esides, figuring out their life,
and tired with the puzzle of it; and then they'll remember me for an
instant, and a wee joy will come to them in the dim twilight. They'll
remember as you'd remember an old song you hadn't rightly got the air
of. But you knew it was sweet and there was a grand swing to it.... Aye,
they'll remember me, and they looking into the heart of the fire.... And
you wouldn't have me write them now and tell them I'm only an old
_cailleach_ in a cabin on the mountain-side, and my eyes, that they'll
remember, are dull like marbles.... You wouldn't understand, wee
Shane.... But I'm blethering too much about myself. And where is it you
were going, my little jo? Where is it?"

"I heard tell the Dancers were to be seen from the mountain-top over the
sea, and I thought maybe I'd go up and gi'e them a look, cummer ... just
a look."

"So you would, wee Shane, so you would. You wouldn't be your father's
son or your uncles' nephew if you were to let a marvel like that pass
by. It's after adventure you are, and you only four and ten years old.
'T is early you begin, the Campbells of Cosnamara.

"But sure that isn't adventure, cummer, to be seeing the Dancers in the
heat haze of the day. Adventures are robbers and fighting Indians and
things like in Sir Walter Scott."

"Oh, sure everything's adventure, hinny, every time you go looking for
something queer and strange, and something with a fine shape and color
to it. Adventure isn't in the quick fist and the nimble foot; it's in
the hungry heart and the itching mind. Isn't it myself that knows, that
was a wild and wilful girl, and went out into the world for more nor
twenty years, and came back the like of an old bitch fox, harried by
hunting, and looking for and mindful of the burrow where she was
thrown?... As we're made, we're made, wee fellow; you're either a
salmon that hungers for the sea, or a cunning old trout that kens its
own pool and is content.... Adventures! Hech aye!"

"Well, I hope your eyes get better, cummer. I do so."

"I know you mean it, Shaneen Beg, and maybe your wish will help them,
maybe it will."

"Well, I'll be going on my way, Bridget Roe."

"And I'll be finishing mines, wee Shane Campbell. And I hope to my God
you're better off at the end nor me--me that once talked to earls and
barons, and now clucks to a wheen o' hens; me that once had my coach and
pair, and now have only an ass with a creel o' turf; and no care of
money on