees, an’ then he gave a spring. But that one spring was all he med—in that direction, at laste.
For, as he neared the ditch, a dozen white, ghostly hands raiched out eager for him. With a gasp he whirled in his thracks an’ rushed mad to the willows opposite, but there a hundhred gashly fingers were stretched out to meet the poor lad; an’ as he staggered back into the middle of the road agin, the hayro couldn’t, to save his sowl, keep back a long cry
