Darby O’Gill and the Good People quotes

You may aisly think how sore and sorry the poor man was, an’ how Bridget his wife an’ the childher carried on. The rent was due, and all left was to sell his cow Rosie to pay it.

Rosie was the apple of his eye; he admired and rayspected the pigs, but he loved Rosie.

Worst luck of all was yet to come. On the morning when Darby went for the cow to bring her into market, bad scrans to the hoof was there; but in her place only a wisp of dirty straw to mock him. Millia murther!

As it was, our hayro sprang to one side. As Rosie passed, his left hand gripped her tail.

When one of the O’Gills takes hould of a thing, he hangs on like a bull terrier.

Away he went, rushing with her.

As I told you before, I tell you again, Darby was the finest reel dancer in all Ireland; and he came from a family of dancers, though I say it who shouldn’t, as he was my mother’s own cousin.

Three things in the world banish sorrow⁠—love and whisky and music.

So, when the surprise of it all melted a little, Darby’s feet led him in to the thick of the throng, right under the throne of the King, where he flung care to the winds, and put his heart and mind into his two nimble …

… the lonely boreen at night, and you hear, from some fairy fort, a sound of fiddles, or of piping, or of sweet woices singing, or of little feet pattering in the dance, don’t turn your head, but say your prayers an’ hould on your way.

The pleasures the Good People’ll share with you have a sore sorrow hid in them, an’ the gifts they’ll offer are only made to break hearts with.

”

… miles around to see Darby, and sit undher the shtraw-stack beside the stable to adwise with our hayro about their most important business—what was the best time for the settin’ of hins and what was good to cure colic in childher, an’ things like that.

Any man so parsecuted with admiration an’ hayrofication might aisily feel his chest swell out a bit, so it’s no wondher that Darby set himself up for a knowledgeable man.

He took to talking slow an’ shuttin’ one eye whin he listened, and he walked with a knowledgeable twist to his chowldhers. He grew monsthrously fond of fairs and public gatherings, where people made much of him;

With his fingers still in his ears, so that he couldn’t hear her commands to turn back, he ran without stopping till he came to the willow-tree near Joey Hooligan’s forge. There he slowed down to fill his lungs with the fresh, sweet air.

’Twas one of those warmhearted, laughing autumn days which steals for a while the bonnet and shawl of the May.

The sun from a sky of feathery whiteness, laned over, telling jokes to the worruld an’ the goold harvest-fields and purple hills, lasy and continted, laughed back at the sun.

’Twas one of those warmhearted, laughing autumn days which steals for a while the bonnet and shawl of the May.

The sun from a sky of feathery whiteness, laned over, telling jokes to the worruld an’ the goold harvest-fields and purple hills, lasy and continted, laughed back at the sun.

Even the blackbird flying over the haw-tree looked down an’ sang to those below, “God save all here;” an’ the linnet from her bough answered back quick an’ sweet, “God save you kindly, sir.”

“If I had me rights I’d be doing nothing all day long but sittin’ on a throne, an’ playin’ games of forty-five with me Lord Liftenant an’ some of me generals.

There never was a lord that liked good ating or dhrinking betther nor I or who hates worse to get up airly in the morning.

That last disloike, I’m tould, is a great sign entirely of gentle blood the worruld over,” says he.

Up on his hind feet went Terror and stood crazy for a second, pawing the air, then with a cry of rage and pain in his throat, the baste turned, made a rush for the hedge at the roadside, and cleared it like an arrow.

Now, just beyant the hedge was a bog so thin that the geese wouldn’t walk on it, and so thick that the ducks couldn’t swim in it.

Into the middle of that cowld pond Terror fell with a splash and a crash.

They talked Tayology, Conchology, and Distrology, they hammered aich other with Jayography, Orthography, and Misnography, they welted aich other with Hylosophy, Philosophy, and Thrimosophy. They bounced up and down in their sates, they shouted and got purple in the face.

But every argyment brought out another nearly as good and twict as loud.

Through all this time the follyers of the King sat upon their perches or lay upon the table motionless, like little wooden images with painted green cloaks and brown caps.

“Oh, I dunno about that!” says Father Cassidy, fitting a live coal on his pipe. “The crachures must say thim things.

If a young bachelor only talks sensible to a sensible colleen he has a good chanst to stay a bachelor.

An thin ag’in, a gossoon who’ll talk to his sweetheart about the size of the petatie crop’ll maybe bate her whin they’re both married. But this has nothing to do with your historical obserwaytions. Go on, King,” he says.

“Bother and botheration, look at that now!” says the king. “

Every thrade has its drawbacks, but I never rayalized before the hardship of being a parish priest.

Can’t we manage it some way? Couldn’t I put it some place where you might find it, or give it to a friend who’d send it to you?”

“We can’t put the black spell on thim—they’re not Christian bastes, like pigs or cows. Whin it comes to animals, we can only put our come ’ither on cattle and horses, and such as are Christian animals, ye know.

In his mind and in his heart a goat is a pagen.

He wouldn’t ask any betther divarsion than for me to thry and lay me hands on him,” says the King, wiping his eyes.

“Oh, ho, ye beauty, you know what’s in me mind!” says he, whistlin’ and coaxin’ and sidlin’ up to her.

A pig likes a compliment if it’s well tould, so Susan hung her head, grunted coquettish, and looked away.

