, the sea lay like a
silver mist; on the other the mountains, so ethereal that they looked
as though at any moment they might melt away into the blue of the sky.
But Mick had no heart for these things. Even when he heard the cuckoo
across the fields, for the first time that year, it was with no
answering thrill, but only with a dull sense that he had grown too old
now to care--seeing Aunt Mary had brought back all the trouble he had
tried so hard to forget.

When they got to Father Ryan's house they went straight into the
parlour. "Mick," said Father Ryan, sitting down in his chair, "what
ails you, child, this long time back?" Mick looked into his face.
"It's all right," said Father Ryan; "you can tell me nothing I don't
know. I had a letter from him this morning, poor boy."

"Is he all right?" said Mick.

"He's all right; that's what I wanted to tell you. But yourself, Mick,
what ails you?"

"There's nothin' ails me," said Mick; "I've just got ould."

"Whist, boy, at your time of life," said Father Ryan.

"What did he do it for?" said Mike sharply. "Ye've seen her, Father;
it's made her go mad." He began to cry.

"There, there, child," said Father Ryan. "It's more than you or me can
say what it was done for. A better boy than Pat never lived, but the
father had a bad hold on him."

"I sometimes think I done it myself," said Mick.

"You did it?" said Father Ryan. "Faith, child, you did a thing God
Himself would have done."

When Mick said good-bye to Father Ryan about half-an-hour later, and
was starting out, with the pigeon buttoned up inside his coat, he found
Jane sitting on a stone at the presbytery gate waiting for him.

"Ye're the good ould sowl," he said, and he took her hand. "Come on,
let's run home; I'm quare an' happy."

CHAPTER XI

A CHIEF MOURNER

Some time after the death of Uncle Niel, Patsy's ways began to puzzle
the others. Until then they had always been quite open with each other
about their comings and goings, but Patsy took to disappearing for a
whole day at a time, giving no reason when he came home at night for
his long absence. Mick and Jane asked him one day where he went so
often by himself, but his answer only made them more curious. "If I
telled ye," he said, "ye'd all come, an' that'd spoil it."

About a week after this Lull took them into town, eight miles away, on
a shopping expedition. Jane and Patsy were on one side of the car.
Jane noticed that s