“Hould where you are!” he shouted; “she wants to drownd ye—the bridge is broke in the middle!” but he could tell, from the rushing footsteps an’ from the hoarse swelling curses which came nearer an’ nearer every second, that the dayludhered man, crazed with grief, was deaf an’ blind to everything but the figure that floated before his eyes.
At that hopeless instant Bridget’s parting words popped into Darby’s head.
“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.”
How it all come to pass he could never rightly tell, for he was like a man in a dhrame, but he recollects well standing on the broken ind of the bridge, Bridget’s words ringing in his ears, the glistening black gulf benathe his feet, an’ he swinging his arrums for a jump. Just one thought of herself and the childher, as he gathered himself for a spring, an’ then he cleared the gap like a bird.
As his two feet touched the other side of the gap a turrific screech—not a screech, ayther, but an angry, frightened shriek—almost split his ears. He felt a rush of cowld, dead air agin his face, and caught a whiff of newly turned clay in his nosthrils; something white stopped quick before him, an’ then, with a second shriek, it shot high in the darkness an’ disappeared. Darby had frightened the wits out of the banshee.
The instant afther the two men were clinched an’ rowling over an’ over aich other down the muddy bank, their legs splashing as far as the knees in the dangerous wather, an’ McCarthy raining wake blows on the knowledgeable man’s head an’ breast.
Darby felt himself goin’ into the river. Bits of the bank caved undher him, splashing into the current, an’ the lad’s heart began clunking up an’ down like a churn-dash.
“Lave off, lave off!” he cried, as soon as he could ketch his breath. “Do you take me for the banshee?” says he, giving a dusperate lurch an’ rowling himself on top of the other.
“Who are you, then? If you’re not a ghost you’re the divil, at any rate,” gasped the stone-cutter.
“Bad luck to ye!” cried Darby, clasping both arrums of the haunted man. “I’m no ghost, let lone the divil—I’m only your friend, Darby O’Gill.”
Lying there, breathing hard, they stared into the faces of aich other a little space till the poor stone-cutter began to cry.
“Oh, is that you, Darby O’Gill? Where is the banshee? Oh, haven’t I the bad fortune,” he says, sthriving to raise himself.
“Rise up,” says Darby, lifting the man to his feet an’ steadying him there. The stone-cutter stared about like one stunned be a blow.
“I don’t know where the banshee flew, but do you go back to Eileen as soon as you can,” says the friend of the fairies. “Not that way, man alive,” he says, as Cormac started to climb the foot-bridge, “it’s broke in the middle; go down an’ cross the stone bridge. I’ll be afther you in a minute,” he says.
Without a word, meek now and biddable as a child, Cormac turned, an’ Darby saw him hurry away into the blackness.
The raysons Darby raymained behind were two: first an’ foremost, he was a bit vexed at the way his clothes were muddied an’ dhraggled, an’ himself had been pounded an’ hammered; an’ second, he wanted to think. He had a quare cowld feeling in his mind that something was wrong—a kind of a foreboding, as one might say.
As he stood thinking a rayalisation of the caylamity sthruck him all at once like a rap on the jaw—he had lost his fine brier pipe. The lad groaned as he began the anxious sarch. He slapped furiously at his chist an’ side pockets, he dived into his throwsers and greatcoat, and at last, sprawlin’ on his hands an’ feet like a monkey, he groped savagely through the wet, sticky clay.
“This comes,” says the poor lad, grumblin’ an’ gropin’, “of pokin’ your nose into other people’s business. Hallo, what’s this?” says he, straightening himself. “ ‘Tis a comb. Be the powers of pewther, ’tis the banshee’s comb.”
An’ so indade it was. He had picked up a goold comb the length of your hand an’ almost the width of your two fingers. About an inch of one ind was broken off, an’ dhropped into Darby’s palm. Without thinkin’, he put the broken bit into his weskit pocket, an’ raised the biggest half close to his eyes, the betther to view it.
