rk chaos.
Overhead the stars began to show, the air was cutting; it bit with
frost. And then we turned down the dark boreen, the mare venturing into
it with some misgiving. I think the Friar was praying in an undertone in
his native Basque as we passed through the narrow mountain boreen. At
the end of it we came to the shallow river with the shingly bottom.
Again the mare required some persuasion before she ventured in, the
wheels crunching on the gravel, her fetlocks splashing the slow-moving,
chocolate-coloured water. On the opposite bank we reached a sort of
plateau, seen vaguely in the light. I "let a bawl out of me." It was
like the cry of some lonely, lost bird on the wing. The Friar shook with
laughter. I could feel the little rock of his body on the springs of the
car. A figure came suddenly out of the darkness and silently took the
mare by the head. The car moved on across the vague back meadow. Patch
Keetly was piloting us to a light that shone in the north.

People were standing about the front of the long, low-thatched house.
Lights shone in all the windows, the door stood open. The people did
not speak or draw near as we got down from the car. There was a fearful
silence about the place. The grouping of the people expressed mystery.
They eyed us from their curiously aloof angles. They seemed as much a
part of the atmosphere of the hills, as fixed in the landscape as the
little clumps of furze or the two lonely poplars that mounted guard over
the mouth of the boreen.

"Won't the holy Father be going into the house?" Patch Keetly asked. "I
will unyoke the mare and give her a share of oats in the stable."

The Friar spoke to me in an undertone, and we crossed to the open door
of the house.

The door led directly into the kitchen. Two women were standing well
back from the door, something respectful, a little mysterious and a
little fearful in their attitude. Their eyes were upon the Friar, and
from their expressions they might have expected some sort of apparition
to cross the threshold. They made a curtesy to him, dipping their bodies
in a little sudden jerk. Nobody else was in the kitchen, and, despite
the almost oppressive formality of their attitude, they somehow
conveyed a sense of the power of women in the household in time of
crisis. They were in supreme command, the men all outside, when a life
had to be battled for. The elder of the women came forward and spoke to
the priest, bidding him welcome.