Moira took a turn at the spade, her face growing redder with the exertion. Winifred ran over to her.
"Let me have a turn," she said; "you know I like to dig."
And dig Winifred did, in spite of the protestations of Barney and Moira. The former said to me:
"Och, then, you might as well try to stop the wind from whistlin' through the trees beyant as to stop Miss Winifred when she's set on anything!"
He watched her with a comical look as the girl dug the slane into the earth, cutting with great precision and actually raising two or three sods.
"D'ye see that now?" cried the rustic, with a mingling of admiration and amusement.
"Oh, but you're the wonder of the world, Miss Winifred asthore!" cried Moira. "When it was all I could do to raise the sod meself!"
All three then busied themselves in removing some of the dry turf from the clamp which Barney had previously erected, and in stowing it away in the cart. This done, Winifred said to me:
"Come; and you too, Moira and Barney! There's a fairy ring here and we'll dance about it in the moonlight."
"The blessin' of God between us and harm!" cried the alarmed boy and girl in a breath. "Is it dancin' in a fairy ring you'd be doin'?"
"Yes, there and nowhere else!" she said imperiously. "Come!--the lady and I are waiting for you."
Seeing their reluctance, I had gone forward at once, to show them that a fairy ring was no more to me than a patch of earth where the grass was softer and greener, and which was now whitened by the moon. And dance we did. Though Barney and Moira were afraid of the fairies, they were still more afraid of displeasing Winifred. I stopped at last, holding my sides with merriment and begging of Winifred to let me rest. She threw herself, in a very spirit of mischief, on top of a mound. This proceeding evoked exclamations of horror from Moira and Barney.
"To lie upon a rath!" groaned Moira. "It's bewitched you'll be and turnin' into somethin' before our eyes."
"Or spirited away underground!" added Barney; "or laid under a spell that you'd ever and always be a child."
"I'd like that," remarked Winifred, settling herself more comfortably upon the mound. "I don't want to grow up or be old ever."
She gazed up at the moon, seeming to see in its far-shining kingdom some country of perpetual youth.