very terrible thing to be lonely when
old, and to feel everything passes, dies.... All I have loved is thrown
away, is of no use.... Everything old is in the way, and I am old....
The hawk-eyed commercial men go about so that the streets are filled
with them.... And all the sweet things that were said in Galilee seem
only a casual all-but-forgotten melody, and no revelation.... And then
comes a horrible memory of stark Ecclesiastes: "The dead know not
anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is
forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now
perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing
that is done under the sun." And old men remember the sorrowful things
of their life, and how little happiness measured up to the misery and
toil of life, and they had hoped.... But there were the words of the
preacher: "Neither have they any more a reward".... And secretly and
quietly old men weep....

But to grow old with the mountains and the eternal sea, and to watch the
delicate bells of the heather, to know the quiet companionship of
dogs--there is a revelation in it. No, nothing dies. And the moon rises
and the mountains nod: Yes, I remember you when you were a schoolboy,
running to be on time. And the green waves make a pleasant laughter: We
are here. When you arise in the morning you may be certain we are here.
The friends of one's young days die, scatter, are lost. But the
mountains and the water are friends forever. One can speak to them. One
can speak to ancient trees. And the leaves rustle....

And Granya had sensed it.... He might have known she would. Conceal it
as he might try, a mysterious telepathy was between them.... She
knew....

It was she who had gone to the British embassy in Washington, telling
Shane nothing. He had heard of it afterward. She hadn't pleaded or given
any promises. She had just flared in to the startled envoy.

"I wish to go back to Ireland."

"Unfortunately, the privy council had the matter of Miss O'Malley--"

"I am not Miss O'Malley. I am Shane Campbell's wife."

"But you are a dangerous enemy to the empire!"

"Am I? I had forgotten completely about the empire."

"There was a little matter of a shipload of rifles--"

"And now it is a matter of a husband and two children."

"Sure, Miss O'Malley?"

"I am not Miss O'Malley. I am Shane Campbell's wife. And I'm absolutely
sure."

It had been so easy after all.