Herminie Templeton Kavanagh

“ Darby powered something out of a jug into three brown stone noggins, and then turned hot wather from the kittle, on top of that agin.
Says the King to the clargyman, “You’re the cleverest and the knowingest man I’ve met in five thousand years. That joult you gave me about Jonah was a terror!”
“I never saw your ayquil! If we could only send you to Parliament, you’d free Ireland!” says Father Cassidy. “To think,” says he, “that once I used to believe there was no such thing as fairies!”
“That was bekase you were shuperstitious,” says the King. “Everyone is so, more or less. ”

“ That me own dear Father Cassidy could spake blaggard words like thim! Every dhrop of blood in me is biling with scandalation. Let me beg of you and implore your Riverence never agin to make use of talk like that. It breaks my heart to hear you!” says the villian.
For a few minutes afther that Darby was doin’ nothing but dodging handfuls of mud.
While this was going on, a soft red glow, like that which hangs above the lonely raths an’ forts at night when the fairies are dancin’ in thim, came over the fields. ”

“ She wint this day to Father Cassidy and slandhered me outrageous,” he says. “She tould him that you and Maureen were colloguing with a little ould, wicked, thieving fairy-Man, and that if something wasn’t done at once agin him the sowls of both of ye would be desthroyed entirely.”
Whin Darby found ’twas not himself that was being bothered, but only the King, he grew aisier in his feelings. “Sure you wouldn’t mind women’s talk,” says he, waving his hand in a lofty way. “Many a good man has been given a bad name by them before this, and will be agin—you’re not the first by any manes,” says he. ”

“ Before anyone could help him Phadrig had climbed bravely up the churn-dash, hand over hand like a sailor man, and clambered out all white and dripping. “Don’t mind me,” he says; “go on wid the discoorse!” he cried, shaking himself. The Ruler of the Good People looked vexed.
“I marvel at yez, an’ I am ashamed of yez!” he says. “If I’m not able alone for this dayludhered man, yer shoutin’ and your gallivantin’ll do me no good. ”

“ Well, the argyment got hotter and hotter until Darby’s mind was in splinthers. Sometimes he sided with Ould Nick, sometimes he was agin him. Half of what they said he didn’t undherstand. They talked Tayology, Conchology, and Distrology, they hammered aich other with Jayography, Orthography, and Misnography, they welted aich other with Hylosophy, Philosophy, and Thrimosophy. They bounced up and down in their sates, they shouted and got purple in the face. But every argyment brought out another nearly as good and twict as loud. ”

“ But now that’s the laste I’ll do to you!”
“Faith,” says Darby, “if I was with the fairies, ’tis no less than you are this minute, an’ if you eggspose me, I’ll eggspose you!” With that Darby up and tould what was the cause of the whole botheration.
His Riverence, afther the telling, waited not a minute, but kicked the spurs into Terror, and the brave horse headed once more for shore. ’Twas no use. The poor baste turned at last with a cry and floundhered back agin into the mire. ”

“ Maybe you failed to say your prayers a year ago last Ayster Monday night for the same rayson?” axed the King, very cool.
At this the laughing broke out agin, uproarious, some of the little men houlding their sides and tears rowling down their cheeks; two lads begun dancing together before the chiny dishes upon the dhresser. But at the height of the merriment there was a cry and a splash, for Phadrig Oge had fallen into the churn. ”

“ The Convarsion of Father Cassidy
“I tould you how on cowld winther nights whin Bridget and the childher were in bed, ould Brian Connors, King of the Fairies, used to sit visitin’ at Darby O’Gill’s own fireside. But I never tould you of the wild night whin the King faced Father Cassidy there.
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Darby O’Gill sat at his own kitchen fire the night afther Mrs. Morrisey’s burying, studyin’ over a gr-r-reat daybate that was heldt at her wake.
Half-witted Red Durgan begun it be asking loud an’ sudden of the whole company, “Who was the greatest man that ever lived in the whole worruld? ”