LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 llAryL^ij^ <*| SL< fffijg^ck. 
 
 Class 
 
 ■ 
 
y 
 
~r 
 
OK 
 
 Passionate 
 
 Ream 
 
 By ANNA MacMANUS 
 (ETHNA CARBERY). 
 AUTHOR OF "THE 
 FOUR WINDS OF 
 EIRINN." 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
The Stories herein included appeared, for the most 
 part, in The Shan Van Vocht, The Catholic Fireside, 
 and Donahoe's Magazine. To the editors of the two 
 latter, thanks are due for permission to republish. 
 
 Copyright igoj, U. S. A. All Rights Reserved 
 

 ETHNA CARBERY. 
 
 She who wrote these stories of our people loved 
 
 them with a love that was deep and tender beyond 
 
 what words of mine could convey. When she 
 
 wrote of our people, when she spoke of our people 
 
 — her people — her eyes went wet with fondness. 
 
 Her faith in them was full, and great, and strong. 
 
 Through their noble nature Mother Eire would, she 
 
 knew, ere long rise triumphant. Hear her 
 
 words : — 
 
 " We yet shall win a gold crown for your head, 
 Strong wine to make a royal feast — the white wine and the red 
 And in your oaken mcthcr the yellow mead shall flow 
 What day you rise, in all men's eyes a Queen, 
 Mo Chraoibhin Cno ! 
 
 4 The silver speech our fathers knew shall once again be heard ; 
 The firelit story ', crooning song, sweeter than lilt of bird; 
 Your quicken tree shall break in flower, its ruddy fruit shall glow, 
 When your splendid Sun shall ride the skies again, 
 Mo Chraoibhin Cno ! " 
 
 To this glorious Day of the Gael Ethna Carbery 
 
 looked forward eagerly, longingly, lovingly; and of 
 
 it she never ceased to sing. 
 
 'Long is ojir hunger for your voice, the Hour is drawing near — 
 Oh, Dark Rose of our passion — call, and our hearts shall hear ! " 
 
 235564 
 
If any sacrifice on her part — even that of her 
 bright and buoyant life itself — could have hastened 
 the Hour j the sacrifice would, by her, have been 
 accounted the crowning happiness of a life already 
 happy beyond the ordinary. 
 
 Little dreamt she that ere the glory burst upon 
 Erinn, God should have taken her to watch for it 
 fro7n His footstool. Yet, now that the grass is 
 green above her grave in Donegal, the friends 
 who knew her — who knew her unending work for 
 our land, and who knew the passio?iate love of 
 country that consumed her — can stand by that little 
 mound and say from their hearts: There lies one 
 iv ho gave her young life to Ireland. 
 
 Seumas MacManus. 
 
 Donegal, April, 1903. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ♦:^ 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Passionate Hearts of Inisgloir ii 
 
 The Men of the Music ... ... 45 
 
 The Wee Gray Woman ... ... 61 
 
 The Singing Women of Tory ... 73 
 
 Sorcha Ruadh's Troubles ... ... 93 
 
 By the Misty Burn ... ... ... 109 
 
Ok Passionate Ream of 
 
 Inisaloir* 
 
The Passionate Hearts of Inisgloir. 
 
 T A 7" HEN John Gilchrist resolved to spend his 
 ▼ V summer holidays upon Inisgloir in quest of 
 Gaelic folk-songs, his friend, Finian Lynch, 
 heard of the project with hearty approval. 
 
 "Go by all means," he wrote, "and I warrant you'll find 
 no more charming seanachie than Brighid Ni Bhriain. 
 She has all the old ranns and stories of the place off by 
 heart; and tells them very sweetly, too. Besides, she is 
 very beautiful. But you are not to fall in love with her, 
 mind, or try to make her fall in love with you, for she is 
 bespoke already, and Peadar Ban would make short work 
 of you if it came to blows. His handshake, when you 
 meet him, will convince you of that/' 
 
 So Gilchrist landed one July afternoon from the cur- 
 rach that had conveyed him across the mile of rocky sea, 
 where the steamer dare not venture. He clambered up 
 the bare terraces of limestone to the house of Dara Ua 
 Brian — the father of B rigid — with whom he was to take 
 up his abode during his stay on the island. The cottage 
 stood on a high green plateau that seemed strangely out 
 of keeping with its dull surroundings, for Inisgloir was — ■ 
 save for a few of these isolated fertile spots — a long, wide 
 stretch of grey storm-swept level stone, intersected here 
 and there with deep natural clefts, in which the delicate 
 maiden-hair and the rock-violet grew fearlessly. Gil- 
 christ had to venture over many of these chasms on his 
 way up from the beach, and it was with a sign of satis- 
 
12 ' '■' « .' TB&; PASSIONATE HEAKTS. 
 
 faction , tlii'-t li3; dropped .' his heavy valise on Dara's 
 threshold, and straightened himself to wipe his damp 
 brow. 
 
 " God save all here/' he said in Gaelic, leaning one 
 hand on the lintel and peering into the dark interior, 
 darker to his eyes after the white blinding glare of the 
 sun. 
 
 " God and Mary save you," came the response in a 
 clear vibrant voice, as a girl stepped out from the 
 shadows. Gilchrist mechanically pulled off his cap at 
 sight of her, and for a moment felt too amazed to speak. 
 But in the pleasurable thrill that flashed cnrough his 
 whole body he recognised her as the most beautiful crea- 
 ture he had ever seen. Standing there in the doorway, 
 with the strong searching beams of day full upon her, 
 and the gloom of the kitchen behind, she came upon his 
 senses like a rainbow leaping between the sword of the 
 sun and the dark army of storm-clouds in a battling sky. 
 8he was clad in the ordinary costume of the island, a 
 scarlet homespun petticoat, and bodice of dark blue, 
 while round her neck was folded a white kerchief, and on 
 her feet were the native pampooties of cow-hide. This 
 much he saw in that first glance, before his quick interest 
 became rivetted on her face under its nimbus of glorious 
 red hair. He stared boldly at it, noting its perfect 
 loveliness, with all an artist's delight : the noble breadth 
 above the brows ; the rounded beauty of the firm chin ; 
 the creamy paleness of the cheeks, contrasting so vividly 
 with the sweet red lips ; the delicate nose, slightly aquil- 
 ine, and the dark blue, almost purple eyes, which held a 
 question as they met his own. 
 
 " I am John Gilchirst," he said simply, in answer to 
 her look. 
 
 " Oh, Mac Giolla Chriost," she exclaimed pleasantly, 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 13 
 
 giving him his full name in the Gaelic, which means the 
 Son of the Servant of Christ. " Is it you that is in it? 
 Come in then, gentleman, and a hundred thousand wel- 
 comes. " 
 
 Her exclamations brought Dara, and Sibeal, his wife, 
 to the door, with outstretched hands and friendly greet- 
 ings. Gilchirst gladly took a seat in the corner of the 
 settle and the tin of foaming milk which Brigid made 
 haste to offer. 
 
 Tis the fortunate man I am," he said, contentedly, 
 turning his boyish smile from one to the other, " to meet 
 such heartiness in a strange place. I was half afraid to 
 come — indeed I was — lest I should be treated as a 
 stranger, though my friend, Lynch, assured me that I 
 would not be. It was all because you have the name of 
 being very clannish and reserved on the mainland 
 beyond." 
 
 " That may be," replied Dara thoughtfully, running 
 his fingers in a puzzled fashion through his thick grizzled 
 hair; "but have you ever heard the name they do be 
 putting on us in the other islands — the Passionate 
 Hearts? That does not sound cold and reserved, now 
 does it, Mac Giolla Chriost ? " 
 
 Gilchrist leaned forward eagerly. " The Passionate 
 Hearts! What a delightful idea. What does it mean? 
 Does it mean that you are very fierce, and dangerous, 
 and to be avoided? ' 
 
 Dara smiled and shook his head ; but Brigid stopped 
 in her work of piling fresh turf on the fire to answer. 
 
 "Ah, no, gentleman" — her voice was full of a sweet 
 gravity — " not now. It may have been so in the far-off 
 times ; but now we live in peace with all." 
 
 " The Passionate Hearts," Gilchrist repeated the name 
 musingly, when Sibeal had ru^ved out of ear-shot, and 
 
14 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 Dara had gone to bring water from the well. " The 
 Passionate Hearts. It may mean that if you are no 
 longer dangerous in war you may be dangerous in peace." 
 
 Brigid paused. " How might that be, Mac Giolla 
 Chriost?" 
 
 " Why in friendship — in love, for instance." 
 
 She lifted her dreamy eyes and gazed at him doubt- 
 fully. There was no sign of amusement on his counten- 
 ance, and she believed he spoke in all seriousness. She 
 knit her brows perplexed. 
 
 " I do not know." She spoke shyly, as if ashamed of 
 her own ignorance. " I never heard that meaning given. 
 Yet it may be so ? " and a sudden deep blush crept up 
 from her neck to the golden glory of her hair. 
 
 Gilchrist soon made himself quite at home on the 
 island. He became free of every house from end to end 
 of it. Sometimes he might be found seated beside an old 
 woman at her knitting, tossing the ball of wool idly from 
 one hand to another, while she crooned for him the 
 peasant ballads he loved ; or perhaps it would be by a 
 child's cradle, taking down from the mother's lips as she 
 rocked, the sweet hushful lullaby with its swaying re- 
 frain. At Eamon's Corner, when the fisher-folk fore- 
 gathered in the evenings, he heard tale after tale of the 
 marvellous part of Eri, of giants, of wild witch-women, 
 of the sea-people who dwell beneath the blue waves, and 
 of the sidhe— the fairies — hidden away in Us or in the 
 heart of the lonely green hills. He heard, too, songs of 
 battle, of love, of hate, songs which saddened or thrilled 
 him as the theme changed with the mood of the singer, 
 until his blood surged hotly, and he felt that those sing- 
 ing voices were so many cruel instruments tearing away 
 the shrouding veil of his desires. From Dara, out fishing 
 in his currach, he learnt the names and habits of the fish 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 15 
 
 darting like swift streaks of silver in the transparent 
 depths. lie would sit for hours watching him angle for 
 the timid rock-fish, which is so delicate in flavour, and 
 whose wonderfully speckled body has the blue-green 
 sheen of a spear. He joined, too, in the pursuit of the 
 sun-fish — liabhan greine, the natives call it — and when 
 the elusive bright body disappeared into a whirl of shel- 
 tering foam, he invariably breathed a sigh of relief, for 
 he hated physical pain, and loathed to see the tortured 
 fish dragging behind the currach. Only for the thought 
 of those cruel hooks he would have taken more 
 pleasure in the fishermen, they were so calm and serious, 
 and he could dream to his heart's content swayed in the 
 brown boat on a softly wrinkling sea. He did not relish 
 so much his experience as a cragsman, when he followed 
 Peadar Ban at night down the beetling cliffs to the 
 ledges where the puffin and gannet, and scarlet-beaked 
 chough, lay in slumber, and while the islander tied the 
 legs of the sleeping birds, his own brain grew dizzy in the 
 starlight dark, so that he would have fallen but for 
 Peadar Ban's strong arm, which went round him in 
 answer to his cry,- and dragged him to safety. There- 
 after he preferred to study ornithology from a less peril- 
 ous point of view. 
 
