The woman's conthrayriness vexed Darby so he pounded his knee with his fist as he answered her: "You'll not deny, maybe," he says, "that the Costa Bower sthopped one night at the Hall, and—-"
"Whist!" cried Bridget; "lave off," she says; "sure that's no kind of talk to be talkin' this night before the childher," says she.
"But mammy, I know what the Costa Bower is," cried little Mickey, sitting up straight in Darby's lap an' pinting his finger at his mother; " 'tis I that knows well. The Costa Bower is a gr-r-reat black coach that comes in the night to carry down to Croagmah the dead people the banshee keened for."
The other childher by now were sitting boult upright, stiff as ramrods, and staring wild-eyed at Mickey.
"The coachman's head is cut off an' he houlds the reins this away," says the child, lettin' his hands fall limp an' open at his side. "Sometimes it's all wisable, an' then agin it's unwisable, but always whin it comes one can hear the turrible rumble of its wheels." Mickey's woice fell and, spreading out his hands, he spoke slow an' solemn. "One Halloween night in the woods down at the black pond, Danny Hogan heard it coming an' he jumped behind a stone. The threes couldn't sthop it, they wint right through it, an' as it passed Danny Hogan says he saw one white, dead face laned back agin the dark cushions, an' this is the night—All Sowls' night—whin it's sure to be out; now don't I know?" he says, thriumphant.
At that Bridget started to her feet. For a minute she stood spacheless with vexation at the wild, frighting notions that had got into the heads of her childher; then "Glory be!" she says, looking hard at Darby. You could have heard a pin dhrop in the room. Ould Malachi, the big yellow cat, who until this time lay coiled asleep on a stool, was the best judge of Bridget's charackter in that house. So, no sooner did he hear the worruds an' see Bridget start up, than he was on his own four feet, his back arched, his tail straight up, an' his two goolden eyes searchin' her face. One look was enough for him. The next instant he lept to the ground an' started for the far room. As he scampered through the door, he trew a swift look back at his comerades, the childher, an' that look said plain as any worruds could say:
"Run for it while you've time! Folly me; some one of us vagebones has done something murtherin'!"
Malachi was right; there would have been sayrious throuble for all hands, only that a softening thought was on Bridget that night which sobered her temper. She stopped a bit, the frown on her face clearing as she looked at the childher, an' she only said: "Come out of this! To bed with yez! I'm raising a pack of owdacious young romancers, an' I didn't know it. Mickey sthop that whimpering an' make haste with your clothes. The Lord help us, he's broke off another button. Look at that, now!" she says.
There was no help for thim. So, with longin' looks trun back at their father, sittin' cosey before the fire, an' with consolin' winks an' nods from him, the childher followed their mother to the bedroom.
Thin, whilst Bridget was tucking the covers about them, an' hushing their complainings, Darby sat with his elbows on his knees, doing in his head a sum in figures; an' that sum was this:
"How much would it be worth this All Sowls' night for a man to go out that door and walk past tha churchyard up to Cormac McCarthy, the stone-cutter's house?" One time he made the answer as low as tin pounds two shillings and thruppence, but as he did so a purticular loud blast went shrieking past outside, an' he raised the answer to one thousand five hundred an' tunty pounds sterling. "And cheap at that," he said aloud.
While he was studyin' thim saygacious questions, Bridget stole quietly behind and put a light hand on his chowlder. For a minute, thin, nayther of thim said a worrud.
Surprised at the silence, an' puzzled that little Mickey had escaped a larruping, Malachi crept from the far room an' stood still in the doorway judging his misthress. An' expression was on her face the cat couldn't quite make out. 'Twas an elevayted, pitying, good-hearted, daytermined look, such as a man wears when he goes into the sty to kill one of his own pigs for Christmas.
Malachi, being a wise an' expayieranced baste, daycided to take no chances, so he backed through the door again an' hid undher the dhresser to listen.
"I was just thinking, Darby avourneen," says the woman, half whuspering, "how we might this blessed night earn great credit for our two sowls."
