And a welcome guest, you may be sure, was Father Horrigan, for no man was better loved in all that country. But when Dermod saw him enter, he was troubled, for he had nothing to offer for supper except some potatoes that his wife was boiling in a pot over the fire. Then he remembered that he had set a net in the river. “There’ll be no harm,” thought he, “in my stepping down to see if anything has been caught.”
So down to the river went Dermod. He found as fine a salmon in the net as ever jumped from water. But as he was taking it out, the net was jerked from his hands, and away the salmon went, swimming along as though nothing had happened.
Dermod looked sorrowfully at the wake that the fish left shining like a line of silver in the moonlight.
“May bitter luck attend you night and day!” cried he, shaking his fist. “Some evil thing sure it was that helped you, for did I not feel it pull the net out of my hand!”
“You’re all wrong, Dermod! There were a hundred or more of us pulling against you!” squeaked a little voice near his feet, and the whole troop of Fairies—hundreds and hundreds of them—came rushing from their hiding-places, and stood before him, their red caps nodding violently.
Dermod gazed at them in wonder; then one of the Fairies said:—
“Make yourself noways uneasy about the Priest’s supper, Dermod Leary. If you will go back and ask him one question for us, there’ll be as fine a supper spread before him in no time, as ever was put on table.”
“I’ll have nothing to do with you at all, at all!” answered Dermod; “I know better than to sell my soul to the likes of you!”
But the little Fairy was not to be repulsed. “Will you ask the Priest just one civil question for us, Dermod?” said he.
Dermod considered for a moment. “I see no objection,” said he, “to the same. But I’ll have nothing to do with your supper, mind that!”