 With the island-women specially he quickly became a 
 favourite. What mother's heart would not warm to him 
 when he stooped so gently to kiss the child in her arms, 
 praising its infant beauty, and whispering ' God bless 
 it," to keep the evil spirits afar. He knew by instinct 
 the direct way to a woman's good graces. Young as he 
 v. as he had had experience, and the knowledge gained in 
 the world he carried with him to the quiet island. In 
 the world that audacious masterful air, with its unex- 
 pected phases of tenderness — which he could no more 
 
16 THE PASSIONATE HEAKTS. 
 
 help than he could help breathing — was his most potent 
 weapon with all the different women he wished to im- 
 press. The elder women forgave it as the affectation of a 
 spoilt boy, and indulgently burned their motherly in- 
 cense at the shrine of his youthful vanity. To the young 
 girls his talk and manners carried the conviction that he 
 had gone through much ; they had a vague idea, from his 
 occasional penitent poses, that his wild days had been 
 wild days indeed, and because of this, even in their flip- 
 pant moods, they accorded a respectful attention to his 
 opinions. Some women look with a certain terrified 
 interest at a brand snatched from the burning. And 
 Gilchrist was a very attractive brand. As a conversa- 
 tionalist, a storv-teller, a debater, he was unsurpassed. 
 Then his eyes would flash— those indolent dark eyes — 
 and his whole slight frame quiver with the feeling that 
 failed to express itself in his most eloquent sentences. 
 When he lounged by some homely hearthside, narrating 
 tales of past heroism, and mournfully bewailing the lack 
 of heroes in the less spiritually-inclined to-day, he gener- 
 ally left his listeners under the impression, skilfully con- 
 veyed, that at least one man had inherited the bygone 
 intellect and bravery and grandeur of character, 
 although, so far, those gifts of the gods had not been 
 stirred to the surface by opportunity. 
 
 These were his best moments. At other times he was 
 a different being. He honestly meant to be true to the 
 better part. Now and again he felt exalted and noble 
 enough to die for a great cause; but in the revulsion he 
 might as readily betray it. The forces of good and evil, 
 which in some souls fight half-heartedly, in his waged 
 battle all day long and with all their power. Often he 
 would give way to an impulse of passionate praying, and 
 rise from his knees to seek his boon companions, in whose 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 17 
 
 excesses he would be the most boisterous and the most 
 daring. Yet, withal, even those who knew him best, and 
 realised his failings, bestowed upon him their pity rather 
 than their blame. 
 
 To Brighid Ni Bhriain the coming of Gilchirst to Inis- 
 gloir was as the advent of a light into a black desolation. 
 Life, the gray quiet life she had endured without deem- 
 ing it endurance, was now a realm of radiance, full of 
 warm colour, of sweet sounds, of unutterable joyousness. 
 She had not hitherto imagined that the hard work-a-day 
 earth could so swiftly become a kingdom of enchantment, 
 and solely because of one passing guest. All thought of 
 Peadar Ban and his faithful love slipped away into the 
 background of her memory. She felt like a dream 
 moving through a dream, in which the thin sallow face of 
 the newcomer was ever before her, and the echoing halls 
 of her fancy were filled with the music of his voice. Her 
 sympathies grew to quiver under his moods, so that she 
 became dull or gay as he was either of these. When she 
 sang him the ballads he had come in quest of, she knew it 
 was her soul going forth to meet his on eveiy wave of the 
 sad exquisite music. The idea never entered her mind 
 that he had set the snare of his experience to draw her 
 heart out of her — to bruise or break. Even had she 
 known that this was so, she would have loved him just 
 the same, for her nature was such that its surrender to 
 its first strong passion must necessarily be complete. She 
 could not understand half measures in a case of life and 
 death, and the love of Gilchrist meant the life or death 
 of her happiness. One old song, Oganaigh an Chuil 
 Cheangailte (Ringleted Youth of My Love), which was 
 among his favourites, and which she never tired of sing- 
 ing, had a verse that seemed to her the personification of 
 her own fancies concerning him. In the Gaelic it is many 
 
 B 
 
18 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 times more melodious and more passionate than in this 
 cold speech of the Sassanach : — 
 
 " I thought, O my love, you were so — 
 
 As the moon is, or sun on a fountain, 
 And I thought after that you were snow, 
 
 The cold snow on top of a mountain ; 
 And I thought after that you were more 
 
 Like God's lamp shining to find me, 
 Or the bright Star of Knowledge before 
 
 And the Star of Knowledge behind me." 
 
 The discovery that Brigid had shed her love like soft 
 rose petals about him caused Gilchrist little surprise. 
 Sometimes, it is true, his conscience troubled him, as he 
 remembered the girl he had left behind with his kiss 
 upon her lips — the girl to whom he had given his word, 
 and whose fortune was to make his future. But then, 
 " She will never know," his worst self whispered. " She 
 is far away, and she is too wise to trouble her sensible 
 head with doubts." 
 
 And with this assurance he lulled the unruly accusing 
 voice to rest. 
 
 The superb unconsciousness of Peadar Ban gave aD 
 impetus to his pursuit of Brigid. The young islander 
 was proud to see his handsome girl so admired by the 
 gentleman stranger, and it awakened no jealousy in him 
 to find her time occupied by Gilchrist. It was no new 
 thing for visitors to the island to seek her company on 
 their wanderings over it; she knew more of its history 
 than any of the other young people, and had all the old 
 ranns to give for the asking. Even in Sibeal's motherly 
 heart there was not a shade of suspicion, and Dara's keen 
 eyes were never keen, but soft and lovingly blind, when 
 he looked upon his daughter. 
 
THE PAS8I0NATE n i:a i;i - . 1 '.) 
 
 Under their unseeing contentment Gilchrist wove the 
 network of his snares around Brigid. He had many 
 ways of torturing her, now that he had grown certain of 
 her love. Once he told her how he had permitted a man 
 who had been his enemy to do a wrong deed, when a 
 word from him would ha»ve prevented the doing. He 
 told the story graphically, not sparing himself, solely for 
 the pleasure of seeing the shocked misery on her face. 
 She had a strange faculty of experiencing sensations in 
 colours on her mental vision, and as he confessed this 
 fault, lying back carelessly in his chair, she saw his words 
 dancing before her mind in a fiery line ot scarlet — the 
 colour of shame. Yet, when he had ended, and turned 
 an interrogative glance on her, he met only the piteous 
 loving appeal of her blue tear-wet eyes. She would not 
 believe his own accusations of himself, and sorrowfully 
 wrought upon him, until to soothe her he took her into 
 his arms and denied the truth. 
 
 For days at a time she walked en the borderland of 
 paradise — he was so tender, so devoted. " My Passionate 
 Heart," he called her, playfully taxing her with keeping 
 the true meaning of the name a secret. 
 
 " Some day I shall waken to find out what it means, 
 and what lies behind your gentle smile, my Brigid, and 
 the discovery may be a calamitous one for me : " at which 
 Brigid would shake her bright head gaily to reassure 
 him. She was a radiant beam of happiness under the 
 sweet words of his love. 
 
 Then his tactics would change, and for days he would 
 treat her with icy formality, avoiding the wistful ques- 
 tioning of her eyes. To Brigid this was the flaming 
 sword of the angel at the gate. Often he carried his 
 cruelty so far as to ignore the dainties she had made 
 specially because he had hinted a desire for them, and 
 
20 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 tax both his teeth and his patience to the utmost over 
 the tough bread that was the acme of Sibeal's culinary 
 skill. Brigid would lie awake at night, weeping, praying, 
 tossing from side to side in an agonised wonder as to 
 what her fault had been, to rise unrested with swollen 
 eyes and pallid cheeks in the dawn. When he saw her 
 thus he felt gratified enough to alter his humour, 
 and perhaps the first sign of relenting would be his deli- 
 berate soft touch upon her hand, as she moved the things 
 to and fro upon the table. Then their eyes would meet, 
 and on poor Brigid's side all would be forgiven. 
 
 One day of days — the most blissful perhaps of all that 
 wonderful time — she went across with Gilchrist in 
 Peadar Ban's currach to the south island. Gilchrist, in 
 his usual fashion, fell a-dreaming to the rise and fall of 
 the waves. He could watch Brigid where she sat erect 
 and slender in the stern, and he thought of her tenderly 
 as his glance followed the steady sweep of the oars. 
 Peadar Ban was a fine rower for sure ; see how carefully 
 he could steer the boat in and out the snares of those 
 twisting white foam wreaths. It was curious how in- 
 different Peadar was to Brigid's charms. He could never 
 have loved her really or he would have been jealous 
 many times of late. But then these islanders did not 
 make any visible pretence of love in their matches ; they 
 rarely embraced one another; they seemed more en- 
 grossed in the practical consideration of providing for 
 the future, and there was an unwritten law forbidding 
 even the most trifling improvidence in the case of a 
 young man seeking a wife ; in fact no one of them would 
 venture to ask a girl except he had his home ready for 
 her coming. Engagements, such as were the custom of 
 the outer world, were unknown amongst them. " ' The 
 Passionate Hearts ! ' Where does the passion come in, 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 21 
 
 I wonder?' Gilchrist almost laughed aloud at thij 
 stage of his musings. Suddenly he caught sight of a 
 name on the side of the currach, and leant over to read 
 it. The spray beat up against it, so that he spelt out the 
 letters with some difficulty. 
 
 " Brigid ! " he exclaimed. 
 ' Brigid/ yes. That is the name she has for sure, 
 Mac Giolla Chriost," said Peadar Ban, meeting his look. 
 The dearest name in the world, it is then," said Gil- 
 christ. " My favourite name." 
 
 Brigid blushed happily. " It was the name Peadar 
 put on it long ago, oh ! so long ago, Mac Giolla Chriost — 
 when we were but children," she hastened to add, noting: 
 a shade akin to displeasure on the other's face 
 
 Peadar turned round to her at the words, his strong 
 countenance suffused with feeling. 
 
 ' Children, or man and woman, it is always the same, 
 Brigid. And you know it, pulse of my heart." And 
 then he bent again to his oars. 
 
 Gilchrist stirred restlessly in a whirl of emotion. The 
 peace of mind was gone. That unexpected remark of 
 the young islander had been a revelation to him. It en- 
 raged him ; it offended his refined susceptibilities ; it 
 fanned his vanity, and augmented his desire. 
 
 " I shall not let him win her," lie stormed inwardly. 
 1 She is mine. She must be mine." Then he reflected 
 that there might easily be worse situations than existence 
 with Brigid on Inisgloir. What if he determined there 
 and then to make her his wife, and begin a new life with 
 her on the lonely little world of rocks. Would his way- 
 ward disposition settle down to the level of these serious 
 fisher-folk— he never asked himself if it could rise to 
 their heights — and while his children grew up around 
 him, would the monotonous slow-passing hours bring him 
 
22 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 no regrets? He pondered long over the question, until 
 in the stress of answering it he forgot where he was, for- 
 got sea, and lowering sky, and the heaving boat. A 
 heavy rain-drop splashing on his cheek recalled him to 
 actualities. He sat upright with a start and crushed the 
 hateful question into the far recesses of his brain, much 
 as a murderous hand might press a drowning head 
 deeper into the clutch of engulfing billows. 
 
 That night he spent several hours writing a letter. It 
 was to his fiancee, and he purposely made it a very amus- 
 ing letter — full of details and island gossip, for she en- 
 joyed trivialities. Her name given at the baptismal font 
 was Brigid, but it had been refined into Bedelia during 
 her school-days at a fashionable convent. Gilchrist made 
 a jest of the absurd exchange, and called her Brigid not- 
 withstanding her protests. He now smiled grimly to 
 himself as he wrote the objectionable name. 
 
