d as well as he fought," Shane's Uncle Robin used to
laugh, "they s'ould never have let him tee up a ball on the course!"

_Eigh!_ how wonderful it all was! wee Shane felt: Raghery and the waters
of Moyle; Portrush and the Giant's Causeway; the nine glens with the
purple heather, and the streams that sang as they cantered to the sea;
the crowing grouse and the whinnying curlew, and the eagles barking on
the cliffs; the trout that rose in the summer's evening, and the red
berries of the rowan; the cold, clear lakes, and the braes where the
blueberries grow. He could well understand the stories they told of
Napper Tandy, and the great rebel in the gardens of Versailles. Napoleon
had found him weeping amid all that beauty.

"Don't be afraid, Napper Tandy. I shall keep my word and send General
Hoche to Ireland."

"It's not that, sir; it's not that." And Tandy could not keep the tears
back. "Och, County Antrim, it's far I'm from you now!"

Section 3

He had reached the cairn of round stones that marks the town land of
Drimsleive, and was turning the brae when a voice called to him:

"Eh, wee fellow, is it mitching from school you are?"

An old woman in a plaid shawl was coming slowly down the hillside. He
recognized her for Bridget Roe MacFarlane of Cushendhu, a cotter tenant
of his Uncle Alan's.

"No, cummer," he told her; "I'm not mitching. I got the day off."

"For God's sake! if it isn't wee Shane Campbell! And what are doing up
the mountain, wee Shane?"

"Ah, just dandering."

"I was up mysel'," she went on, "to the top of it, because I heard tell
there was a cure for sore eyes in the bit lake on the top. Not that I
put much store in such cures, but there's no use letting anything by. I
got a pair of specs from a peddling man of Ballymena," said she, "but
they don't seem to do me much good. I'm queer and afeared about my
eyes, hinny. It would be a hard thing for me to go blind and none about
the wee bit house but mysel'."

"Ay! I should think it would be a terrible thing to be a dark person,"
wee Shane nodded.

"Och, it wouldn't be so bad if you were born that way, for you'd know no
different. And if you went blind and you young, there's things you could
take up to take the strain from your head like a man takes up piping.
When you're old it's gey hard. If you're an old man itself, it's not so
bad, for there'll always be a soft woman to take care of you. But if
you're an old cummer, without chick or ch