ud note that wud ha' wakened the sidhe for miles around in
Donegal. An' then she looked at me as dumb as a fish, her big gray eyes
blank as a plowed field wid nothin' sown in it. She niver has a word to
show that she _hears_ me, even, when I tell o' the gentle people." He
added in a whisper to himself, "But maybe she's only waiting."

"'Tis the Virgin protectin' her from yer foolishness, Tim," returned the
priest, rising with a relieved air. "She'll soon be goin' to district
school along with all the other hard-headed little Yankees, and then your
tales can't give her notions." With which triumphant meditation he walked
briskly away, leaving Timothy to sit alone with his pipes under the
maple-tree, flaming with a still heat of burning autumn red, like a faery
fire.

His head sank heavily in his hands as his heart grew intolerably sad with
the lack he felt in all the world, most of all in himself. He had often
tried to tell himself what made the world so dully repellant, but he never
could get beyond, "'Tis as though I was aslape an' yet not quite
aslape--just half wakin', an' somethin' lovely is goin' on in the next
room, an' I can't wake up to see what 'tis. The trouble's with th' people.
They're all _dead_ aslape here, an' there's nobody to wake me up."

"Piper Tim! Piper Tim!" was breathed close to his ear. He sprang up, with
wide, startled eyes.

"Piper Tim," said the little girl gravely, "_I've seen them_."

The man stared at her in a breathless silence.

"A little wee woman with a red hat and kerchief around her neck, an' she
said, 'Go straight to Piper Tim an' tell him to play "The Call o' the
Sidhe" as he sits on the Round Stone, for this is th' day of the Cruachan
Whistle.'"

The child put out her hand, and drew him to the pipes, still keeping her
deep eyes fixed on him, "Play, Piper Tim, an' shut your eyes an' I'll see
what you should see an' tell you what 'tis."

The first notes were quavering as the man's big frame shook, but the
little hands across his eyes seemed to steady him, and the final flourish
was like a call of triumph. In the silence which followed the child spoke
in her high little treble with a grave elation. "They're here, Piper Tim,
all the river fog in the valley is full of them, dancin' and singin' so
gay-like to cheer up the poor hills. An' whist! Here they come up the
road, troops and troops of them, all so bright in the ferlie green; an'
sure," with a little catch of merriment,