here in
Ireland--more wood, forest timber, and better-off people, but nothing
beyond that!

"Well, one evening--it was in August--I came down by a narrow path to
the side of a lake, where there was a stone seat, put up to see the view
from, and in front was three wooden steps of stairs going down into
the water, where a boat might come in. It was a lovely spot, and well
chosen, for you could count as many as five promontories running out
into the lake; and there was two islands, all wooded to the water's
edge; and behind all, in the distance, was a great mountain, with clouds
on the top; and it was just the season when the trees is beginnin' to
change their colors, and there was shades of deep gold, and dark olive,
and russet brown, all mingling together with the green, and glowing in
the lake below under the setting sun, and all was quiet and still
as midnight; and over the water the only ripple was the track of a
water-hen, as she scudded past between the islands; and if ever there
was peace and tranquillity in the world it was just there! Well, I put
down my pack in the leaves, for I did n't like to see or think of it,
and I stretched myself down at the water's edge, and I fell into a fit
of musing. It's often and often I tried to remember the elegant fancies
that came through my head, and the beautiful things that I thought I saw
that night out on the lake fornint me! Ye see I was fresh and fastin';
I never tasted a bit the whole day, and my brain, maybe, was all the
better; for somehow janius, real janius, thrives best on a little
starvation. And from musing I fell off asleep; and it was the sound of
voices near that first awoke me! For a minute or two I believed I was
dreaming, the words came so softly to my ear, for they were spoken in
a low, gentle voice, and blended in with the slight splash of oars that
moved through the water carefully, as though not to lose a word of him
that was speakin'.

"It's clean beyond _me_ to tell you what he said; and, maybe, if I
could, ye would n't be able to follow it, for he was discoorsin' about
night and the moon, and all that various poets said about them; ye'd
think that he had books, and was reading out of them, so glibly came the
verses from his lips. I never listened to such a voice before, so soft,
so sweet, so musical, and the words came droppin' down, like the clear
water filterin' over a rocky ledge, and glitterin' like little spangles
over moss and wild-flowers.