Taking adwantage of her head being turned, without another word, his Rile Highness ran over, laid hould of her ear, and with one graceful jump took an aisy saddle-sate on her back.

“I’ll not make you rich bekase you’re a born ballad-maker, and a weaver of fine tales, and a jaynious—if you make a jaynious rich you take all the songs out of him and you spile him.

A man’s heart-sthrings must be often stretched almost to the breaking to get good music from him.

I’ll not spile you, Tom Mulligan.

’Twas the mendin’ of clothes that All Sowls’ afthernoon in Elizabeth Ann Egan’s kitchen that naturally brought up the subject of husbands an’ the best ways to manage them.

An’ if there’s one thing more than another that makes me take me hat off to the women, ’tis the owdacious way the most downthrodden of their sex will brag about her blaggard husband.

Not that ayther one or the other of the foive busy-tongued and busy-fingered neighbour women who bint above their sewing or knitting that afthernoon were downthrodden; be no manner of manes; far, far from it.

With that she pulled his face down to hers, an’ kissed him as she used in the ould courtin’ days.

There’s nothing puts so much high courage an’ clear, steadfast purpose in a man’s heart, if it be properly given, as a kiss from the woman he loves.

So, with the warmth of that kiss to cheer him, Darby set his face agin the storm.

There’s nothing puts so much high courage an’ clear, steadfast purpose in a man’s heart, if it be properly given, as a kiss from the woman he loves. So, with the warmth of that kiss to cheer him, Darby set his face agin the storm.

Halloween night, to all unhappy ghosts, is about the same as St. Patrick’s Day is to you or to me⁠—’tis a great holiday in every churchyard.

An’ no one knew this betther or felt it keener than did Darby O’Gill, that same Halloween night, as he stood on his own doorstep with the paper of black tay for Eileen McCarthy safely stowed away in the crown of his top-hat.

an’ the knowledgeable man fell to dayliberatin’ whether he’d have the hardness to folly it out if the chanst came. Sometimes he thought he would, then agin he was sure he wouldn’t.

For Darby O’Gill was one who bint quick undher trouble like a young three before a hurrycane, but he only bint⁠—the throuble never broke him.

So, at times his courage wint down to a spark like the light of a candle in a gust of wind, but before you could turn on your heel ’twas blazing up sthrong and fiercer than before.

At that hopeless instant Bridget’s parting words popped into Darby’s head.

“When one goes on an errant of marcy a score of God’s white angels, with swoords in their hands, march before an’ beside an’ afther him, keeping his path free from danger.”

How it all come to pass he could never rightly tell, for he was like a man in a dhrame, but he recollects well standing on the broken ind of the bridge, Bridget’s words ringing in his ears, the glistening black gulf benathe his feet, …

By manes of them, as he dhrove along home, he was able to do a power of good to the neighbour people he met with on the road.

Whin you once get in the habit of it there’s no pleasure in life which ayquils givin’ other people medicine.

Darby ginerously med ould Peggy O’Callaghan take six of the little round things.

The consequences came suddin’, for as he stuck it back into the tobaccy there burst from the darkness of the willows the hallowest, most blood-curdlin’ laugh that ever fell on mortial ears. “Ho! ho! ho!” it laughed.

The knowledgeable man’s hair lifted the hat from his head.

An’ as if the laugh wasn’t enough to scatther the wits of anyone, at the same instant it sounded, an’ quick as a flash, every windy in the ould mill blazed with a fierce blue light.

He was surrounded—the ghosts had captured Darby.

The lad never rayalised before that minute what a precious thing is daylight.

If there would only come a flash of lightening to show him the faces of the surrounding spirrits, horrible though they might be, he’d bid it welcome. But though the rain drizzled an’ the tunder rumpled, not a flare lit up the sky.

Thin came from every direction low, hissing whuspers that the lad couldn’t undherstand. Somethin’ turrible would happen in a minute—he knew that well.

There’s just so much fear in every man, just exactly as there is a certain amount of courage, an’ whin the fear is all spilt a man aither fights or dies.

So Darby had always said.

Howandever, at length an’ at last, just before midnight our hayro, dhressed once more for the road, wint splashin’ an’ ploddin’ up the lane toward Conroy’s crass-roads.

A man is never so brave as whin sittin’ ferninst his own comfortable fire, a hot supper asleep in his chist, a steamin’ noggin of flaygrant punch in his fist, an’ a well-thried pipe betwixt his teeth.

At such times he rumynates on the ould ancient hayroes, an’ he daycides they were no great shakes, afther all. They had the chanst to show themselves, an’ that’s the only difference betwixet himself an’ themselves.

“I wish I wasn’t so knowledgeable,” he says, half cryin’. “I wish I was as ignorant about ghosts an’ fairies as little Mrs. Bradigan, who laughs at them.

The more you know the more you need know.

Musha, there goes the moon.”

And then, too, whilst the King was talkin’ that deep, obsthreperous cloud which had covered the sky slipped off the edge of the moon an’ hurried to jine its fellows, who were waiting for it out over the ocean.

And the moon, to make a-minds for its late obscuraytion, showered down sudden a flood of such cheerful, silver light that the drooping, separate leaves and the glistening blades of grass lept up clane an’ laughin’ to the eye.

Some of that cheer wint into Darby’s breast, an’ with it crept back fresh his ould confidence in his champyion, the King.