"Wait!" says the sly man, straightening himself, an' raising a hand. "The very thing you're going to spake was in my own mind. I was just dayliberatin' that I hadn't done justice to-night to poor Eileen. I haven't said me prayers farvint enough. I niver can whin we're praying together, or whin I'm kneeling down. Thin, like every way else, there's something quare about me. The foinest prayers I ever say is whin I'm be myself alone in the fields," says the conniving villyan. "So, do you, Bridget, go in an' kneel down by the childher for a half hour or so, an' I'll sit here doing my best. If you should happen to look out at me ye might aisily think," he says, "that I was only sittin' here comfortably smoking my pipe, but at the same time prayers'll be whirlin' inside of me like a wind-mill," says he.
"Oh, thin, ain't I glad an' happy to hear you say thim worruds," says his wife, puttin' one foine arrum about his neck; "you've taken a load off my heart that's been weighing heavy on it all night, for I thought maybe you'd be afeard."
"Afeard of what?" axed Darby, liftin' his eyebrows. Malachi throtted bouldly in an' jumped up on the stool.
"You know Father Cassidy says," whuspered Bridget, "that a loving deed of the hands done for the disthressed is itself a prayer worth a week of common prayers."
"I have nothin' agin that sayin'," says Darby, his head cocked, an' he growin' suspicious.
Bridget wiped her forehead with her apron. "Well, this afthernoon I was at McCarthy's house," she wint on, soothering his hair with one hand, "an', oh, but the poor child was disthressed! Her cheeks were flaming with the faver. An', Darby, the thirst, the awful thirst! I looked about for a pinch of tay—there's nothing so coolin' for one in the faver as a cup of wake tay—an' the sorra scrap of it was in the house, so I tould Cormac that to-night, as soon as the childher were in bed, I'd send you over with a pinch."
Every one of Darby's four bones stiffened an' a mortial chill sthruck into his heart.
"Listen, darlint," she says, "the storm's dying down, so while you're putting on your greatcoat I'll wrap up the bit of tay." He shook her hand from his chowldhers.
"Woman," he says, with bitther politeness, "I think you said that we had a great chanst to get credit for our two sowls. That's what I think you raymarked and stipulated," says he.
"Arrah, shouldn't a woman have great praise an' credit who'll send her husband out on such a night as this," his wife says. "The worse the conditions, the more credit she'll get. If a ghost were to jump at ye as you go past the churchyard, oughtn't I be the happy woman entirely?" says Bridget.
There was a kind of a tinkle in her woice, such as comes when Bridget is telling jokes, so Darby, with a sudden hope in his mind, turned quick to look at her. But there she stood grim, unfeeling, an' daytermined as a pinted gun.
"Oh, ho! is that the way it is?" he says. "Well, here's luck an' good fortune to the ghost or skellington that lays his hand on me this blessed night!" He stuck his two hands deep in his pockets and whirled one leg across the other—the most aggrawating thing a man can do. But Bridget was not the laste discouraged; she only made up her mind to come at him on his soft side, so she spoke up an' said:
"Suppose I was dying of the faver, Darby O'Gill, an' Cormac rayfused to bring over a pinch of tay to me. What, then, would ye think of the stone-cutter?"
Malachi, the cat, stopped licking his paws, an' trun a sharp, inquiring eye at his master.
"Bridget," says the knowledgeable man, giving his hand an argifying wave. "We have two separate ways of being good. Your way is to scurry round an' do good acts. My way is to keep from doing bad ones. An' who knows," he says, with a pious sigh, "which way is the betther one. It isn't for us to judge," says he, shakin' his head solemn at the fire
.
Bridget walked out in front of him an' fowlded her arms tight.
"So you won't go," she says, sharp an' suddin'.
"The divil a foot!" says he, beginnin' to whustle.
You'd think, now, Bridget was bate, but she still hildt her trump card, an' until that was played an' lost the lad wasn't safe. "All right, me brave hayro," says she; "do you sit there be the fire; I'll go meself," she says. With that she bounced into the childher's room an' began to get ready her cloak an' hood.
