A very old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a bird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel? covered isle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet? faced boy of seventeen years sat by his side, watg the swallows dipping for flies iill water. The old man was dressed in threadbare blue velvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue cap, and had about his neck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two, and half hidden by trees, was a little monastery. It had been burned down a long while before by sacrilegious men of the Queens party, but had been roofed anew with rushes by the boy, that the old man might find shelter in his last days. He had not set his spade, however, into the garden about it, and the lilies and the roses of the monks had spread out until their fused luxuriancy met and mingled with the narrowing circle of the fern. Beyond the lilies and the roses the ferns were so deep that a child walking among them would be hidden from sight, even though he stood upon his toes; and beyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak trees.
Master, said the boy, this long fasting, and the labour of being after nightfall with your rod of qui wood to the beings who dwell iers and among the hazels and oak?trees, is too much for your strength. Rest from all this labour for a little, for your hand seemed more heavy upon my shoulder and your feet less steady under you to?day than I have known them. Men say that you are older than the eagles, a you will not seek the rest that belongs to age. He spoke in an eager, impulsive way, as though his heart were in the words and thoughts of the moment; and the old man answered slowly and deliberately, as though his heart were in distant days and distant deeds.
I will tell you why I have not been able to rest, he said. It is right that you should know, for you have served me faithfully these five years and more, and even with affe, taking away thereby a little of the doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise. Now, too, that the end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is at hand, it is the more needful for you to have this knowledge.
Master, do not think that I would question you. It is for me to keep the fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong, lest the wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take the heavy books from the shelves, and to lift from its er the great painted roll with the names of the Sidhe, and to possess the while an incurious and revere, fht well I know that God has made out of His abundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives, and to do these things is my wisdom.
You are afraid, said the old man, and his eyes shoh a momentary anger.
Sometimes at night, said the boy, when you are reading, with the rod of qui wood in your hand, I look out of the door and see, now a great grey man driving swine among the hazels, and now many little people in red caps who e out of the lake driving little white cows before them. I do not fear these little people so much as the grey man; for, when they e he house, they milk the cows, and they drink the frothing milk, and begin to dance; and I know there is good in the heart that loves dang; but I fear them for all that.
And I fear the tall white?armed ladies who e out of the air, and move slowly hither and thither, ing themselves with the roses or with the lilies, and shaking about their living hair, which moves, f