“Come all ye thrue lovers, where’er yez may be,
Likewise ye decayvers be land or be sea;
I hope that ye’ll listen with pity to me
Since the jew’l of me life is a thraitor.”
“Here’s where the chune changes,” says the head, lickin’ his lips.
“On goin’ to church last Sunday me thrue love passed me by,
I knew her mind was changed be the twinklin’ of her eye;
I knew her mind was changed, which caused me for to moan,
’Tis a terrible black misfortin to think she cowld has grown.”
“That’s what I call rale poethry,” says Darby.
“There’s no foiner,” says the King, standing up on the sate, his face beaming.
“The next varse’ll make yez cry salt tears,” says Shaun. An’ he sang very affectin’:
“Oh, dig me a grave both large, wide, an’ deep,
Art lay me down gently, to take me long sleep;
Put a stone at me head an’ a stone at me feet,
Since I cannot get Mary McGinnis.”
“Faith, ’tis a foine, pittiful song,” says Darby, “an’ I’d give a great dale if I only had it,” says he.
“Musha, who knows; maybe ye can get it,” says the ould King, with a wink. “Ye may daymand the favours of the three wishes for bringing her what yer bringin’,” he whuspered. “Shaun!” he says, out loud, “do ye think the banshee’ll give that song for the bringing back of the lost comb, I dunno?”
“I dunno meself,” says the head, jubious.
“Bekase if she would, here’s the man who has the comb, an’ he’s bringin’ it back to her.”
The head gave a start and its eyes bulged with gladness.
“Then it’s the lucky man I am entirely,” he says. “For she promised to stick me head on and to let me wear it purmanent, if I’d only bring tidings of the comb,” says Shaun. “She’s been in a bad way since she lost it. You know the crachure can sing only whin she’s combing her hair. Since the comb’s broke her woice is cracked scand’lous, an’ she’s bitther ashamed, so she is. But here’s Croaghmah right before us. Will yez go in an’ take a dhrop of something?” says he.
Sticking out his head, Darby saw towering up in the night’s gloom bleak Croaghmah, the mountain of the ghosts; and, as he thought of the thousands of shivering things inside, an’ of the onpleasant feelings they’d given him at Chartres’ mill a few hours before, a doubt came into his mind as to whether it were best to trust himself inside. He might never come out.
Howandever, the King spoke up sayin’, “Thank ye kindly, Shaun, but ye know well that yerself an’ one or two others are the only ghosts I ’ssociate with, so we’ll just step out, an’ do you go in yerself an’ tell the banshee we’re waitin’. Rayturn with her, Shaun, for ye must take Darby back.”
With that the two hayroes dayscinded from the coach, an’ glad enough was Darby to put his brogues safe an’ sound on the road agin.
All at once the side of the mountain ferninst them opened with a great crash, an’ Shaun, with the coach an’ horses, disaypeared in a rush, an’ were swolleyd up be the mountain, which closed afther thim. Darby was blinkin’ an’ shiverin’ beside the King, when sudden, an’ without a sound, the banshee stood before them.
She was all in white, an’ her yallow hair sthrealed to the ground. The weight an’ sorrow of ages were on her pale face.
“Is that you, Brian Connors?” she says. “An’ is that one with you the man who grabbled me?”
“Your most obadient,” says the King, bowin’ low; “it was a accident,” says he.
“Well, accident or no accident,” she says, savare, “ ’tis the foine lot of throuble he’s caused me, an’ ’tis the illigant lot of throuble he’d a had this night if you hadn’t saved him,” she says. The banshee spoke in a hollow woice, which once in a while’d break into a squeak.
“Let bygones be bygones, ma’am, if you plaze,” says Darby, “an’ I’ve brought back yer comb, an’ by your lave I ax the favour of three wishes,” says he.
Some way or other he wasn’t so afeared now that the King was near, an’ besides one square, cool look at any kind of throuble—even if ’tis a ghost—takes half the dhread from it.
“I have only two favours to grant any mortial man,” says she, “an’ here they are.” With that she handed Darby two small black stones with things carved on thim.
“The first stone’ll make you onwisible if you rub the front of it, an’ ’twill make you wisible again if you rub the back of it. Put the other stone in yer mouth an’ ye can mount an’ ride the wind. So Shaun needn’t dhrive yez back,” she says.
The King’s face beamed with joy.
“Oh, be the hokey, Darby me lad,” says he, “think of the larks we’ll have thravellin’ nights together over Ireland ground, an’ maybe we’ll go across the say,” he says.
“But fairies can’t cross runnin’ water,” says Darby, wondherin’.
“That’s all shuperstition,” says the King. “Didn’t I cross the river Ryan? But, ma’am,” says he, “you have a third favour, an’ one I’m wishin’ for mightilly meself, an’ that is, that ye’ll taiche us the ballad of ‘Mary McGinnis.’ ”
The banshee blushed. “I have a cowld,” says she. “ ’Tis the way with singers,” says the King, winkin’ at Darby, “but we’ll thank ye to do yer best, ma’am,” says he.
Well, the banshee took out her comb, an’ fastening to it the broken ind, she passed it through her hair a few times an’ began the song.
At first her woice was purty wake an’ thrimblin’, but the more she combed the sthronger it grew, till at last it rose high and clear, and sweet and wild as Darby’d heerd it that Halloween night up at McCarthy’s.
The two hayroes stood in the shadow of a three, Darby listening and the