For a minute Darby sat pokin' the fire, muttherin' to himself an' feeling very discommodious. Thin, just to show he wasn't the laste bit onaisy, the lad cleared his throat, and waggin' his head at the fire, began to sing:
-
"Yarra! as I walked out one mor-r-nin' all in the month of June
The primrosies and daisies an' cowslips were in bloom,
I spied a purty fair maid a-sthrollin' on the lea,
An' Rory Bory Alice, nor any other ould ancient haythan
goddess was not half so fair as she.
Says I, 'Me purty fair maid, I'll take you for me bride,
An' if you'll pay no at-TIN-tion———"
-
Glancing up sudden, he saw Malachi's eye on him, and if ever the faytures of a cat spoke silent but plain langwidge Malachi's face talked that minute to its master, and this is what it said:
"Well, of all the cowardly, creaking bostheens I ever see in all me born days you are the worst, Darby O'Gill. You've not only guve impidence to your wife—an' she's worth four of you—but you've gone back on the friends you purtended to—"
Malachi's faytures got no further in their insultin' raymarks, for at that Darby swooped up a big sod of turf an' let it fly at the owdacious baste.
Now it is well known that be a spontaneous trow like that no one ever yet hit a sinsible cat, but always an' ever in that unlucky endayvour he strikes a damaginger blow where it's not intinded. So it was this time.
Bridget, wearing her red cloak an' hood, was just coming through the door, an' that misfortunate sod of turf caught her fair an' square, right below the chist, an' she staggered back agin the wall.
Darby's consthernaytion an' complycation an' turpitaytion were beyant imaginaytion.
Bridget laned there gasping. If she felt as bad as she looked, four Dublint surgunts with their saws an' knives couldn't have done her a ha'-porth of good. Howsumever, for all that, the sly woman had seen Malachi dodge an' go gallopin' away, but she purtendid to think 'twas at herself the turf was trun.
Not that she scolded, or anything so common as that, but she went on like an early Christian marthyer who was just goin' to be inthrojuiced to the roaring loins.
Well, as you may aisy see, the poor man, her husband, hadn't a chanst in the worruld afther that. Of course, to rightify himself, he'd face all the ghosts in Croaghmah. So, in a minute, he was standing in his greatcoat with his hand on the latch. There was a packet of tay in his pocket, an' he was a subdued an' conquered man.
He looked so woful that Bridget raypented an' almost raylinted.
"Raymember," he says, mournful, "if I'm caught this night be the Costa Bower, or be the banshee, take good care of the childher, an' raymember what I say—I didn't mane, Bridget, to hit ye with that sod of turf."
"Oh, ain't ye the foolish darlin' to be afeared," smiled Bridget back at him, but she was sayrious, too. "Don't you know that when one goes on an errant of marcy a score of God's white angels with swoords in their hands march before an' beside an' afther him, keeping his path free from danger?" With that she pulled his face down to hers, an' kissed him as she used in the ould courtin' days.
There's nothing puts so much high courage an' clear, steadfast purpose in a man's heart, if it be properly given, as a kiss from the woman he loves. So, with the warmth of that kiss to cheer him, Darby set his face agin the storm.
-
Chapter II
The Banshee's Halloween
I
Halloween night, to all unhappy ghosts, is about the same as St. Patrick's Day is to you or to me—'tis a great holiday in every churchyard. An' no one knew this betther or felt it keener than did Darby O'Gill, that same Halloween night, as he stood on his own doorstep with the paper of black tay for Eileen McCarthy safely stowed away in the crown of his top-hat.
No one in that barony was quicker than he at an act of neighbourly kindness, but now, as he huddled himself together in the shelter of his own eaves, and thought of the dangers before, an' of the cheerful fire an' comfortable bed he was leaving behint, black raybellion rushed shouting across his heart.
"Oh, my, oh, my, what a perishin' night to turn a man out into!" he says. "It'd be half a comfort to know I was goin' to be kilt before I got back, just as a warnin' to Bridget," says he.
The misthrayted lad turned a sour eye on the chumultuous weather, an' groaned deep as he pulled closer about his chowldhers the cape of his greatcoat an' plunged into the daysarted an' flooded roadway.
