He whispered in the sergeant’s ear. The sergeant looked at him bewildered.
“Them ones?” he said, “Them ones? Now what might you and Mrs. Doolan be meaning by that, Timothy Flanagan?”
“Just fairies,” said Flanagan. “Mind you, I’m not saying I believe it.”
“Fairies be damned,” said the sergeant.
“They may be,” said Flanagan. “I’m not much of a one for fairies myself; but you’ll not deny, sergeant that it looks queer, all the children being took the same way at the same time. Anyhow, whether you believe what Mrs. Doolan says or not——”
“I do not believe it,” said the sergeant. “Not a word of it.”
“You needn’t,” said Flanagan, “I don’t myself. All I say is that it’s lucky a thing of the sort happening the very first evening the new doctor’s in the place. It’s fairies he’s after, remember that. It’s looking for fairies that brought him here. Didn’t Dr. Farelly tell me so himself and tell you? Wasn’t Dr. Farelly afraid he wouldn’t stay on account of fairies being scarce about these parts this long time? And now the place is full of them—according to what Mrs. Doolan says.”
Sergeant Rahilly heard, or fancied he heard, a particularly loud shriek from Molly. He certainly heard the wailing of Mrs. Conerney and the agitated cries of several other women. He turned from Flanagan without speaking another word and walked straight to the doctor’s house.
Five minutes later Dr. Lovaway, hatless and wearing a pair of slippers on his feet, was running up the street towards the barrack. His first case, a serious one, calling for instant attention, had come to him unexpectedly. Opposite Flanagan’s shop he was stopped by Mrs. Doolan. She laid a skinny, wrinkled, and very dirty hand on his arm. Her shawl fell back from her head, showing a few thin wisps of grey hair. Her eyes were bleary and red-rimmed, her breath reeked of porter.
“Arrah, doctor dear,” she said, “I’m glad to see you, so I am. Isn’t it a grand thing now that a fine young man like you would be wanting to sit down and be talking to an old woman like myself, that might be your mother—no, but your grandmother?”