 " To-day I was out with a young fisherman for a row 
 to another of the islands. He was the owner of our cur- 
 rach, and guess what he had called it? But you will 
 never guess. ' Brigid,' no less. Yes, indeed, your dear 
 name. I spoke my thoughts aloud, forgetting. ' That 
 is my favourite name,' I said, ' the name I love best in all 
 the world.' There was a girl in the currach with us — an 
 islander — going across for something or other. She 
 blushed at my involuntary speech. It appears her name 
 i3 also Brigid, and she concluded I was paying her an in- 
 direct compliment. Poor silly creature ! She did not 
 understand that there was only one Brigid in the universe 
 for me." 
 
 He nodded his head knowingly to himself, and his 
 smile deepened. 
 
 ' That will both gratify and pique her " ; he mused, 
 1 my lady has more than a fair share of the vanity and 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 23 
 
 curiosity of her sex. Kow curious she will be." Then 
 he laughed outright, sealed the letter with a heavy blow 
 of his hand, and blew a kiss on his fingers gaily in the 
 direction of an imaginary Bedelia. 
 
 Although the mellow haze of autumn had come to veil 
 the grave of the dead summer, John Gilchrist still ling- 
 ered upon Inisgloir. Somehow he could not comfortably 
 face the idea of his departure. He was reasonably happy 
 — the present contented him, the future — well, why cross 
 one's bridges until necessity decrees. So he dallied with 
 the soft, warm wind of Brigid's adoration, and preened 
 his vanity on the pedestal where she had elevated him. 
 Occasionally he almost convinced himself that he was all 
 she believed. If anything could have had the power to 
 make him the ideal she fancied him, it was the fidelity of 
 her blind devotion ; but — and here the truth stung him 
 — the daily endeavour to appear at his best was well-nigh 
 more than he could bear. At times he did not know 
 whether to curse her transparent tenderness, or his own 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 It was when he was in this wavering frame of mind 
 that one morning the mail brought him a letter which 
 caused him to knit his brows and bite his moustache in a 
 manner he had when troubled. Brigid saw this with 
 beating heart, and, as he brooded over the closely-written 
 sheets, she went about her household duties in a fever of 
 anxiety. When at last he lifted his gaze to hers, as he 
 rose to go out she knew intuitively that her fears were 
 well founded. He was going away. 
 
 There was a quiet rock-sheltered cove, on the western 
 side of the island, where Gilchrist often went to read and 
 arrange the ballads he had collected. As he sat there 
 now, staring blindly at a brassy sea, he heard Brigid's 
 
24: THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 light step bounding from boulder to boulder. He stood 
 up as she came near and took her into his arms. 
 
 " You have hurried, my share of the world," he said, 
 striking her flushed cheeks tenderly. 
 
 ' There is always hurry on me, Mac Giolla Chriost, 
 when you are needing me." 
 
 " And I need you now Brigid, a mhuirnin (my darling), 
 for I have had unwelcome news." 
 
 ' I know it, Mac Giolla Chriost. You are going 
 away." 
 
 She tightened the clasp of her arms about him, and 
 threw back her ruddy head so that she could look into 
 his eyes. 
 
 " You are going away, Mac Giolla Chriost — that is the 
 news you have for me. I know it : I have felt it coming : 
 I have seen its evil shadow in my dreams. You are 
 going back to your own world, and you will kiss me now 
 and promise to return. But will yo return, Mac Giolla 
 Chriost? Answer me that — answer me." 
 
 She spoke in a quiet repressed way that startled him. 
 He had bargained for tears and recriminations ; but not 
 for this subdued vehemence. He replied soothingly : 
 
 " I shall come back, girl of my heart ; never doubt but 
 I shall come back, and maybe sooner than you think. I 
 do not want to go ; but my work at home is being left 
 undone while I am here, and the fascination of your tales 
 and songs can hardly make an excuse for me. And you 
 would not have me termed an idler, now would you, 
 Brigid, my dear? " 
 
 He did not tell her that the letter was from the other 
 woman — and that the orders for his return were peremp- 
 tory ; couched in the tone of one who already anticipated 
 a wife's privileges. In that instant his heart fluctuated 
 in a choice between the gold of Bedelia's coffers, and the 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 25 
 
 living gold of Brigid's wind-blown hair. He sighed, 
 even as his heart set the two in the balance, remembering 
 how unequal the comparison was, and that his bonds 
 were too securely wound about him by his own act for a 
 loophole of escape. Brigicl watched him with the hungry 
 intentness of one who sees a hope trembling on unfolding 
 wings. 
 
 " Now would you, Brigid," he repeated. 
 
 She unloosed her clasp then, and lifted his hands to her 
 bosom, crushing them against her warm young body in a 
 strong, fierce pressure. 
 
 " There," she said, ' it is my heart you feel, Mac 
 Giolla Chriost, and it is yours, all yours, yours and none 
 other's. If you do not come back it will break, it will 
 consume of its own fire — it will be drowned in a sea of 
 sorrow. But you will come back. Swear it : swear it 
 before Christ and Mary and our Blessed Enda — swear 
 that you will not leave my heart to break or burn or 
 drown." 
 
 " My poor, sweet, frightened love," he cried, drawing 
 her close until her pale cheek touched his own. Have no 
 fear. I swear it. I shall come back. You will find 
 me coming, perhaps, when you are not watching or think- 
 ing of me at all." 
 
 He smiled into her troubled eyes, and at the smile her 
 fortitude gave way. A shudder stirred her from head to 
 foot; she clung to him wildly, sobbing, lamenting. He 
 said no word further, but waited until the storm of her 
 grief ceased as abruptly as it had begun. 
 
 " When will you be going, Mac Giolla Chiiost? " she 
 asked at length, striving for control, despite the tremb- 
 ling eloquence of her lips. 
 
 ' This very day, when the steamer calls again," he 
 answered ; " give me the parting blessing now Brigid, 
 
26 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 my dear, beautiful girl. Say it bravely, and remember 
 that I shall return in a little while." 
 
 She said it bravely, as he bade her, although the re- 
 pression in her voice told how hard the effort was. 
 
 " To the White Lamb I commit you, O treasure, 
 To Mary, who turns the wheel of the stars, 
 To Brigid, that her mantle may cover you 
 In the dark, in the light, in your comings and goings. 
 To Patrick, shepherd of the fold, 
 And to Colum, the Dove of Christ's house, 
 I commit you with my prayers, my love, and my tears." 
 
 Then Gilchrist, with one last kiss, turned and left her. 
 
 It was a chance word that, shortly after Gilchrist's de- 
 parture, aroused the serpent of jealousy in Peadar Ban. 
 The men were grouped at Eamon's Corner in the Sep- 
 tember dusk for their accustomed gossip ; the glow of 
 their pipes made small points of light in the gloom ; 
 their voluble Gaelic speech flowed in a stream of friendly 
 argument over this and that. Only Barty Dall, Blind 
 Barty, the fiddler, sat silent, contrary to his usual wont. 
 
 " Now, why is there no talk from you, Barty ? " quer- 
 ied Ulic Mor, a big brown cattle-dealer from the South 
 Island. " What are you thinking of? " 
 
 " It is of a woman I am thinking," replied the blind 
 man. 
 
 " Like enough ! ' Their deep laughter rang out sud- 
 denly, but there was no answering smile on Barty's old 
 white face. 
 
 " Yes, of a woman," he repeated. " It is sad to hear 
 the young go past with lagging footsteps and a sigh. 
 Brighid Ni Bhriain went by to-day slowly, and I heard 
 the dropping of her tears. There has been no gladness 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 27 
 
 in her heart since the strange gentleman, Mac Giolla 
 Chriost, wont from Inisgloir." 
 
 Every eye fastened in consternation upon Peadar Ban. 
 He was gazing at the old man, petrified, his hands 
 clenched, his teeth set. Then he turned his bewildered 
 face to the watchers. They looked at him blankly, with- 
 out a word. 
 
 "There is no truth in it," he said, stupidly. The re- 
 mark was half an interrogation. No one answered. 
 
 " There is no truth in it," he continued, in a strangled 
 voice, rising and clutching at his throat with one hand. 
 " No truth in it at all, God, He sees. He shook the 
 other hand at the star-flecked sky in denial to God and 
 man. What was this sudden disaster — did he dream, 
 was he awake at all ? The silence of his comrades gave 
 him the feeling of being alone in space, cut adrift from 
 love and hope and the warm clasp of friendship. Dazed 
 and ashamed to the heart, he stood searching their 
 dimly-seen faces for some sign that the ominous sentences 
 had rung only in his imagination. Still tho silence re- 
 mained unbroken, save for the long-drawn wail of belated 
 sea-birds faring homeward, and the ceaseless bcom of the 
 now darkening breakers against the clifTs. " Oh God ! ' 
 he cried frantically and abruptly, " Oh God ! " Then, 
 throwing a farewell gesture round the staring circle, he 
 hurriedly disappeared into the shadows. 
 
 lie went straight to Brigid. When he left her the 
 blight of a love thrust back upon itself lay ovei him, and 
 his heart quivered — a tortured thing — in a furnace of 
 pain. 
 
 Work. That was the panacea heaven had generously 
 granted him for his misery. He sent his earnest gratitude 
 up night and morning to the King of Glory for the bless- 
 ing of a strong untiring body, which knew not fatigue. 
 
28 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 The fishing prospered more than ever with him, and his 
 little bit of land bore evidence of his unceasing industry. 
 A whisper went round the island that Peadar Ban must 
 surely be making ready for a wife. The name of Brighid 
 Ni Bhriain was never mentioned now in connection with 
 him — but what other girl could it be? That was the 
 puzzle. He had sat as a suitor at no other man's hearth 
 during the winter months, nor had he left the island to 
 seek a stranger. The handsomest of all the young men 
 of Inisgloir, and the best-gathered. Surely he did not 
 mean to live and die a bachelor ? 
 
 Meanwhile, the object of their speculations, toiling 
 strenuously to lull torturing memories, was not blind to 
 the change taking place in Brigid. The girl had grown 
 subdued and listless ; her blue eyes gleamed hollowly out 
 of a face that had lost its lovely curves, and her lips had 
 the piteous droop of stifled sighs. Curses, the stronger 
 for being silent, wailed up in Peadar's heart against Gil- 
 christ. " Can I endure to watch her suffer — I, who 
 would give my life for her sake? What good is my 
 strength and my courage since it cannot spare her this 
 woe?" Question after question glided through his brain, 
 leaving nothing behind save a baffling sense of impo- 
 tence. He beat helplessly against the hemming walls of 
 difficulty, to retreat again and again, dejected and dis- 
 mayed. 
 
 At last a light dawned in the chaos of his mind. What 
 
 if Gilchrist had no intention of returning at any time? 
 What if he had merely given the promise to soothe 
 
 Brigid at parting ? She firmly believed he would return, 
 
 and the longing was consuming her very existence. If 
 
 he had forgotten her, or dwelt upon the recollection of 
 
 his summer at Inisgloir as a pleasant interlude in a busy 
 
 barrister's existence, would it not be possible to have the 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 29 
 
 intimation conveyed, some way or other, to the girl, that 
 she might at least learn the truth, and after a time come 
 to forget? Yet, how could the knowledge be imparted 
 to her? Gilchrist had sent neither message nor sign 
 since his departure, but the schoolmaster had his address 
 in B'la 'Cliath, and Peadar could easily obtain it. But 
 then, how was he, with his imperfect English, to write 
 down all he had to say to Mac Giolla Chriost ? He had 
 never been taught to write in the Gaelic, which was his 
 native speech, and in which his thoughts moved most 
 freely, lie could fancy the supercilious air of the other 
 when unfolding and perusing the ill-spelt, ill-written 
 appeal to his honour from his humble rival. No, no; 
 that would never do ; some other way must be found. 
 