“May I never see sorrow,” he says, “if the banshee mustn’t have dhropped her comb. Look at that, now. Folks do be sayin’ that ’tis this gives her the foine singing voice, bekase the comb is enchanted,” he says. “If that sayin’ be thrue, it’s the faymous lad I am from this night. I’ll thravel from fair to fair, an’ maybe at the ind they’ll send me to parliament.”
With these worruds he lifted his caubeenXV an’ stuck the comb in the top tuft of his hair.
Begor, he’d no sooner guv it a pull than a sour, singing feelin’ begun at the bottom of his stomick, an’ it rose higher an’ higher. When it raiched his chist he was just going to let a bawl out of himself only that he caught sight of a thing ferninst him that froze the marrow in his bones.
He gasped short an’ jerked the comb out of his hair, for there, not tin feet away, stood a dark, shadowy woman, tall, thin, an’ motionless, laning on a crutch.
During a breath or two the persecuted hayro lost his head completely, for he never doubted that the banshee had changed her shuit of clothes to chase back afther him.
The first clear aymotion that rayturned to him was to fling the comb on the ground an’ make a boult of it. On second thought he knew that ‘twould be aisier to bate the wind in a race than to run away from the banshee.
“Well, there’s a good Tipperary man done for this time,” groaned the knowledgeable man, “unless in some way I can beguile her.” He was fishing in his mind for its civilest worrud when the woman spoke up, an’ Darby’s heart jumped with gladness as he raycognised the cracked voice of Sheelah Maguire,XVI the spy for the fairies.
“The top of the avenin’ to you, Darby O’Gill,” says Sheelah, peering at him from undher her hood, the two eyes of her glowing like tallow candles; “amn’t I kilt with a-stonishment to see you here alone this time of the night,” says the ould witch.
Now, the clever man knew as well as though he had been tould, when Sheelah said thim worruds, that the banshee had sent her to look for the comb, an’ his heart grew bould; but he answered her polite enough, “Why, thin, luck to ye, Misthress Maguire, ma’am,” he says, bowing grand, “sure, if you’re kilt with a-stonishment, amn’t I sphlit with inkerdoolity to find yourself mayandherin’ in this lonesome place on Halloween night.”
Sheelah hobbled a step or two nearer, an’ whispered confaydential.
“I was wandherin’ hereabouts only this morning,” she says, “an’ I lost from me hair a goold comb—one that I’ve had this forty years. Did ye see such a thing as that, agra?”XVII An’ her two eyes blazed.
“Faix, I dunno,” says Darby, putting his two arrums behind him. “Was it about the length of ye’re hand an’ the width of ye’re two fingers?” he axed.
“It was,” says she, thrusting out a withered paw.
“Thin I didn’t find it,” says the tantalising man. “But maybe I did find something summillar, only ‘twasn’t yours at all, but the banshee’s,” he says, chuckling.
Whether the hag was intentioned to welt Darby with her staff, or whether she was only liftin’ it for to make a sign of enchantment in the air, will never be known, but whatsomever she meant the hayro doubled his fists an’ squared off; at that she lowered the stick, an’ broke into a shrill, cackling laugh.
“Ho, ho!” she laughed, houldin’ her sides, “but aren’t ye the bould, distinguishable man. Becourse ‘tis the banshee’s comb; how well ye knew it! Be the same token I’m sint to bring it away; so make haste to give it up, for she’s hiding an’ waiting for me down at Chartres’ mill. Aren’t you the courageous blaggard, to grabble at her, an’ thry to ketch her. Sure, such a thing never happened before, since the worruld began
,” says Sheelah.
The idee that the banshee was hiding an’ afeared to face him was great news to the hayro. But he only tossed his head an’ smiled shuparior as he made answer.
“ ‘Tis yourself that knows well, Sheelah Maguire, ma’am,” answers back the proud man, slow an’ dayliberate, “that whin one does a favour for an unearthly spirit he may daymand for pay the favours of three such wishes as the spirit has power to give. The worruld knows that. Now I’ll take three good wishes, such as the banshee can bestow, or else I’ll carry the goolden comb straight to Father Cassidy. The banshee hasn’t goold nor wor’ly goods, as the sayin’ is, but she has what suits me betther.”
