"That would be a fine place for fairies."
He quickly turned his head and looked at me.
"So it would," said he, "but they're all gone now. Whin I was a boy the old folks did be talkin' of them, but there's none of them now."
"I suppose so," said I sympathetically, "but a friend of mine in Connecticut, an Irishman, told me he'd been led by them into a bog with their false lights."
"Oh," said Michael, quick as a wink, "so have I. They'd lade you to folly the light, an' the first thing ye'd know ye'd be up to your waist in a bog. But there's none of them hereabouts now."
And that ended Michael's remarks about fairies. And that was further than most of them would go until I met an old woman on the west coast. She, after I had gained her confidence, talked quite freely.
I asked her if she had ever seen any of the red leprechauns (I am not sure of the spelling) that are so mischievous to housewives and are so fond of cream, and while she had not seen any herself a friend of hers had seen two of them.
"Wan had a red cap on an' the other was dressed all in green and they was wrestlin' in a field.
"An wance I looked out of the winder," she had grown absorbed in her own talk now—"an' I saw over there on the mountain side a fair green field that never was there before"—the mountain was bald and rocky and bleak—"an' in it was a lot of young lads and gerruls, all dressed gayly, the lads and the gerruls walking like this"—illustrating by undulatory motions—"and full of happiness.