 When the daring thought sprang into being, he shook 
 his head in horrified dissent. Oh, for sure it would not 
 be possible ! What ! go, go all the way to B'la 'Cliath 
 and ask Mac Giolla Chriost to come again to Inisgloir 
 and bring back the happy shine to Brigid's eyes, or, if 
 that could not be, to confess that he had never cared for 
 her, that he had merely amused himself, as any young 
 man of the world might, with a pretty girl. If he, 
 Peadar Ban, dared take such a liberty, how Mac Giolla 
 Chriost would smile and shrug his shoulders at a 
 peasant's ignorance of a gentleman's feelings. It would 
 be terrible to have those disdainful eyes moving slowly 
 over one from head to foot. Ah no, that way would not 
 be wise — it would do more harm than good, maybe — and 
 yet, and yet — 
 
 What other way was there but this — this desperate 
 and awkward one? And Brigid would certainly wither 
 away unless her starved heart was satisfied. Perhaps if 
 Mac Giolla Chriost heard how thin and white she had be- 
 come of late, with the blue-black shadows under her 
 
^0 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 tired eyes, he would be sorry. Yes, God and Mary might 
 touch him with pity, so that he would do this merciful 
 thing, if Peadar could only find the right words to use 
 when he pleaded Brigid's cause and his own. Surely, 
 he would not refuse to come, or if he did, and gave no 
 satisfactory explanation, well, there might be some other 
 alternative offered him less welcome than a few hours' 
 journey, or the trifling labour of writing a letter to 
 Brigid of Inisgloir. 
 
 Gilchrist turned round lazily as the door of his study 
 opened. His eyes first contracted at the sight of the 
 stranger on his threshold, then widened in astonished re- 
 cognition. He sprang to his feet with hand outstretched. 
 
 " For sure this is the great surprise, Peadar Ban." 
 He spoke in Gaelic. " What has brought you to B'la 
 'Cliath? Have you been over to sell your cattle, and 
 taken a fancy to see the city ? Well, we must give you a 
 good time now that you are here." 
 
 The islander ignored the welcoming hand. He closed 
 the door behind him and placed his back against it. 
 
 " I will be for taking none of your welcome now, Mac 
 Giolla Chriost," he said, " and maybe you will not be for 
 offering it when you hear what I am come to say." 
 
 Gilchrist stared at him. " What is wrong with you, 
 man 1 " he cried. " Come and sit down. Tell me all 
 about Inisgloir, and Dara and Sibeal — and Brigid." 
 
 " It is to tell you about Brigid that 1 am here, gentle- 
 man 1 ". 
 
 " Has anything happened her ? Is she ill ? Is she 
 dead? " The questions came hurriedly. 
 
 Peadar Ban gazed down from his great height into the 
 blanched face. 
 
 " No, she is not dead, but she will die, Mac Giolla 
 
TIIL PASSIONATE HEARTS. 31 
 
 Chriost, and her death will bo at your door unless you 
 spare her." 
 
 "IV 
 
 " Yes, you." Then, man to man, Peadar told the 
 other the cause of his coming, lie found, thanks to God 
 and Mary, whom he had invoked, the fitting words, and 
 they rushed in a torrent from his over-charged heart. 
 
 After the first start of surprise his listener did not stir, 
 but sat with downcast lids and flusned countenance. 
 When the islander had ceased, he raised his head. 
 
 " Is this all you have to say 1 " he asked quietly. 
 
 " All, Mac Giolla Chriost, except, maybe, one other 
 thing." 
 
 Gilchrist rose and walked to a bookcase at the end of 
 the room. He picked out a book at random, and stood 
 turning over the leaves with fingers that trembled. 
 
 " I have only one answer to give you, " he said, and had 
 the grace not to lift his eyes. " I cannot and will not go. 
 Your suggestion is preposterous. It is insulting. I 
 never injured the girl. I admired her beauty, without 
 doubt, and what harm is there in that? Most women 
 are willing enough to be admired." 
 
 " Brigid was never that sort, gentleman, and you know 
 it." 
 
 " She is a woman." 
 
 " Will you write to her, then, and say what you have 
 just said to me? " 
 
 " No, I shall not write." 
 
 " Then I shall be telling you the other thing. If you 
 do not come, or write, Mac Giolla Chriost, it is killing 
 you I will bo." 
 
 On Gilchrist's lips dawned the ghost of a smile as he 
 looked around the well-appointed, cheerful room, in 
 which this tragical utterance seemed so out of place, and 
 
32 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 then glanced at his visitor. But the glance assured him 
 that the threat was no idle one. Peadar still stood 
 against the door, his fair head leaned back, and the firm, 
 handsome outline of his features thrown up like a bas- 
 relief from the wine-dark polished wood. There was no 
 weakness in that face. Gilchrist tossed the book away, 
 and stood biting his moustache silently and viciously. 
 
 " It is true, Mac Giolla Chriost," repeated Peadar, 
 gravely. " I mean it." 
 
 He spread out his freckled, shapely hands. 
 
 " My God, do you know what you are saying? " cried 
 Gilchrist, turning like an animal at bay. " You would 
 kill me ? What good would that do Brigid ? And what 
 good would my going to Inisgloir do her, in any case, 
 since I am to be married within the month ? " 
 
 " Married ? " Peadar gasped the word, " married ? " 
 
 " Yes, married. Go back and break the news to 
 Brigid. She will forget me readily enough then, I 
 warrant." 
 
 The blood rushed madly into Peadar's face, dyeing it 
 from the tanned neck to the roots of his hair. " You 
 will come and tell her with your own lips," he said, 
 sternly. " She would not believe otherwise — not if all 
 the world was your messenger." 
 
 " Have done with this nonsense," Gilchrist exclaimed 
 angrily. " Am I to suffer your insolence in my own 
 house ? " 
 
 He approached the door to open it, but Peadar 
 dropped his hand quickly to the knob. 
 
 "No, Mac Giolla Chriost, you must come with me; 
 or, as I have said, I will be killing you. ' 
 
 Anger, shame, helplessness, drew tears almost to Gil- 
 christ's eyes. He stood before the young islander like a 
 prisoner in the presence of a judge, seeing no avenue of 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 33 
 
 escape, but that one that was objectionable to every fibre 
 of his pride. It meant humiliation, deep and lasting, 
 and doubly painful in that a woman, who had esteemed 
 and loved him, must know him at last for the man he 
 really was. 
 
 ' It is simply ridiculous," he burst forth again vehem- 
 ently, ' this melodrama. In a story it might be all 
 right, but in real life, and with these surroundings, it is 
 laughable." The jarring nervousness of his merriment 
 brought a heavy frown to Peadars brow. 
 
 You forget, Mac Giolla Chriost, the reason of my 
 coming here; not to amuse myself, or you, but for 
 Brigid's sake." 
 
 " For Brigid's sake." Suddenly across Gilchrist's 
 memory flashed the picture of the girl as he had first be- 
 held her that summer afternoon. The purple eyes were 
 then unclouded, grief had not carved furrows on the 
 round young cheeks. Poor, beautiful Brigid. She had 
 loved him well, and he? God help him. What was this 
 pain, as of a knife sheathing in his heart? Had she 
 been able to wound him after all? — else why should he 
 dread the scorn that would reward the stoiy he must tell 
 her — although he had blindly imagined that his wary 
 wings had kept safely beyond the reach of the flame. He 
 had cared for her — he could not deny it — and out of pity 
 — nay, was not pity akin to love ? — he would go and see 
 her idol of him shattered at his feet. He was not afraid 
 of those brawny arms of Peadar Ban — even were they 
 around his throat — there was something worse than such 
 a death ; it was to see love and trust killed in another's 
 soul. The shudder and chill that ran through him at 
 the thought were an actual agony. It was his better self 
 in the ascendant once more. That instant he made up 
 his mind to go through the ordeal without flinching. 
 
34 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 " When did you intend returning ? " he inquired in a 
 low voice, covering his face with one hand wearily. 
 
 " By the night train," answered Peadar. "It is six 
 o'clock the steamer will be leaving : at the turn of the 
 tide." 
 
 " Then we have little time to spare," replied Gilchrist. 
 He went into his bedroom and came out again, bearing 
 a small travelling bag. 
 
 " I want to say," he began abruptly, " that I am not 
 taking this step through, fear of your threats. . I am 
 going for — well, call it justice's sake, and because — be- 
 cause — Oh, man, I know now why you are called the 
 Passionate Hearts ! It is a true name. You are deadly 
 ■ — jevery one of you — for all your calm and kindly ways. 
 Brigid, too — she will never forgive me; I feel it. It is 
 she I fear — not you. I have gone through worse than 
 death since you entered this room, through shame, and 
 regret, and bitter humiliation. And now I go to greater 
 abasement — perhaps, God knows — to the end of all 
 things. The Passionate Hearts! Oh why, in my fool- 
 ishness, did I play with leaping fire ? 
 
 When Brigid saw him entering the doorway once 
 again, she rose from her chair, and stood grasping it 
 tightly, for her limbs had grown weak, and were like to 
 fail her. Sibeal's shrill volley of welcome rang in her 
 ears without meaning, and she could not comprehend the 
 greetings uttered in her father's deep accents. Oh, 
 something wonderful had occurred, something that made 
 her heart bound and grow glad as in the old days. What 
 was it? Who was speaking now? Surely that was a 
 dear and long-desired voice? She was beginning to 
 comprehend at last. 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 35 
 
 It was Gilchrist who was speaking. He had seated 
 himself in the familiar settle-corner, and was lighting a 
 cigar, just as she had seen him doing many and many a 
 time before. 
 
 " Yes," he was saying. " I met Peadar Ban beyond 
 there unexpectedly, and thought I would take advantage 
 of the opportunity to see you all before I became tied 
 down for life." He smiled significantly, took out his 
 cigar, and scrutinised the lighted point. 
 
 " Tied down for life," echoed Sibeal. " Now, Mac 
 Giolla Chriost, what may that mean ? " 
 
 " It means that I am nearing my marriage day, and I 
 came across to hear you put the good wish on me, O 
 woman of the house ! " 
 
 '* Listen to that now ! " Husband and wife laughed 
 sympathetically, turning to each other. " It is a wife he 
 is going to take." 
 
 Yes, a wife, Sibeal, no less. It is an old story now. 
 She is a rich girl and handsome, and 1 may tell you it is 
 she who was the impatient woman because I spent so 
 much of the summer away from her on Inisgloir. But I 
 was so enchanted with your island, and its charming 
 legends and songs, that I really think " — his attempt at 
 facetiousness was a miserable failure — " 1 would have 
 been here yet only for the letter she sent me that last 
 day, ordering — yes,ordering — my return at once. It was 
 her right, you see — and I obeyed, as I should ' 
 
 " Well, Mac Giolla Chriost, that is what happens to 
 most of us, and I put the good wish upon you from my 
 heart," said Dara, almost crushing the young man's hand 
 in his. 
 
