It was the kind of a spring’s evening that you would think it a sin to stop in the house; cold and bright and no wind stirring. Here and there you could hear a little bird tuning up, but there was little signs of growth on anything yet. Little Bride thought something was saying to her, “Come out! come out!” as she stood a minute half-ways through the door.
She looked back at Heffernan. Was he really asleep, she wondered, or only pretending? He gave a sigh, and she was satisfied and looked out again, and said, in a whisper, “Are yous there? Patsy! have you the hay above in the loft...?”
“Ay, have I!” she made answer to herself; “and me and Judy only waiting on you, to go off to the chaney-house to play....”
“Is it there we’ll go?” said the real child.
“No! why would we?” said the Comrade Children; “we’re tired of playing there! We’d like to go away, away! out beyant the yard, and up into the rath on the hill ... and maybe we’d get to see some of the Good People there and....”
“Sure I wouldn’t be let to do that!” said little Brigid.
“Och, come along!” answers the Comrade Children; “won’t your own Pat and Judy be with you, and won’t let anything happen to you?”
“Do yous know the way?”
“Ay do we! weren’t we often there, and even went into the hill itself! follied after the Fairy-woman that was looking for the sup of new milk for the fairy baby, and it lying there upon her lap sick for the want of nourishment! And it was we that ‘milked the tether’ for her to get it from Marg’s dairy into the rath....”
“The time the grand big cow went back in her milk ... and me mammy was that put out!... And will we see the fairy children, with their crowns of gold upon them, and they riding, and long red cloaks upon their backs, and...?”