They were walking along all this time, an’ now had come to Darby’s own stile. The lad could see the heads of the childher bunched up agin the windy-pane. The King sthopped, an’, laying a hand on Darby’s arrum, spoke up umpressive:
“If I come to the crass-roads as a cow with a rope about me horns ye’ll lade me,” he says. “If I come as a horse with a saddle on me back, yez’ll ride me,” says he. “But if I come as a pig with a rope tied to me lift hind leg, ye’ll dhrive me,” says the King.
“Oh, my! Oh, my! Oh, tare an’ ages!” says Darby.
“But,” says the King, wavin’ his hand aginst inthurruptions, “so that we’ll know aich other we’ll have a by-worrud bechuxt us. An’ it’ll be poethry,” he says. “So that I’ll know that ’tis you that’s in it ye’ll say ‘Cabbage an’ bacon’; an’ so that ye’ll know that ’tis me that’s in it I’ll answer, ’Will sthop the heart achin’.’ Cabbage an’ bacon will sthop the heart achin’,” says the King, growin’ unwisible. “That’s good, satisfyin’ poethry,” he says. But the last worruds were sounded out of the empty air an’ a little way above, for the masther of the nighttime had wanished. At that Darby wint in to his supper.
I won’t expaytiate to yer honour on how our hayro spint the avenin’ at home, an’ how, afther Bridget an’ the childher were in bed, that a growin’ daysire to meet an’ talk sociable with a ghost fought with tunty black fears an’ almost bate them. But whinever his mind hesitayted, as it always did at the thought of the Costa Bower, a finger poked into his weskit pocket where the broken bit of comb lay hid, turned the scale.
Howandever, at length an’ at last, just before midnight our hayro, dhressed once more for the road, wint splashin’ an’ ploddin’ up the lane toward Conroy’s crass-roads.
II
A man is never so brave as whin sittin’ ferninst his own comfortable fire, a hot supper asleep in his chist, a steamin’ noggin of flaygrant punch in his fist, an’ a well-thried pipe betwixt his teeth. At such times he rumynates on the ould ancient hayroes, an’ he daycides they were no great shakes, afther all. They had the chanst to show themselves, an’ that’s the only difference betwixet himself an’ themselves. But whin he’s flung sudden out of thim pleasant surcumstances, as Darby was, to go chargin’ around in the darkness, hunting unknown an’ unwisible dangers, much of that courage oozes out of him.
An’ so the sthrangest of all sthrange things was, that this night, whin ’twas his fortune to be taken up be the Costa Bower, that a dhread of that death-coach was present in his mind from the minute he shut the door on himself, an’ it outweighed all other fears.
In spite of the insurance that King Brian had given, in spite of the knowledge that his friends, the Good People, were flyin’ hither an’ thither over that townland, there crept into his sowl an’ fastened itself there the chanst that the headless dhriver might slip past thim all an’ gobble him up.
In wain he tould himself that there were a million spots in Ireland where the death-carriage was more likely to be than in his own path. But in spite of all raysons, a dhreading, shiverin’ feelin’ was in his bones, so that as he splashed along he was flinging anxious looks behind or thremblin’ at the black, wavering shadows in front.
Howsumever, there was some comfort to know that the weather was changin’ for the betther. Strong winds had swept the worst of the storm out over the ocean, where it lingered slow, growlin’ an’ sputtherin’ lightening.
A few scatthered, frowning clouds, trowing ugly looks at the moon, sulked behind.
“Lord love your shining face,” says Darby, looking up to where the full moon, big as the bottom of a tub, shone bright an’ clear over his head. “An’ it’s I that hopes that the blaggard of a cloud I see creeping over at you from Sleive-na-mon won’t raich you an’ squinch your light before I meet up with Brian Connors.”
The moon, in answer, brushed a cloud from her face, and shed a clearer, fuller light, that made the flooded fields an’ dhropping threes quiver an’ glisten.
On top of the little mound known as Conroy’s Hill, an’ which is just this side of where the roads crass, the friend of the fairies looked about over the lonesome counthry-side.
Here and there gleamed a distant farmhouse, a still white speck in the moonlight. Only at Con Kelley’s, which was a good mile down the road, was a friendly spark of light to be seen, an’ that spark was so dim and so far that it only pressed down the loneliness heavier on Darby’s heart.
“Wisha,” says Darby, “how much I’d druther be there merry-makin’ with the boys an’ girls than standin’ here lonesome and cowld, waiting for the divil knows what.”
He sthrained his eyes for a sight of a horse, or a cow, or a pig, or anything that might turn out to be Brian Connors. The only thing that moved was the huge dark cloud that stretched up from Sleive-na-mon, and its heavy edge already touched the rim of the moon.
He started down the hill.
The withered three at the crossroads where he was to meet the King waved its blackened arms and lifted them up in warning as he came toward it, an’ it dhripped cowld tears upon his caubeen and down his neck when he stood quaking in its shadows.
“If the headless coachman were to ketch me here,” he whumpered, “and fling me into his carriage, not a sowl on earth would ever know what became of me.
“I wish I wasn’t so knowledgeable,” he says, half cryin’. “I wish
