With such pleasant sights and sounds an’ twitterings at every side, our hayro didn’t feel the time passing till he was on top of the first hill of the Sleive-na-mon Mountains, which, as everyone knows, is called the Pig’s Head.
It wasn’t quite lonesome enough on the Pig’s Head, so our hayro plunged into the valley an’ climbed the second mountain—the Divil’s Pillow—where ’twas lonesome and desarted enough to shuit anyone.
Beneath the shade of a three, for the days was warm, he sat himself down in the long, sweet grass, lit his pipe, and let his mind go free. But, as he did, his thoughts rose together, like a flock of frightened, angry pheasants, an’ whirred back to the owdacious things Bridget had said about his relations.
Wasn’t she the mendageous, humbrageous woman, he thought, to say such things about as illigant stock as the O’Gills and the O’Gradys?
Why, Wullum O’Gill, Darby’s uncle, at that minute was head butler at Castle Brophy, and was known far an’ wide as being one of the foinest scholars an’ as having the most beautiful pair of legs in all Ireland.
This same Wullum O’Gill had tould Bridget in Darby’s own hearing, on a day when the three were going through the great picture gallery at Castle Brophy, that the O’Gills at one time had been kings in Ireland.
Darby never since could raymember whether this time was before the flood or after the flood. Bridget said it was durin’ the flood, but surely that sayin’ was nonsinse.
Howsumever, Darby knew his Uncle Wullum was right, for he often felt in himself the signs of greatness. And now, as he sat alone on the grass, he said out loud:
“If I had me rights I’d be doing nothing all day long but sittin’ on a throne, an’ playin’ games of forty-five with me Lord Liftenant an’ some of me generals. There never was a lord that liked good ating or dhrinking betther nor I or who hates worse to get up airly in the morning. That last disloike, I’m tould, is a great sign entirely of gentle blood the worruld over,” says he.
As for his wife’s people, the O’Hagans and the O’Shaughnessys, well—they were no great shakes, he said to himself, at laste so far as looks were consarned. All the handsomeness in Darby’s childher came from his own side of the family. Even Father Cassidy said the childher took afther the O’Gills.
“If I were rich,” says Darby to a lazy ould bumble bee who was droning an’ tumbling in front of him, “I’d have a castle like Castle Brophy, with a great picture gallery in it. On one wall I’d put the pictures of the O’Gills and the O’Gradys, and on the wall ferninst thim I’d have the O’Hagans an’ the O’Shaughnessys.”
At that ideah his heart bubbled in a new and fierce deloight. “Bridget’s people,” he says agin, scowling at the bee, “would look four times as common as they raylly are, whin they were compared in that way with my own relations. An’ whenever Bridget got rampageous, I’d take her in and show her the difference betwixt the two clans, just to punish her, so I would.”
How long the lad sat that way warming the cowld thoughts of his heart with drowsy pleasant dhrames an’ misty longings he don’t rightly know, whin—tack, tack, tack, tack, came the busy sound of a little hammer from the other side of a fallen oak.
“Be jingo!” he says to himself with a start, “ ’tis the Leprechaun that’s in it.”
In a second he was on his hands an’ knees, the tails of his coat flung across his back, an’ he crawling softly toward the sound of the hammer. Quiet as a mouse he lifted himself up on the mossy log to look over, and there, before his two popping eyes, was a sight of wondheration.
Sitting on a white stone, an’ working away like fury, hammering pegs into a little red shoe, half the size of your thumb, was a bald-headed ould cobbler of about twice the height of your hand. On the top of a round snub nose was perched a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, an’ a narrow fringe of iron-grey whuskers grew under his stubby chin. The brown leather apron he wore was so long that it covered his green knee-breeches an’ almost hid the knitted grey stockings.
The Leprechaun—for it was he indade—as he worked, mumbled an’ mutthered in great discontent.
“Oh, haven’t I the hard, hard luck!” he said. “I’ll never have thim done in time for her to dance in tonight. So, thin, I’ll be kilt intirely,” says he. “Was there ever another quane of the fairies as wearing on shoes an’ brogues an’ dancin’ slippers? Haven’t I the—” Looking up, he saw Darby.
“The top of the day to you, dacint man,” says the cobbler, jumpin’ up. Giving a sharp cry, he pinted quick at Darby’s stomach. “But, wirra, wirra, what’s that woolly ugly thing you have crawlin’ an’ creepin’ on your weskit?” he said, purtendin’ to be all excited.
“Sorra thing on my weskit,” answered Darby, cool as ice, “or anywhere else, that’ll make me take my two bright eyes off’n you—not for a second,” says he.
“Well! Well! Will you look at that, now?” laughed the cobbler. “Mark how quick an’ handy he took me up. Will you have a pinch of snuff, clever man?” he axed, houlding up the little box.
“Is it the same snuff you gave Barney McBride awhile ago?” axed Darby, sarcastic. “Lave off your foolishness,” says our hayro, growin’ fierce, “and grant me at once the favours of the three wishes, or I’ll have you smoking like a herring in my own chimney before nightfall,” says he.
At that the Leprechaun, seeing he but wasted time on so knowledgeable a man as Darby O’Gill, surrendhered and granted the favors of the three wishes.
“What is it you ask?” says