 " And I put the good wish on you, too, gentleman," 
 said motherly Sibeal, her pleasant rosy face beaming 
 with interest at the news, " that the King of Glory may 
 
36 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 shower blessings aiid prosperity on your life and hers, 
 and make your path easy to heaven. ;; 
 
 " Is there no good wish for me with you, Brigid ? ' 
 
 She opened her lips to speak, but no sound issued. Her 
 eyes glittered, and on her cheeks two bright red spots 
 burned feverishly. 
 
 " Ah, then, Brigid, am I to go away without the wish 
 from you ? " 
 
 All at once some vital force seemed to become galvan- 
 ised into action in her rigid body. She took a step 
 nearer him, glowing with life from head to foot, radiant, 
 beautiful as he had never seen her even in her most beau- 
 tiful moments. 
 
 " Yes, Mac Giolla Chriost," her voice vibrated through 
 the kitchen, clear, strong, relentless, " I put the good 
 wish on you — that the woman who will be your wife shall 
 ever know you for the man you are." 
 
 As Gilchrist turned to go from her scornful eyes, and 
 Peadars stern aloofness, his stripjDed soul shivered. The 
 time might come when the recollection of this night's 
 virtue would be its own reward, but now, as he stepped 
 down from the pillory of self-condemnation, the virtue of 
 his action was the last thing he thought of. He only 
 knew that the world was cold and lonely, and that he 
 was like a solitary reed shaken too cruelly by the wind of 
 his destiny. 
 
 On a night in the early winter, some months after 
 Brigid's marriage to Peadar Ban, a fierce gale arose — 
 the fiercest that had been known in the island for many 
 years. All day the sun had hung low, blood-red, and 
 awesome, with wisps of clouds floating away from it like 
 torn fires. It was an unmistakeable sign of coming 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 37 
 
 danger, and the islanders, seeing it, one and all crossed 
 themselves piously, " May God put his girdle of safety 
 round all wanderers on the ocean," they prayed softly. 
 
 The dark hours, full of wild sounds of sea and wind, 
 passed over them without sleep. Accustomed as they 
 were to violent storms, through which they lay undis- 
 turbed and dreamless, on this occasion some premonition 
 of disaster kept them awake, except the very young, who 
 knew not fear. 
 
 It was near the breaking of dawn when a shrill whistle 
 sounded above the storm. 
 
 "■ A steamer ! She has struck on Carrigdubh ! " was 
 the cry that went from mouth to mouth. Then every 
 man made ready to do his part, if needful. They came 
 together on the western shore, where the shrill appeal 
 rang clearest, peering seaward into the blackness through 
 the lashing spray. 
 
 " It is on Carrigdubh she is for sure," said one. " She 
 must be the big steamer from Deny gone out of her 
 course. There will be hundreds on board ; and maybe 
 drowning, with no one to help. Who will got The risk 
 is great, but " 
 
 " I will go," said Peadar Ban. Other voices gave the 
 same response, and speedily into the restless, mad whirl 
 of foam the currachs were launched. The watching 
 women on the beach made no lamentations as they saw 
 them depart; they were the wives and daughters of 
 fishermen, and knew full well what meant the summons 
 of the sea. 
 
 Peadar moved off, straining every muscle against the 
 shore-sweep of the blast. He was alone in his boat, for 
 ahusre wave had lifted it out of reach before his comraoV 
 could leap aboard. He could perceive nothing in the 
 obscurity; but the insistent scream of the whistle rang 
 
38 THE PASSIONATE HEAETS. 
 
 out on his left, and lie headed towards the sound. After 
 a time he heard what seemed the beating of the steamer's 
 screw, as it swished uselessly through the water. He 
 dared not go nearer; it would be certain death. His 
 boat was tossed hither and thither like a worthless 
 thing; the foam blinded him. He could only wait 
 there, baffling death, until the dawn came. 
 
 It came at last, in pale streaks of grayness. He could 
 see now a few yards on either side of him. A log went 
 drifting by in the trough of a wave. Something else rose 
 on the crest of the following one, was it, too, a log? He 
 shipped his oars, put out his hand as it went by, and 
 caught it. Another hand clutched his tightly. 
 
 " He is alive ! " Peadar's heart gave a big leap as he 
 drew the drowning body nearer. He reached over and 
 slipped his disengaged arm under that of the other, care- 
 fully balancing the currach by thrusting his feet wide 
 apart. He had almost dragged his burden over the side 
 before he saw the face, half-veiled by its dripping hair. 
 He bent closer, for an instant, in horrified recognition ; 
 then withdrew his arms with a cry. 
 
 " Mac Giolla Chriost ! " 
 
 The other had grasped the side as Peadar loosed his 
 grip, and clung there, swaying helplessly in the rush of 
 hurrying waves. The white crests jerked him upward 
 with the currach, beat the breath almost out of him, tore 
 at those desperate fingers holding to life. Every second 
 it seemed as if he must disappear into a great, unending 
 gulf. Peadar watched him broodingly; his whole mind 
 in a tumult of indecision. Here was his enemy, the man 
 who had stolen Brigid's heart from him, who stood be- 
 tween them even yet. Let him drown. He could do no 
 further harm then ; he would be spindrift of the ocean, 
 endlessly sliding from peace to turbulence, from turbu- 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 39 
 
 lence to peace, in the calm world of under-waters, or on 
 the peaks of storm-whipped billows. Yes, let him drown. 
 
 The brine-scourged eyes opened and gazed at him en- 
 treatingly, then closed again tiredly. 
 
 " Where is your wife ? " cried Peadar hoarsely, bending 
 his mouth down to Gilchrist's ear. " Was she on board ?" 
 
 " No, we go different ways/' The remoteness in the 
 husky whisper hinted at death. 
 
 The islander had dropped his hands again on the 
 clinging hands. Would he obey his first revengeful im- 
 pulse and deny life to this man who had wronged him? 
 He would be a murderer then, yes, that was the word. 
 How Brigid would shrink from him if she knew. She 
 had loved Gilchrist — she still loved him, foi her heart 
 had never opened to the knocking of Peadar's devotion. 
 If he brought Gilchrist to her safely would the sad, un- 
 familiar Brigid disappear, and the song return to her 
 lips? Gilchrist had once done a good deed — a hard 
 thing in the doing — for Brigid's sake. Could, or would 
 he, too, overcome this temptation — for the same dear 
 sake? 
 
 With great difficulty, straining his strength to the ut- 
 most, he drew the limp form into the boat. Gilchrist 
 was almost unconscious by this time, and lay huddled up 
 where Peadar had placed him. A thick rope, to which 
 usually the clock chuadhai — the anchor — was attached, 
 was coiled in the bottom of the boat, one end fastened to 
 the bow. Peadar now gave a twist of it round Gilchrist's 
 waist, tying it as tightly as he could with his benumbed 
 fingers. 
 
 1 Should we be upset that will keep him afloat," he 
 murmured, as he tried to make the position of the sense- 
 less man easier. One strong sweep of the right oar sent 
 the prow of the currach shoreward ; but, in the act of 
 
40 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 turning completely round, an enormous, unbroken wave 
 — a very wall of deadly water — struck her full on the 
 side. She filled to the brim, and keeled over, while the 
 mighty wave went on its way. 
 
 Brigid waited restlessly on the shore for the reappear- 
 ance of her husband. The cliffs rose tall and gloomy 
 behind her, each scarp darkly outlined against the lesser 
 dark of the dawning. The salt spray drenched her, the 
 fierce wind buffeted her, so that she could scarcely keep 
 her footing on the slippery rocks of the little cove where 
 she had taken her stand, away from the rest of the 
 women. This cove was where Peadar usually landed, as 
 it lay below their home, and she felt instinctively that 
 here he would strive to put in on his return. 
 
 " Oh, sorrow of sorrows ! What if he never returned ! 
 What if he went down to death not understanding — un- 
 knowing that her coldness and silence was but the an- 
 guish of an ever-present shame, because he had seen her 
 pride trodden under the feet of the man who had found 
 her but too credulous. It was shame that stilled her 
 singing — it was shame that had built this barrier of re- 
 serve between them. Oh, why had she been so senseless 
 a woman? Why had she not opened her heart to the 
 faithful heart that had chosen her for its star? " The 
 fragrance of Peadar's love lingered about her there in 
 the dark, with a sweetness that hurt her, until the tardy 
 tears obscured her vision, and she pushed back the ruddy 
 hair from her blinded eyes. 
 
 A large object, riding on a high incoming breaker, at- 
 tracted her attention. She waded into the surf, up to 
 her waist, to meet it. As it approached she saw it was 
 an upturned currach. 
 
 " Mother of Mercy, grant it be not his," she sobbed, 
 struggling with the forceful surge. Something smaller 
 
THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 41 
 
 bobbed up and down in the wake of the eurrach; some- 
 thing on which her eyes concentrated in dread. The 
 breaker crashed in upon her, and threw her back breath- 
 less on the shore among the shingle. 
 
 She rose, dazed, and crawled over to where the eurrach 
 lay, half in, half out of the w T ater. She stumbled over 
 something else hurled up among the little pools. With 
 a cry she fell upon her knees. Who were these two 
 locked in each other's arms? She bent lower, and 
 turned their faces up to the light. 
 
 " Merciful God ! " her misery rang above the shriek of 
 storm and boom of billows, as she saw what the sea had 
 swept to her feet — " Merciful God ! " 
 
 Very gently, and trembling in every limb, she un- 
 wound Peadar's arms from Gilchrist. Both were sense- 
 less, and on Peadar's forehead was a jagged cut where 
 some wreckage had struck him. Her hand groped inside 
 his vest until she found a slight stir at his heart. " He 
 has come back to me," she cried aloud, an indescribable 
 flutter of joy tingling through every nerve. 
 
 There was a slight tug at her dress, and she twisted 
 round to see Gilchrist's weak hand groping at the folds. 
 He was gazing up at her with filmy, unseeing eyes. She 
 drew her skirt away impatiently, oblivious of his neces- 
 sity, heeding or thinking of naught save tho passive 
 figure of her husband. 
 
 Slowly and tenderly she strove to raise him until his 
 fair head rested on her shoulder ; then, thanking heaven 
 for her splendid strength, she drew his arms around her 
 neck and shifted her position until his weight rested on 
 her back. With teeth set, face gleaming sharp in her 
 sore stress, she crept from her knees to her feet, holding 
 to the slimy boulders. Cautiously and steadily, pantin 
 until her heart seemed like to burst in two, she made her 
 
 IT 
 
 b 
 
42 
 
 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 way up the rocky slope to her cabin, and laid her beloved 
 burden on the bed. 
 
 And down on the shingly beach, towards which she 
 cast not one backward glance, the other lay helpless, 
 watching with fascinated eyes, growing dimmer every 
 moment, for the Ninth Wave — the drowning wave — that 
 would sweep him away into eternity. 
 
CDe n^n of tbe music 
 
THE MEN OF THE MUSIC. 
 