Howsumever, 'twas not the pelting rain, nor the lashing wind, nor yet the pitchy darkness that bothered the heart out of him as he wint splashin' an' stumbling along the road. A thought of something more raylentless than the storm, more mystarious than the night's blackness put pounds of lead into the lad's unwilling brogues; for somewhere in the shrouding darkness that covered McCarthy's house the banshee was waiting this minute, purhaps, ready to jump out at him as soon as he came near her.
And, oh, if the banshee nabbed him there, what in the worruld would the poor lad do to save himself?
At the raylisation of this sitiwation, the goose-flesh crept up his back an' settled on his neck an' chowldhers. He began to cast about in his mind for a bit of cheer or a scrap of comfort, as a man in such sarcumstances will do. So, grumblin' an' sore-hearted, he turned over Bridget's parting words. "If one goes on an errant of marcy," Bridget had said, "a score of God's white angels with swoords in their hands march before an' beside an' afther him, keeping his path free from danger."
He felt anxious in his hat for the bit of charitable tay he was bringin', and was glad to find it there safe an' dhry enough, though the rest of him was drenched through an' through.
"Isn't this an act of charity I'm doin', to be bringin' a cooling drink to a dyin' woman?" he axed himself aloud. "To be sure it is. Well, then, what rayson have I to be afeared?" says he, pokin' his two hands into his pockets. Arrah, it's aisy enough to bolsther up one's heart with wise sayin' an' hayroic praycepts when sitting comodious by one's own fire; but talkin' wise words to one's self is mighty poor comfort when you're on the lonely high-road of a Halloween night, with a churchyard waitin' for ye on the top of the hill not two hundred yards away. If there was only one star to break through the thick sky an' shine for him, if there was but one friendly cow to low or a distant cock to break the teeming silence, 'twould put some heart into the man. But not a sound was there only the swish and wailing of the wind through the inwisible hedges.
"What's the matther with the whole worruld? Where is it wanished to?" says Darby. "If a ghost were to jump at me from the churchyard wall, where would I look for help? To run is no use," he says, "an' to face it is—"
Just then the current of his misdoubtings ran whack up against a sayin' of ould Peggy O'Callaghan. Mrs. O'Callaghan's repitation for truth and voracity, whin it come to fairy tales or ghost stories, be it known, was ayquil if not shuparior to the best in Tipperary. Now, Peggy had towld Ned Mullin, an' Ned Mullin had towld Bill Donahue, the tinker, an' the tinker had adwised Darby that no one need ever be afeared of ghosts if he only had the courage to face them.
Peggy said, "The poor crachures ain't roamin' about shakin' chains an' moanin' an' groanin', just for the sport of scarin' people, nor yet out of maneness. 'Tis always a throuble that's on their minds—a message they want sint, a saycret they're endayvouring to unload. So instead of flyin' from the onhappy things, as most people generally do," she said, "one should w
alk up bowld to the apparraytion, be it gentle or common, male or faymale, an' say, 'What throubles ye, sir?' or 'What's amiss with ye, ma'am?' An' take my worrud for it," says she, "ye'll find yourself a boneyfactor to them when you laste expect it," she says.
'Twas a quare idee, but not so onraysonable afther all whin one comes to think of it; an' the knowledgeable man fell to dayliberatin' whether he'd have the hardness to folly it out if the chanst came. Sometimes he thought he would, then agin he was sure he wouldn't. For Darby O'Gill was one who bint quick undher trouble like a young three before a hurrycane, but he only bint—the throuble never broke him. So, at times his courage wint down to a spark like the light of a candle in a gust of wind, but before you could turn on your heel 'twas blazing up sthrong and fiercer than before.
Whilst thus contimplatin' an' meditaytin', his foot sthruck the bridge in the hollow just below the berrin'-ground, an' there as the boy paused a minute, churning up bravery enough to carry him up the hill an' past the mystarious gravestones, there came a short quiver of lightning, an' in its sudden flare he was sure he saw not tin yards away, an' comin' down the hill toward him, a dim shape that took the breath out of his body.
Darby O'Gill and the Good People Page 12
