to
the States with my mother every other year for a month or two. But
after my father died we used to go to Ireland every other year. And
there you are--I'm as much American as I am Irish.

"When I'm in love, or excited, or dreaming, or mad I have the brogue.
But for the everyday purpose of life I like the United States talk,
and I know Broadway as well as I do Binevenagh Lane, and the Sound as
well as St. Patrick's Channel; educated a bit at Eton, a bit at
Harvard; always too much money to have to make any; in love lots of
times, and never a heartache after that wasn't a pleasant one, and
never a real purpose in life until I took the king's shilling and
earned my wings; something over thirty--and that's me--Larry
O'Keefe."

"But it was the Irish O'Keefe who sat out there waiting for the
banshee," I laughed.

"It was that," he said somberly, and I heard the brogue creep over his
voice like velvet and his eyes grew brooding again. "There's never an
O'Keefe for these thousand years that has passed without his warning.
An' twice have I heard the banshee calling--once it was when my
younger brother died an' once when my father lay waiting to be carried
out on the ebb tide."

He mused a moment, then went on: "An' once I saw an Annir Choille, a
girl of the green people, flit like a shade of green fire through
Carntogher woods, an' once at Dunchraig I slept where the ashes of the
Dun of Cormac MacConcobar are mixed with those of Cormac an' Eilidh
the Fair, all burned in the nine flames that sprang from the harping
of Cravetheen, an' I heard the echo of his dead harpings--"

He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously sweet, high
voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang:

Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;
Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan,
Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft,
Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh.

CHAPTER VIII

Olaf's Story

There was a little silence. I looked upon him with wonder. Clearly he
was in deepest earnest. I know the psychology of the Gael is a curious
one and that deep in all their hearts their ancient traditions and
beliefs have strong and living roots. And I was both amused and
touched.

Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities
open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of
service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, apprec