arly four years,
he had explained, must elapse before the crowning height of the B. A.
Degree could be won, and it was only just possible that he might manage
to tramp back on a visit meanwhile, during some Long Vacation. This
doubtful chance was cold comfort for that ardent scholar Nicholas
O'Beirne, who grieved more than anybody else. Most ruefully did he help
Dan to carry the candidate undergraduate's library as far as the Town;
nor could he take more than a downcast pleasure in Mr. Polymathers's
farewell gift to him of the raggedest _Euclid_. And as he stood
watching the car out of sight, his eyes were as wistful as if a door
briefly opened on glimpses of radiant vistas had been inexorably barred
in his face.

Yet after all Mr. Polymathers's absence was not to be measured by years
or months. One evening on the threshold of December, Lisconnel was lying
roofed over by a massy livid-black cloud, which came lumbering up and up
interminably, and which the weatherwise estimated to contain as much
snow as would smother the width of the world. The north wind moaned and
keened dismally under the toil of wafting on this portentous load, and
its breath was bitingly sharp, so that when the lads came in from the
forge, their grandfather said, "Ah, Dan, shut over the door, for there's
a blast sweepin' through it 'ud freeze ten rigiments as stiff as
staties." We usually take a large view of things at Lisconnel. Dan went
to carry out this order, but instead of doing so he suddenly shouted:
"Murdher alive! Here's Mr. Polymathers."

Through the grey gloaming came a Mr. Polymathers, very different from
what he had been on that brilliant, hopeful morning only a few weeks
ago, when he had stepped lightly, and held his head up as if he were
looking a friendly fortune in the face. Now his feet stumbled and
dragged as he fared slowly against the wind's blustering, with his eyes
on the ground, and his movements seemingly guided more by the weight of
the bundle he carried than by his own will. Before he came within even
loud shouting distance, everybody felt a presentiment of disaster; but
he had not spoken a word to justify or discredit it by the time he got
indoors.

"Musha, and so it's yourself, sir," old Felix then repeated, in a
congratulatory tone. "Ah, but it's a hardy evenin', and it's perished
you are, sir. Come in be the fire."

"Ay, I'm back," Mr. Polymathers said slowly, after a hesitating pause,
as if the remark had been i