This cleverness angered the fairy-woman so she set in to abuse and to frighten Darby. She ballyragged, she browbate, she trajooced, she threatened, but ‘twas no use. The bould man hildt firm, till at last she promised him the favours of the three wishes.
“First an’ foremost,” says he, “I’ll want her never to put her spell on me or any of my kith an’ kin.”
“That wish she gives you, that wish she grants you, though it’ll go sore agin the grain,” snarled Sheelah.
“Then,” says Darby, “my second wish is that the black spell be taken from Eileen McCarthy.”
Sheelah flusthered about like an angry hin. “Wouldn’t something else do as well?” she says.
“I’m not here to argify,” says Darby, swingin’ back an’ forrud on his toes.
“Bad scran to you,”XVIII says Sheelah. “I’ll have to go an’ ask the banshee herself about that. Don’t stir from that spot till I come back.”
You may believe it or not, but with that sayin’ she bent the head of her crutch well forward, an’ before Darby’s very face she trew—savin’ your presence—one leg over the stick as though it had been a horse, an’ while one might say Jack Robinson the crutch riz into the air an’ lifted her, an’ she went sailing out of sight.
Darby was still gaping an’ gawpin’ at the darkness where she disappeared whin—whisk! she was back agin an’ dismountin’ at his side.
“The luck is with you,” says she, spiteful. “That wish I give, that wish I grant you. You’ll find seven crossed rushes undher McCarthy’s door-step; uncross them, put them in fire or in wather, an’ the spell is lifted. Be quick with the third wish—out with it!”
“I’m in a more particular hurry about that than you are,” says Darby. “You must find me my brier pipe,” says he.
“You omadhaun,”XIX sneered the fairy-woman, “ ‘tis sthuck in the band of your hat, where you put it when you left your own house the night. No, no, not in front,” she says, as Darby put up his hand to feel. “It’s stuck in the back. Your caubeen’s twishted,” she says.
Whilst Darby was standing with the comb in one hand an’ the pipe in the other, smiling daylighted, the comb was snatched from his fingers and he got a welt in the side of the head from the crutch. Looking up, he saw Sheelah tunty feet in the air, headed for Chartres’ mill, an’ she cacklin’ an’ screechin’ with laughter. Rubbing his sore head an’ mutthering unpious words to himself, Darby started for the new bridge.
In less than no time afther, he had found the seven crossed rushes undher McCarthy’s door-step, an’ had flung them into the stream. Thin, without knocking, he pushed open McCarthy’s door an’ tiptoed quietly in.
Cormac was kneelin’ beside the bed with his face buried in the pillows, as he was when Darby first saw him that night. But Eileen was sleeping as sound as a child, with a sweet smile on her lips. Heavy pursperation beaded her forehead, showing that the faver was broke.
Without disturbing aither of them our hayro picked up the package of tay from the floor, put it on the dhresser, an’ with a glad heart sthole out of the house an’ closed the door softly behind him.
Turning toward Chartres’ mill he lifted his hat an’ bowed low. “Thank you kindly, Misthress Banshee,” he says. “ ‘Tis well for us all I found your comb this night. Public or private, I’ll always say this for you—you’re a woman of your worrud,” he says.
Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) was born in Manchester, England, but moved with her family to Tennessee in 1865. Frances’s father died suddenly of a stroke when she was three, and she began writing at 16 to bring in extra money. In 1868 she started selling stories to popular ladies’ magazines, followed by the publication of her first novel, That Lass o’Lowrie’s, in 1877. However, after meeting Louisa May Alcott in 1879, she turned her hand to children’s literature, and produced three classics: Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911). In her personal life, Burnett was a spiritualist and Christian Scientist whose 1898 divorce from her first husband, Swan Burnett, caused a minor scandal. Her second marriage (to Stephen Townsend) was unhappy and ended after two years. Burnett, who had divided her time between Great Britain and America, spent the last 17 years of her life on Long Island, New York. “In the Closed Room” was originally published in 1904 by itself in a lovely edition illustrated by the renowned Jessie Willcox Smith; it was well-reviewed, although one British newspaper noted that “most emphatically should it be said that the book is not a suitable one for a child to read.”
