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قراءة كتاب The Irish Twins
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him in her two hands!
“‘And where is your purse of money?’ says she.
“‘Money!’ says he; ‘money is it! And where on top of earth would an old creature like myself get money?’ says he.
“‘Maybe not on top of earth at all, but in it,’ says she; and with that she gave him a bit of a squeeze. ‘Come, come,’ says she. ‘Don’t be turning your tricks upon an honest woman!’
“And then she, being at the time as good-looking a young woman as you’d find, put a wicked face on her, and pulled a knife from her pocket, and says she, ‘If you don’t give me your purse this instant minute, or show me a pot of gold, I’ll cut the nose off the face of you as soon as wink.’
“The little man’s eyes were popping out of his head with fright, and says he, ‘Come with me a couple of fields off, and I’ll show you where I keep my money!’
“So she went, still holding him fast in her hand, and keeping her two eyes fixed on him without so much as a wink, when, all of a sudden, what do you think?
“She heard a whiz and a buzz behind her, as if all the bees in the world were humming, and the little old man cries out, ‘There go your bees a-swarming and a-going off with themselves like blazes!’
“She turned her head for no more than a second of time, but when she looked back there was nothing at all in her hand.
“He slipped out of her fingers as if he were made of fog or smoke, and sorrow a bit of him did she ever see after.” (Note 1.)
“And she never got the gold at all,” sighed Eileen.
“Never so much as a ha’penny worth,” said Grannie Malone.
“I believe I’d rather get rich in America than try to catch Leprechauns for a living,” said Larry.
“And you never said a truer word,” said Grannie. “’Tis a poor living you’d get from the Leprechauns, I’m thinking, rich as they are.”
By this time the teapot was empty, and every crumb of the cakeen was gone, and as Larry had eaten two potatoes, just as Eileen thought he would, there was little left to clear away.
It was late in the afternoon. The room had grown darker, and Grannie Malone went to the little window and looked out.
“Now run along with yourselves home,” she said, “for the sun is nearly setting across the bog, and your Mother will be looking for you. Here, put this in your pocket for luck.” She gave Larry a little piece of coal. “The Good Little People will take care of good children if they have a bit o’ this with them,” she said; “and you, Eileen, be careful that you don’t step in a fairy ring on your way home, for you’ve a light foot on you like a leaf in the wind, and ‘The People’ will keep you dancing for dear knows how long, if once they get you.”
“We’ll keep right in the boreen (road), 
won’t we, Larry? Good-bye, Grannie,” said Eileen.
The Twins started home. Grannie 
Malone stood in her doorway, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking after them until a turn in the road hid them from sight. Then she went into her little cabin and shut the door.
Note 1. Adapted from Thomas Keightley’s Fairy Mythology.
Chapter Four.
The Tinkers.
After Larry and Eileen had gone around the turn in the road there were no houses in sight for quite a long distance.
On one side of the road stretched the brown bog, with here and there a pool of water in it which shone bright in the colours of the setting sun. It was gay, too, with patches of yellow buttercups, of primroses, and golden whins. The whins had been in bloom since Easter, for Larry and Eileen had gathered the yellow flowers to dye their Easter eggs. On the other side of the road the land rose a little, and was so covered with stones that it seemed as if there were no earth left for things to grow in. Yet the mountain fern took root there and made the rocks gay with its green fronds.
The sun was so low that their shadows stretched far across the bogland beside them as the Twins trudged along.
Three black ravens were flying overhead, and a lark was singing its evening song.
Eileen looked up in the sky. “There’s the ghost of a moon up there! Look, Larry,” she said.
Larry looked up. There floating high above them, was a pale, pale moon, almost the colour of the sky itself. “It looks queer and lonesome up there,” he said, “and there’s no luck at all in three ravens flying. They’ll be putting a grudge on somebody’s cow, maybe. I wonder where the little lark does be hiding herself.”
Larry was still looking up in the sky for the little lark, when Eileen suddenly seized his arm. “Whist, Larry,” she whispered. “Look before you on the road!”
Larry stopped stock-still and looked. A man was coming toward them. The man was still a long way off, but they could see that he carried something on his back. And beside the road, not so far away from where the Twins stood, there was a camp, like a gypsy camp.
“’Tis the Tinkers!” whispered Larry. He took Eileen’s hand and pulled her with him behind a heap of stones by the road. Then they crept along very quietly and climbed over the wall into a field.
From behind the wall they could peep between the stones at the Tinkers’ Camp without being seen.
The Twins were afraid of Tinkers. Everybody is in Ireland, because the Tinkers wander around over the country without having any homes anywhere.
They go from house to house in all the villages mending the pots and pans, and often they steal whatever they can lay their hands on.
At night they sleep on the ground with only straw for a bed, and they cook in a kettle over a camp-fire.
The Twins were so badly scared that their teeth chattered.
Eileen was the first to say anything.
“However will we g-g-g-get home at all?” she whispered. “They’ve a dog with them, and he’ll b-b-b-bark at us surely. Maybe he’ll bite us!”
They could see a woman moving about through the Camp. She had a fire with a kettle hanging over it. There were two or three other people about, and some starved-looking horses. The dog was lying beside the fire, and there was a baby rolling about on the ground. A little pig was tied by one hind leg to a thorn-bush.
“If the dog comes after us,” said Larry, “I’d drop a stone on him, out of a tree, just the way the good son did in the story, and kill him dead.”
“But there’s never a tree anywhere about,” said Eileen. “Sure, that is no plan at all.”
“That’s a true word,” said Larry, when he had looked all about for a tree, and found none. “We’ll have to think of something else.”
Then he thought and thought. “We might go back to Grannie’s,” he said after a while.
“That would be no better,” Eileen whispered, “for, surely, our Mother would go crazy with worrying if we didn’t come home, at all, and we already so late.”
“Well, then,” Larry answered, “we must just bide here until it’s dark, and creep by, the best way we can. Anyway, I’ve the piece of coal in my pocket, and Grannie said no harm would come to us at all, and we having it.”
Just then the man, who had been coming up the road, reached the Camp. The dog 
ran out to meet him, barking joyfully. The man came near the fire and threw the bundle off his shoulder. It was two fat geese, with