 I HEARD it first oue August morning, as I lay close 
 to the thatch in the gable-room of the little coun- 
 try hotel where I had come to spend my fortnight's 
 holidays. There was a sudden shock to my dreaming — ■ 
 my love's smiling face disappeared into soft shadows, and 
 I wakened to a droning whirr of melody that further 
 dazed my half-slumbering senses. For a moment I did 
 not realize that the music was aught but imaginary ; 
 then, as I heard it growing louder and louder, I sprang 
 out of bed to discover the cause. A thick curtain of ivy 
 almost concealed the four-paned window, which moved 
 inwards on a hinge and was open owing to the heat. 
 Through this curtain I thrust my head and saw, coining 
 down the only hilly street of the village, two old men — 
 two stooped and slender old men — whose resemblance to 
 each other astonished me. It was as exact a resemblance 
 as if one of them was gazing into a mirror. They were 
 clad in the ordinary homespun clothes of the peasant; 
 each wore a cloth cap with ears drawn close on his grey 
 head, and round each wrinkled neck was tied a blue- 
 spotted cotton handkerchief. Their faces were thin but 
 ruddy ; their features aquiline ; their eyes a bright blue- 
 grey. As they marched in steady step together, they 
 kept playing a sad, tender, crooning air, which I have 
 since learned to call "An Bundn Buidhe " — " The Yellow 
 bittern." The old man nearest me played upon a fideog 
 or whistle, the other had his lips curved around the 
 
46 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 mouthpiece of a flute — or, as it is called in the Gaelic, 
 feaddn. Their harmony was perfect as they trod lightly 
 over the cobble-stones, their bent elbows almost touch- 
 ing, while the tune floated away in a thin wail on the 
 morning mist. I leaned through the little window as far 
 as was compatible with my safety, and watched them 
 disappear round the bend of the street. Then I went 
 back to my pillow to pass the time in wondering — until 
 the household should be awake — what was the story of 
 these two who had gone by with their strange music so 
 early in the autumn dawning. 
 
 " Ah then," said my host, Niall Beag MacGinley, as 
 we sat in each corner of the wide settle in the window 
 that faced the street. " Ah then," filling his after-break- 
 fast pipe with great deliberation, " 'tis the same question 
 that has been often put to me ; and what man has a 
 better right to answer, or what man in all the Glen can 
 give you the truth as I can, word for word ? Yes, God 
 He sees, word for word." 
 
 Here he reached out for a lighted turf which he 
 applied to his pipe, and puffed away in unctous silence. 
 Floundering through my amateurish Gaelic, I begged 
 him to proceed. 
 
 " Ah yes, it is myself, Niall Beg MacGinley, can tell 
 the tale. Often and often I have told it, gentleman, to 
 others coming like yourself for the fishing to Loch na 
 Soluis — for the music going by so early has wakened 
 many in that gable-room. One time it has been : ' Is 
 that room of yours haunted, Niall ? ' Or/ What was the 
 music that disturbed me?' Or again, ' Cannot the vil- 
 lage band choose a more fitting hour than dawn for their 
 practising ? ' Or, maybe another would ask, ' I saw two 
 
THE MEN OF THE MUSIC. 4? 
 
 strange old men go by playing this morning, Niall — were 
 they ghosts or what 1 ? ' " 
 
 He paused to gaze for a moment into the fire, and his 
 jovial face grew thoughtful. 
 
 " Gentleman, it was the Men of the Music you saw — 
 the Men of the Music." 
 
 "Who are they, and why are they called so?" I 
 queried. 
 
 ' That you will hear in good time," he replied slowly, 
 with all the dignity of the scanachic. " It is a sad story, 
 theirs, and a strange." 
 
 I leaned back in my corner resignedly, seeing that my 
 eagerness merely flattered him into further procrastina- 
 tion. 
 
 " Padraic and Brian O'Keeney are names they are 
 having," he announced at last, " and they went by this 
 morning to cut the little field of corn they have ripening 
 by the Loch side. Do you see that little house up on the 
 slope there " — here he led me by the arm to the doorway 
 — " with its white walls and the neat fences around ? 
 That is the home where they were born, and where they 
 lived together since the mother of them died. A good 
 woman and kind was Mairgread, may her bed 
 bu soft in heaven, always generous with the bite 
 and the sup to the needy. It was at one birth 
 the boys were born, and Manus was the proud 
 father surely that day when he saw the two 
 little heads on the pillow beside Mairgread. They were 
 never a day separate in their growing-up, nor had one a 
 thought apart from the other. The handsome lads they 
 were, too — handsomest in the parish — and first at every 
 diversion, with their music, and their dancing, and their 
 love-eyes at the colleens. Padraic, it was the fiddle he 
 played ; and Brian — oh ! where was his equal on the 
 pipes?" 
 
48 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 He nodded solemnly at the fire, as he repeated the last 
 sentence, half to himself. 
 
 " My mother, God be good to her, used often to say 
 that she felt the fairies around her when Brian would be 
 playing his pipes of a summer evening on the rath be- 
 hind ; and then she would grope for her beads in the big 
 pocket she wore, so as to keep their spells away. She 
 knew the Little People must be jealous because he had 
 stolen their art; for I swear to you, gentleman, it was 
 like no earthly music when Brian O'Keeney put his 
 lingers on the keys, and his lips to the mouthpiece. Oh 
 no, like no earthly music that ever was. 
 
 ' They were young — scarce past twenty years — when 
 the cruel fever carried off both Mairgread and her man, 
 within a week of each other. Mairgread, who was the 
 last to die, made the lads promise to stay together in the 
 old home. ' If one of ye marries/ she said, ' let him 
 bring the woman here, and she will be a sister to the 
 ether; if both of ye do it, then there is room for all — 
 many a small roof covers great happiness. It is my bless- 
 ing I leave you, and my prayer that no woman may ever 
 cast sorrow upon my sons.' 
 
 ■ Ah, my grief ; it was the knowledge that was in the 
 poor dying heart of her made her speak ; for a woman 
 came, and the bitter black sorrow indeed she cast upon 
 them. She was a young colleen, and fair — well do I re- 
 member — with eyes as innocently blue as the Loch water 
 under a sunshiny sky, and the hair of her like the har- 
 vest gold, and the lips of her red as rowan berries. Truly 
 the lovely young lass she was ; but the rash tongue she 
 had, and the foolish mind, for all her beauty. Soon she 
 had set the young men of the Glen against each other — 
 with her kiss to this one, and her smile to that, and her 
 kind word to the other, and her truth for none. Ah, no 
 
THE MEN OF THE MUSIC. 49 
 
 indeed, her truth for none, as I learned to my cost, 
 though," with a sly glance towards the dairy, where a 
 short matronly figure moved hither and thither, while 
 the thud, thud, of the churn-staff, as it lashed the milk, 
 made a pleasant subdued noise—" The bean-an-tighe 
 beyond was never a bit the wiser of that young folly of 
 mine, nor need she ever be. Men will be men, and there 
 is much the woman that is your wife had best be ignorant 
 of." 
 
 ' True man you are for that saying, Niall Beag." I 
 nodded my head eagerly in approval. There was a 
 twinkle in his eye as he resumed. 
 
 ' Well, it was not long until the village began to see 
 where the tricks of Eilis would make trouble. One time 
 she would be walking with Brian through the boreens in 
 the gloaming, and next she would be whispering with 
 Padraic across some stile, when she should have been 
 hurrying home from milking the cows. The ether lads 
 seemed to have found out her mischievous ways for them- 
 selves before it was too late; but the brothers were too 
 simple, and no one dared to warn them. Soon we noticed 
 something between them. They did not come together 
 as often as before, to the dance and the merry-making ; 
 nor did they go away together. Maybe, for all we 
 guessed, each went his separate road to catch a last word 
 or smile from the girl who was torturing both. 
 
 One evening — it was the middle of summer, for I re- 
 member the hedsres were dotted with wild roses — I came 
 
 O 
 
 upon the three, and bitter, bitter speech passed between 
 them. Eilis sat a-top of the stile that was at the end of 
 the meadow I was crossing as my nearest path home, and 
 the brothers stood one on each side, black anger on their 
 faces, and their mouths hot with the curses that were 
 hotter still. It would have been an ill sight for their 
 
50 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 mother to see, and I've often thought since that it was 
 the kind God He was to have spared poor Mairgread this. 
 Their hands were uplifted to strike, while Eilis sat 
 smiling, drawing the strings of her bonnet between her 
 lips and taunting one and the other in turn. She grew 
 suddenly white as the ceanabhdn blossom when she 
 twisted round and saw me standing behind her. 
 
 " I did not spare the treacherous foolish thing ; for I 
 had my own score to pay back to her. I was the lad she 
 had given her kiss to, and her pledge, and it was over the 
 head of Padraic and Brian we had quarrelled. She had 
 cried sore, and clung to me, saying I was the only one she 
 wanted ; but I did not heed. I cast her off, and the love 
 I had in my heart for her died away as a fire of peat 
 might die into grey ashes. When I saw her raising the 
 winds of hate between poor Mairgread's sons, all that was 
 in my mind against her went Qut in flaming words. 
 
 " ' Brian, friend of my heart/ I said, ' and Padraic, a 
 dhilis, is it for a light foolish woman you will be throw- 
 ing the curses at one another? Few of them are worth 
 an honest man's rage, and she least of all ; for it is 
 nothing but trouble she has been stirring up in the Glen 
 since she came.' And I said much more, gentleman, 
 which, for shame's sake, I will not be telling you, now 
 that the past is past and the resentment long left me. 
 Maybe it was too harsh my speech was, and she such a 
 slender pretty young flower of a maid ; but I did not 
 weigh the words then, and they tumbled from my lips in 
 a torrent. I only knew how cruel they were by the 
 horror in her eyes. 
 
 " When I had finished she stepped down from the stile 
 and stood before me. ' God forgive you, Niall MacGinley,' 
 was all she said, and a stab ran through my heart that 
 1 thought hardened to her wiles, for her miserable eyes 
 had told me the truth at last." 
 
THE MEN OF THE MUSIC. 51 
 
 His voice broke, and I could see a moisture gather on 
 his lowered lashes as he continued. 
 
 ' But it was too late for any understanding between 
 us, gentleman. I had wounded her to the core. She 
 walked away slowly with head down bent, and the next 
 morning she left the place for the home of some kinsfolk 
 that dwelt in a distant town. I have never seen her since. 
 Sometimes the old people, like myself, talk over the story, 
 and the young smile at it in their untried wisdom, and 
 now and then a tender-hearted one will drop a tear; but 
 the years have brought little change to the live3 of these 
 two — making their music day after day — except the 
 gray hairs, and the weariness, and the backward glances 
 into the long-gone time that the old cherish most. 
 
 ' There now, it is the tongue of me is running too fast, 
 gentleman. As the life shortens the tongue lengthens — 
 is a wise saying. Soon we all saw that matters were 
 growing even worse between the boys, so one day I went 
 to the little white house and begged that peace should be 
 between them for their mother's sake. Tliey were silent 
 at first, and angry belike ; then Padraic spoke what was 
 in the heart of him, poor lad — 'twas the sore heart, too. 
 4 1 will live with him that is my brother and was my 
 friend, because he is my mother's son,' he said, ' but 
 never again will the word cross my lips to him — no, never 
 in this life. He can go his own way, I will go mine.' 
 
 " My sorrow ! I knew it would make further mischief 
 if I said more, so I only looked at Brian. His eyes were 
 hard, and his mouth set. He glared at his brother for 
 one moment, while I saw the muscles of his neck swell 
 and his hands clench, but he did not speak. Instead, he 
 opened the door quickly, and stepped out into the night. 
 
 " They gave up their sports and dancing, and by de- 
 grees their friendly ways of dropping in on this neigh- 
 
52 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 bour and that. Padraic would sit in a dark corner, as 
 far as possible from the fire, playing on his fiddle so as to 
 keep out of the talk. It was afterwards I discovered — 
 through the curiosity of the children, who stole off to 
 peep in at the window every evening — that when they 
 were by themselves Padraic took up the fiddle and Brian 
 the pipes ; and thus they put in the time between supper 
 and bed. 
 
