llicking gaiety and quaint charm
Barney gave to the tune, nor the light-hearted, irresistible chuckle
with which he rendered the last two lines, giving a snap of his whip as
accent to the long 'O':--

'O, I laughed to think what a fool I'd been;
And the fairy was laughing too!'

After he had sung it twice through, Benella took my guitar from its case
for me, and we sang it after him, again and again; so it was in happy
fashion that we at least approached Ballyrossan, where we bade Barney
O'Mara a cordial farewell, paying him four shillings over his fare,
which was cheap indeed for the song.

As we saw him vanish slowly up the road, ragged himself, the car and
harness almost ready to drop to pieces, the mare, I am sure, in the
last week of her existence, we were glad that he had his Celtic fancy to
enliven his life a bit,--that fancy which seems a providential reaction
against the cruel despotisms of fact.

Chapter XXV. The wee folk.

'There sings a bonnie linnet
Up the heather glen;
The voice has magic in it
Too sweet for mortal men!
Sing O, the blooming heather,
O, the heather glen!
Where fairest fairies gather
To lure in mortal men.'

Carrig-a-fooka Inn, near Knockma,
On the shores of Lough Corrib.

A modern Irish poet [*] says something that Francesca has quoted to Ronald
in her letter to-day, and we await from Scotland his confirmation or
denial. He accuses the Scots of having discovered the fairies to be
pagan and wicked, and of denouncing them from the pulpits, whereas Irish
priests discuss with them the state of their souls; or at least they
did, until it was decided that they had none, but would dry up like so
much bright vapour at the last day. It was more in sadness than in anger
that the priests announced this fiat; for Irish sprites and goblins do
gay, graceful, and humorous things, for the most part, tricksy sins,
not deserving annihilation, whereas Scottish fays are sometimes
malevolent,--or so says the Irish poet.

* W. B. Yeats.

This is very sad, no doubt, but it does not begin to be as sad as
having no fairies at all. There must have been a few in England in
Shakespeare's time, or he could never have written The Tempest or the
Midsummer Night's Dream; but where have they vanished?

As for us in America, I fear that we never have had any 'wee fol