ales. A mammoth building
is as romantic to a new age as were the subtle carvings of Phidias to
Greeks of old. For the master of commerce an oil-driven steel ship has
the beauty old folk have seen in cloudy pyramids of sail. What we have
considered beautiful will be quaint. And their tolerant smile will hurt
us under the wind-swept grass.

To whomever this writing of mine may give a moment's thought, a moment's
dreaming, I would ask a privilege, to call out of the romantic sunset
the memories of Irish writers whom it is deep in my heart to praise, not
masters of verse, but those whom in English we call novelists, being too
exact in matters of language to name them poets: the Four Masters of
Donegal who dedicated their tradition _do chum gloire De agus onora na h
Eireann_,--to the glory of God and the honor of Ireland,--so high their
motive was. And Thomas Moore, not as author of Irish ballads or of
"Lalla Rookh," but as writer of "The Epicurean." And Lever and Lover.
And William Carleton from the County of Tyrone. And gentle Gerald
Griffin, dead at his desk. And Michael and John Banim, with their
"O'Hara Tales." And Sheridan Le Fanu, and Fitz-James O'Brien, who fell
fighting for America. And Charles Kickham, who wrote "Knocknagow." And I
was all but forgetting Oliver Goldsmith, Dr. Johnson's friend.

Old fathers, old masters, I will never believe but that you wrote
because it sprang from you as the lark sings in the high air. No little
sum of money, no great man's patronage, no doffed caps of the populace,
could have moved you to strike out or write in one line. Old fathers,
let me say aloud your names; it will give me bravery. And, sirs, take
this book kindly to you. It is written caring nothing for money, nothing
for light acclaim. Its faults are because I cannot write better yet....

DONN BYRNE

CONTENTS

PART PAGE

I DANCING TOWN 3

II THE WAKE AT ARDEE 57

III THE MOUTH OF HONEY 109

IV THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 169

V THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 229

VI THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 287

VII THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER AND THE GLORY 353

PART ONE

DANCING TOWN

Section 1

Because it was his fourteenth birthday they had allowed him a day off
from school, his mother doub