 " Well, God be thanked, the music kept them from 
 worse, maybe, and now when they go to cut their corn by 
 the Loch side, or cross beyond to the fields to plough or 
 sow in the spring — 'tis ever the same ; the feaddn, and 
 the fideog, give notice of their coming. For you see, 
 gentleman, the fiddle and the pipes would be awkward to 
 carry morning and evening, leaving aside that the moist 
 air would be bad for both. So, 'tis the fideog and the 
 feaddn they choose instead, for they could play them as 
 well as the others. And now, that is their story for you, 
 every word as true as Gospel ; Christ and Mary look 
 down on their spoilt sorrowful lives." 
 
 I came back the next autumn to the same little gable- 
 room, and the music of the fideog and the feaddn. The 
 brothers were just as usual, my friend, Niall Beag, as- 
 sured me, in answer to my eager inquiries ; yet, strange 
 to say, a change in their monotonous existence was im- 
 pending, in the bringing about of which I myself was to 
 play a part. 
 
 When I was in the place a few days an unexpected in- 
 vitation reached me from a friend who had taken a fish- 
 ing lodge in a distant quarter of the country. " I am in 
 the heart of a glen," he wrote, " and there's sport such as 
 you have never seen in your life before, in these waters. 
 Only a group of cabins in the whole place, and my 
 shanty. So you'll get quiet, and homely fare. Do come." 
 
THE MEN OF THE MUSIC. 53 
 
 I went, and drove down that glen in the sunset, when 
 every nook and corner of it was glorified in the magic 
 light. The heather ran in flaming purple floods down 
 the mountain sides, out of which huge boulders rose, 
 moss-green and rugged ; and the river, which was so full 
 of promise, wandered like a thread of silver through the 
 gold and russet and purple peacefulness. The corn 
 fields, newly cut, together with other signs of pastoral 
 life, charmed my practical eye ; and I noticed, too, that 
 all the women I passed on my way were knitting, or 
 flowering — as the fine hand-embroidery on muslin and 
 cambric is called. They returned kindly Gaelic greet- 
 ings to my "Via dim it " (God save you) with pleasant 
 smiles ; and truly I deemed my friend and myself fortu- 
 nate in our surroundings. 
 
 One afternoon I had wandered towards the farther 
 end of the Glen, and, feeling thirsty and very tired under 
 the hot sun, called at the open door of a neat cottage for 
 the wayfarer's bite and sup. Just inside the threshold 
 an old woman sat spinning, who rose and brought me a 
 foaming jug of milk, and a generous square of thickly- 
 buttered oaten bread. As I ate and drank she interro- 
 gated me thoughtfully, noting my exhausted condition. 
 Was it a long journey I had come? Had the fishing 
 been good ? Did I think that I would feel able to return 
 that night ? If not, she would make me a shake-down by 
 the fire; and her nephew, with whom she lived, would 
 gladly see after my comfort. She was a little thin old 
 woman with a pretty red on her old cheeks, very alert in 
 her movements. As I answered, and told the distance I 
 had come, she made little crooning sounds of interest. I 
 showed her my basket, heavy with fine trout, and begged 
 her acceptance of a couple. " Ah, no, no," she 
 shook her head, " the gentleman ought to keep 
 
 / 
 
54 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 what he had won by his hard day's tramping 
 to show his friends at the lodge, or perhaps 
 they wouldn't believe he had caught so many." Then 
 we drifted into conversation about the country beyond 
 the high hills that bulwarked the valley. Yes, she had 
 once been beyond there when she was young; though 
 now it seemed like a dream to remember that she had 
 ever been anywhere in the world outside her own glen. 
 She gave a strange start when I mentioned Loch na 
 Soluis, and a shadow came over her eyes. 
 
 " I used to live there when I was a girl," said she. 
 
 I mentioned the name of a few of the villagers; 
 amongst others, the Men of the Music. 
 
 " Ah, God forgive me," she wailed, putting up her 
 hands to cover her face. " I knew them long ago." 
 
 At that a sudden light broke on me. " You are Eilis," 
 I exclaimed involuntarily. 
 
 She dropped her hands on the instant, and the old face 
 
 went pale as death. 
 
 "How do you know? Who told you this?" she 
 gasped. 
 
 Already I had regretted my hasty and unwarrantable 
 remark ; but I had gone too far now to refuse the expla- 
 nation she evidently desired. I fidgetted a moment awk- 
 wardly, while she sat expectant. " If you please, will 
 you tell me, gentleman," she said, timidly. 
 
 So, as we sat there by the open door of her little cot- 
 tage, with the twilight mists falling like a veil upon the 
 heathery slope, and yellow corn-fields, and the river sing- 
 ing a little lullaby of its own to the dying day, I told her 
 the after-tale of Padraic and Brian O'Keeney. She 
 crouched silent, with her apron over her head, rocking 
 gently to and fro, as I spoke. 
 
 When the tale was ended she uncovered her face, and 
 gazed at me earnestly with tear-filled eyes. 
 
THE MEN OF THE MUSIC. 56 
 
 " What can I do? " she whispered. " Can I do any- 
 thing at all?" 
 
 Then I had an inspiration. " Come back and make 
 peace between them/' I said. " You owe this reparation 
 to their ruined lives." 
 
 She beat her bosom in passionate self-accusation. 
 
 " Ah yes," she murmured slowly, " we are old now, and 
 the grave near. I will go." 
 
 That night I accepted the hospitality of the nephew ; 
 and the next morning saw me set out accompanied by an 
 old weeping woman, who all the way kept dabbing with 
 a red cotton handkerchief at drenched eyes, that were 
 hardly to be seen under the dark gathered border of her 
 hood. In spite of her grief she was excited and pleased 
 at the novelty of the journey, and the swift motion of the 
 train inspired her with awe. I could hear her praying 
 softly at intervals. 
 
 When I brought Eilis to Niall Beag MacGinley's, that 
 worthy man looked as if a ghost had arisen. He recog- 
 nised her, and it was a trembling hand he stretched out 
 to clasp hers. I drew him aside and explained that after 
 she had rested, he must take her up to the little white 
 house on the hill. I had done my share — with God 
 should be the rest. 
 
 Afterwards Niall Beag told me the details of the inter- 
 view. My regret is that I cannot give them in the im- 
 pressive Gaelic of his own words. 
 
 " They were sitting playing, one on each side of the 
 greesaugh, when we came in," said he, " and the crickets 
 were chirruping very loud. But, for all that, it was a 
 lcnesome sight. Eilis stopped just inside the threshold, 
 for I made her enter before me, and Brian was the first 
 tc see her. 
 
 " ' What little woman is this? ' he called out, and his 
 
56 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 voice was loud and threatening. ' There is no place for 
 a woman here/ At that she put back her hood — and 
 oh ! God in heaven, such a look in all their eyes. 
 
 " ' Eilis/ cried Brian. 
 
 " ' Eilis/ cried Padraic. 
 
 " ' I have come to make peace,' said she, reaching out 
 her hands suddenly and clutching a hand of each. ' To 
 make peace where I made strife long ago.' 
 
 " Neither moved ; they were too dazed ; but I saw 
 clearly the thought running through their minds — that 
 it was for this woman, no longer young, no longer lovely, 
 they had borne the weary burden of hate. They, like 
 myself, had always dreamed of her as we had seen her 
 last in her handsome girlhood, and the reality, though a 
 shock, was the one thing necessary both to disillusion 
 them and to extinguish their antagonism. I drew back 
 into the shadows, leaving the three to themselves. 
 Padraic was the first to speak. 
 
 " * Why did you do it, Eilis ? ' said he, softly. 
 
 " ' Why did you put this heart-break on us ? ' said 
 Brian. 
 
 " ' Be kind, and make peace, and forgive me/ she 
 begged. And across her bent head, with the old affec- 
 tion breaking through the crust of dislike, the brothers 
 gazed remorsefully into each other's eyes." 
 
 Several years elapsed before I again revisited Loch na 
 Soluis, and then I brought with me my dear wife. I 
 found many changes in the familiar place ; but my host 
 of former days, Niall Beag, was still alive, though rheum- 
 atic and very feeble. In answer to my inquiries con- 
 cerning the Men of the Music, he shook his gray head 
 sadly. 
 
THE MEN OF THE MUSIC. 
 
 57 
 
 " They are under the sod in Kilcreevanty," he said, 
 " sleeping soundly together. It was on a Christmas Day 
 they died, and, curiously, they had longed prayed that 
 God might take them to Him on that day of days. They 
 drew their last breath almost at the same moment ; and 
 were laid side by side in the one death-bed. There was 
 never such a wake known before in the country; for 
 people came in from far and near. On the morning of 
 their burial it was very wild and stormy, with a cold rain 
 blowing from the west. Yet, for all that, two lighted 
 candles were carried in front of their coffins across to the 
 church-yard beyond, and though the rain fell, and the 
 wind blew, the candles were not quenched, nor did the 
 flame flicker once. This was a sign to show that they 
 were holy souls, and had died at peace with God. May 
 He give them rest." 
 
 And " May He give them rest," I repeated fervently 
 after him. 
 
Ok Wee 6rap Woman, 
 
THE WEE GRAY WOMAN. 
 
 HIS cabin stood by the side of a burn into which the 
 sally-trees drooped from either side, making a 
 thick fringe of green that met overhead and 
 cast dappled shadows on the clear water when the sun 
 stood high and fierce in the heavens. Little ripples 
 broke in white bubbles around the stones that made the 
 crossing-places, and the speckled trout darted like tiny 
 silver spears through their haunts below the overhanging 
 banks. 
 
 It was a tranquil, lonely spot; eerie, too, in the 
 autumn twilight, when the slow-creeping mists rose uj 
 from the bog for miles around, and many were the tales 
 told of an evening, by the folk living on the high land, of 
 lights that flashed all over the bog at the very moment 
 that Jamie Boyson set his candle in his cottage window 
 to guide the Wee Gray Woman up the rugged loaning to 
 her seat in the chimney corner. 
 
 Once it happened that the wild young fellows of Glen- 
 wherry came in the dead of night to play a trick on 
 Jamie. They stole over the stepping-stones of the burn 
 and noiselessly reached the one-paned window, half 
 hidden by thatch, in which the light gleamed. A rei 
 turf fire blazing on the hearth lit up the interior of th„' 
 old man's kitchen ; it shone on the battered ancient 
 dresser, and on the store of carefully-kept delf that had 
 been his mother's. For Jamie had the name of being 
 cleanly and thrifty in his ways. The hearth was care- 
 
62 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 fully swept, the flat stones at front and sides whitened 
 by a practised hand, and no ragged streaks wandered 
 over the edges on to the clay floor beyond. A three- 
 legged stool stood in front of the fire, placed there for 
 the convenience of the unearthly visitant who, Jamie 
 said, came nightly to sit and rest herself by the greesaugh 
 until the black cock should crow in the rafters above the 
 settle-bed, invariably awaking him at the same moment 
 that the Wee Gray Woman got warning to leave. That 
 was why he could never get a right look at her, he la- 
 mented. Sometimes he opened his eyes in time to see 
 the flutter of her gray cloak as she passed out of his door, 
 and once he caught a gleam of red. It was a red hood 
 she wore, not like anything that mortal ever saw before, 
 but just as if a big scarlet tulip had been crushed down 
 over her head with all the leaves sticking out round her 
 face. And his blood always curdled when she gave a 
 cry going over the threshold, as if she was being dragged 
 away into some dreaded torment from which she had had 
 a respite. 
 
