came in
flashes, and his happiness grew intense. He had wanted to go and the
birds had shown him where he might go. His instinct was to go, he was
stifling in Ireland. He might never find the country he desired, but he
must get out of Ireland, "a mean ineffectual atmosphere," he said, "of
nuns and rosaries."

A mist was rising, the lovely outlines of Howth reminded him of pagan
Ireland. "They're like music," he said, and he thought of Usheen and
his harp. "Will Usheen ever come again?" he said. "Better to die than
to live here." And the mist thickened--he could see Howth no longer.
"The land is dolorous," he said, and as if in answer to his words the
most dolorous melody he had ever heard came out of the mist. "The
wailing of an abandoned race," he said. "This is the soul-sickness from
which we are fleeing." And he wandered about calling to the shepherd,
and the shepherd answered, but the mist was so thick in the hollows
that neither could find the other. After a little while the shepherd
began to play his flageolet again; and Ned listened to it, singing it
after him, and he walked home quickly, and the moment he entered the
drawing-room he said to Ellen, "Don't speak to me; I am going to write
something down," and this is what he wrote:--

THE WILD GOOSE.

[musical excerpt]

"A mist came on suddenly, and I heard a shepherd playing this
folk-tune. Listen to it. Is it not like the people? Is it not like
Ireland? Is it not like everything that has happened? It is melancholy
enough in this room, but no words can describe its melancholy on a
flageolet played by a shepherd in the mist. It is the song of the
exile; it is the cry of one driven out in the night--into a night of
wind and rain. It is night, and the exile on the edge of the waste. It
is like the wind sighing over bog water. It is a prophetic echo and
final despair of a people who knew they were done for from the
beginning. A mere folk-tune, mere nature, raw and unintellectual; and
these raw folk-tunes are all that we shall have done: and by these and
these alone, shall we be remembered."

"Ned," she said at last, "I think you had better go away. I can see
you're wearing out your heart here."

"Why do you think I should go? What put that idea into your head?"

"I can see you are not happy."

"But you said that the wheel would turn, and that what was lowest would
come to the top."

"Yes, Ned; but sometimes the wheel is a long time in turning, and maybe