And it seemed to him that he heard from over the snow the fairy’s good-by in Gaelic, just as Barney or Johanna might have said it: “Beanacht leat!”
III
BARNEY’S TALE OF THE WEE RED CAP
David watched the locked-out fairy go forth into the dusk again. He had always supposed that fairies disappeared suddenly and mysteriously; but this was not so. The little gray furry figure hopped slowly across the patch of white in front of the window, bobbed and frisked, pricked up the alert little ears, and swung his bushy tail, after the fashion of any genuine squirrel, and then dove under the low-hanging boughs of the nearest evergreens. As he disappeared, David felt an arm on his shoulder and turned to blink wonderingly into the face of big Barney bending over him and grinning.
“Well, well, who’d have thought to catch the sandman making his rounds afore supper! What sent ye to sleep, laddy?”
“Asleep!” David scoffed hotly at the accusation. “I was no more asleep than you are, Barney. Why, do you know what I’ve seen, what’s been right here this very minute?”
Barney’s grin broadened. “Well, maybe now it was the locked-out fairy!” For this was the old joke between them.
Little did Barney dream that this time he had not only touched upon the real truth, but he had actually gripped it by the scruff of the neck, as he would have put it himself. David looked wise. He was trying to make up his mind just how best to tell the wonderful news when Barney’s next words held his tongue and sent the news scuttling back to his memory.
“And speaking o’ fairies, I was just asking Johanna—getting supper out yonder—did she mind the tale Old Con, the tinker, used to be telling back in the Old Country about his great-uncle Teig and the wee red cap. Did Johanna ever tell ye, now, about the fairies’ red cap?”
David shook his head.
“It serves as an easy way o’ travel for them; ye might almost call it their private Pullman car,” Barney chuckled. “Ye wait a minute and I’ll see is there time to tell the tale myself atween now and supper.”