In the Closed Room by Frances Hodgson Burnett
PART ONE
In the fierce airless heat of the small square room the child Judith panted as she lay on her bed. Her father and mother slept near her, drowned in the heavy slumber of workers after their day’s labour. Some people in the next flat were quarrelling, irritated probably by the appalling heat and their miserable helplessness against it. All the hot emanations of the sun-baked city streets seemed to combine with their clamour and unrest, and rise to the flat in which the child lay gazing at the darkness. It was situated but a few feet from the track of the Elevated Railroad and existence seemed to pulsate to the rush and roar of the demon which swept past the windows every few minutes. No one knew that Judith held the thing in horror, but it was a truth that she did. She was only seven years old, and at that age it is not easy to explain one’s self so that older people can understand.
She could only have said, “I hate it. It comes so fast. It is always coming. It makes a sound as if thunder was quite close. I can never get away from it.” The children in the other flats rather liked it. They hung out of the window perilously to watch it thunder past and to see the people who crowded it pressed close together in the seats, standing in the aisles, hanging on to the straps. Sometimes in the evening there were people in it who were going to the theatre, and the women and girls were dressed in light colours and wore hats covered with white feathers and flowers. At such times the children were delighted, and Judith used to hear the three in the next flat calling out to each other, “That’s MY lady! That’s MY lady! That one’s mine!”
Judith was not like the children in the other flats. She was a frail, curious creature, with silent ways and a soft voice and eyes. She liked to play by herself in a corner of the room and to talk to herself as she played. No one knew what she talked about, and in fact no one inquired. Her mother was always too busy. When she was not making men’s coats by the score at the whizzing sewing machine, she was hurriedly preparing a meal which was always in danger of being late. There was the breakfast, which might not be ready in time for her husband to reach his “shop” when the whistle blew; there was the supper, which might not be in time to be in waiting for him when he returned in the evening. The midday meal was a trifling matter, needing no special preparation. One ate anything one could find left from supper or breakfast.
Judith’s relation to her father and mother was not a very intimate one. They were too hard worked to have time for domestic intimacies, and a feature of their acquaintance was that though neither of them was sufficiently articulate to have found expression for the fact—the young man and woman felt the child vaguely remote. Their affection for her was tinged with something indefinitely like reverence. She had been a lovely baby with a peculiar magnolia whiteness
of skin and very large, sweetly smiling eyes of dark blue, fringed with quite black lashes. She had exquisite pointed fingers and slender feet, and though Mr. and Mrs. Foster were—perhaps fortunately—unaware of it, she had been not at all the baby one would have expected to come to life in a corner of the hive of a workman’s flat a few feet from the Elevated Railroad.
“Seems sometimes as if somehow she couldn’t be mine,” Mrs. Foster said at times. “She ain’t like me, an’ she ain’t like Jem Foster, Lord knows. She ain’t like none of either of our families I’ve ever heard of—’ceptin’ it might be her Aunt Hester—but SHE died long before I was born. I’ve only heard mother tell about her. She was a awful pretty girl. Mother said she had that kind of lily-white complexion and long slender fingers that was so supple she could curl ’em back like they was double-jointed. Her eyes was big and had eyelashes that stood out round ’em, but they was brown. Mother said she wasn’t like any other kind of girl, and she thinks Judith may turn out like her. She wasn’t but fifteen when she died. She never was ill in her life—but one morning she didn’t come down to breakfast, and when they went up to call her, there she was sittin’ at her window restin’ her chin on her hand, with her face turned up smilin’ as if she was talkin’ to some one. The doctor said it had happened hours before, when she had come to the window to look at the stars. Easy way to go, wasn’t it?”
Judith had heard of her Aunt Hester, but she only knew that she herself had hands like her and that her life had ended when she was quite young. Mrs. Foster was too much occupied by the strenuousness of life to dwell upon the passing of souls. To her the girl Hester seemed too remote to appear quite real. The legends of her beauty and unlikeness to other girls seemed rather like a sort of romance.
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