 " It would break the heart in yer breast to hear it, just 
 for all the worl' like the whine of a dog when there's 
 death arounV' he would say. 
 
 But no one could get him to commit himself as to a 
 theory about the comings and goings of the Wee Woman. 
 Whether he fancied her a friendly denizen of fairyland, 
 or a poor wandering ghost dreeing her purgatory for her 
 own sake or the sake of some one loved and living, the in- 
 quisitive people of the bog-side could never learn, yet 
 night after night the hearth was swept, and the stool 
 placed that she might have her rest until dawn broke in 
 a flame of gold and pale chilly green over the hill-tops. 
 
 So the ghostly story spread, as such stories will, 
 through the country, finding by turns sympathiser and 
 
THE WEE GRAY WOMAN. 63 
 
 sceptic alike, who yearned, though fear of the super- 
 natural kept most of them away, for a peep through 
 Jamie's window before the black cock gave the signal. 
 But the young fellows from Glenwherry, daring and mis- 
 chievous as they were, had made up their minds to solve 
 the mystery, and nothing daunted, holding their breath 
 steadily, they drew close to the little window, and out of 
 the thick blackness of the last night-hour glared into the 
 haunted kitchen. 
 
 The firelight flickered fitfully at first, so that their 
 eyes, half blinded with the darkness, saw nothing save 
 shadows ; then, suddenly, a gleam shot from the heart of 
 the dying turf, and showed a vision that drove them 
 back from the window, saddened and ashamed. 
 
 It was only the old man asleep in his settle-bed, his 
 thin, wrinkled profile outlined like a cameo against the 
 background of dark wood, and the patient old hands, 
 that were so gentle and capable, folded upon his breast, 
 as when he had lain down to sleep. 
 
 After that the Wee Gray Woman might come and go, 
 without dread of being watched for, or disturbed, and 
 among the Glenwherry lads Jamie found a set of stal- 
 wart partisans, whose judgment in his favour dare not be 
 gainsaid. 
 
 He was not altogether devoid of occupation and amuse- 
 ment in his lonely existence. The little one-roomed 
 cabin was tidy as a woman might have kept it. And 
 though he harboured neither cat nor dog, during one 
 winter at least — the severest winter known for many 
 years in that locality — he had a pet, and the pet was a 
 cricket. Imported from a neighbouring fireside, he had 
 trained it with the utmost patience and skill until the 
 diminutive dusty-looking object learned to jump out 
 from behind the big pot in the chimney-corner at his 
 
64 
 
 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 call. The stofe of his having accomplished such a mar- 
 vel scarcely gjjjled credence ; it was not to be compared 
 to that of his*fhostly guest; but the country children 
 cherished it and repeated it in wide-eyed wonder, when 
 they gathered round their elders' knees before the unwel- 
 come bedtime; while the more superstitious asserted 
 that it was the Wee Gray Woman come to bide with 
 Jamie Boyson by day in another guise. It certainly 
 looked uncanny enough, hop-hopping over the floor, chir- 
 ruping in a shrill, faint treble to his deeper intonation, 
 and, when he lifted it, creeping into the shelter of his 
 hand, as a home bird might that has known and loved 
 and trusted in the kind guardianship. 
 
 But once upon a time Jamie Boyson had need of 
 neither ghost nor cricket for company. That was in the 
 days of his early manhood, when, stalwart, supple, and 
 strong, he led the boys of Crebilly to victory on many a 
 hard-fought field of a Sunday, proving himself a cham- 
 pion to be proud of, in throwing the shoulder-stone, and 
 wielding the camdn against the athletic G-lenwherry 
 lads, with big Dan O'Hara at their head. Then, where 
 was his equal to be found at dance or christening ? Why, 
 half the girls in the country were in love with him, and 
 hopelessly, too, as they learned to admit to their own 
 sad hearts, that fluttered so uncomfortably under the 
 Sunday 'kerchiefs when he passed, his black head erect, 
 and his shoulders squared like a militia major's, without 
 a look at one of them, up the chapel aisle to his seat next 
 his mother in the old family pew. 
 
 The family pew held something else besides his 
 mother; something the very sight of which was enough 
 to bring the red blood in a rush to the roots of his curly 
 dark hair, and make his heart almost leap out of his 
 breast for gladness ; something that was small, and fair, 
 
THE WEE GRAY WOMAN. 65 
 
 and blue-eyed, half-hiden behind his mother's ample 
 form, and scarcely lifting her white lids from the beads 
 she was passing through her fingers. 
 
 She was no stranger to him ; he had many opportuni- 
 ties of watching her pale sweetness by his own fireside at 
 night, without embarrassing her with that burning gaze 
 of his under the disapproving eyes of all the congrega- 
 tion ; but he was wont to say to himself, as a sort of justi- 
 fication, that little Rosie at her prayers taught him more 
 about heaven and holiness than the priest could do with 
 all his preaching. 
 
 His brother Hugh used to joke him often and often 
 about his fancy for the little orphan girl whom his 
 mother had saved from the poorhouse, and Jamie's brow 
 would glow with the angry red that warned Hugh's 
 tongue to stop, and the laughter to die out of his merry 
 brown face. There were only the two of them left to his 
 mother, and one took little Rosie into his life as a sister, 
 while to the other she, whom the country lads in general 
 had called " a poor, pale wisp o' a thing," became his all, 
 his world, his gateway of Paradise. How the love for 
 her grew up in his heart was a mystery to him. Perhaps 
 it took root when as a little child — the evening she came 
 heme to them — she laid her flaxen head on the bashful 
 lad's broad shoulder and would not be parted from him 
 until sleep stole on her unawares and released the tiny 
 hands from their grasp on his strong ones. Or perhaps 
 it came later as he learned to watch delightedly her deft, 
 gentle household ways, and heard her crooning to herself 
 over her flowering, in the rare leisure moments the active, 
 bustling mother allowed. 
 
 There was an old song he was very fond of singing 
 about " Lord Edward " — an old song she loved to listen 
 to — and he was always sure of a grateful glance from the 
 
 E 
 
66 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 shy eyes, when of a winter's night he favoured the little 
 circle around the hearth of Lisnahilt with the stanzas set 
 to an air that was very popular in the district : — 
 
 " The day that traitors sold him an' enemies bought him, 
 
 The day that the red gold and red blood was paid ; 
 Then the green turned pale and trembled like the dead 
 leaves in autumn, 
 An' the heart an' hope of Ireland in the cold grave was 
 laid. 
 
 " The day I saw you first, with the sunshine fallin' round 
 
 ye, 
 
 My heart fairly opened with the grandeur of the view ; 
 For ten thousand Irish boys that day did surround ye, 
 An' I swore to stand by them till death, an' fight for 
 
 you. 
 
 " Ye wor the bravest gentleman an' the best that ever 
 stood, 
 An' yer eyelids never trembled for danger nor for 
 dread, 
 An' nobleness was flowin' in each stream of your blood— 
 My blessin' on ye day and night, an' Glory be your 
 bed. 
 
 " My black and bitter curse on the head an' heart an' 
 hand 
 That plotted, wished, an' worked tne fall of this Irish 
 hero bold, 
 God's curse upon the Irishman that sould his native land, 
 And hell consume to dust the hand that held the 
 traitor's gold." 
 
 Sometimes tired with the day's hard work, she would 
 rest her head against the wall with a low sigh of weari- 
 
THE WEE GRAY WOMAN. 67 
 
 ness. She must often be tired, he thought ; those little 
 feet had run about so nimbly since early morning, and 
 the little red hands had washed and baked, without a 
 moment's pause ; but, please God, that would be all 
 ended soon, when his wife should reign over a home of 
 her own, and he had taken her into the shelter of his 
 strong arms for evermore. 
 
 Yet no word of this crossed his lips, though the desire 
 that filled his heart beat like a strong ceaseless wave 
 within his breast, giving him an almost unbearable pain, 
 and he never dreamt but that she knew. In the very 
 effort to control himself, his voice was, curiously, harsh 
 when he spoke to her; and while the poor child trembled 
 at the rude accents, her faltering reply aroused in the 
 big, tender-hearted fellow a wild feeling that was half ex- 
 quisite pity, and half hate. Ah ! if he had only spoken 
 then, the grim tragedy of his life might have been spared 
 him. 
 
 One bleak night in autumn a sound outside drew him 
 to the door, and opening it, he stood listening. 
 
 " John Conan's calves are in the clover-field," be 
 said ; " go and put them out." 
 
 Rose lifted her timid blue eyes to him questioningly. 
 
 " Do you hear me ? " he asked. 
 
 " But I'm afraid," she murmured ; " it's so dark, 
 an' " 
 
 He pointed his finger to the open door and the black 
 stormy night outside. 
 
 ' Go," he repeated fiercely, turning to his chair, and 
 lifting his pipe off the shelf, and the girl passed into the 
 darkness without another word. 
 
 What madness was on him that he had spoken to the 
 little girl, and sent her on such an errand ? he asked him- 
 self when she had gone. He had been conscious of a 
 
68 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 strange, sore sensation all day, since at Crebilly Fair, 
 that forenoon, Tom M'Mullan had proposed a match be- 
 tween her and his son Jack, one of the wildest young 
 scamps in the whole countryside, and the unreasoning 
 jealousy grew and grew until he had wreaked his pain 
 in vengeance on his poor Rosie's unoffending head. 
 
 " Oh ! amn't I the queer, ungrateful fool," he mut- 
 tered, " to trate the wee lass this way." 
 
 An hour passed, he waiting every moment to hear her 
 footfall on the threshold, and his mother speculating 
 comfortably that she had gone in for a gossip to John 
 Conan's. At last he could bear his regret and the sus- 
 pense no longer, and went out to seek her. 
 
 It was only a step or two to the clover-field, and 
 reaching the low stone wall he called to her eagerly in 
 the darkness. The startled calves, still enjoying their 
 forbidden banquet, lowed back in answer. 
 
 He vaulted the gate, every step of the way familiar to 
 him by night as by noon, and called anxiously and long. 
 Then he remembered his mother's surmise, and turned 
 across the field to Conan's. 
 
 There was no little Rosie sitting with the laughing 
 girls grouped together in the corner, over a quilting 
 frame, and in response to his husky demand a couple of 
 Conan's young sons volunteered to accompany him on his 
 search — Hugh, his brother, being away for the night in 
 a market town many miles off. 
 
 He walked on, quickly, in the direction of the bog, 
 guided only by his intimate knowledge of the treacherous 
 path that wound like a serpent across the marshy wind- 
 swept surface. He heard the small waves beat against 
 each other with a faint sad sound, while overhead not 
 one solitary star glimmered, to light his heart with hope- 
 fulness. Through the terrible night, and into the dawn, 
 
THE WEE GRAY WOMAN. 69 
 
 his frantic search continued, calling her name in a hoarse 
 agony that wrung the souls of those who heard him. 
 
 " Rosie, Rosie, my little girl, it's Jamie's callin.' Ah ! 
 come, can't ye, an' don't be hidin' there. Don't ye hear 
 me darlin', it's Jamie, an' the supper's waitin' on us. 
 
 Let Conan's calves go they're always a trouble to 
 
 somebody, but you come home. Here, take my han' " — 
 stretching out his arms into the empty shadows — " take 
 it, love, an' don't be afeard, nothin' can touch ye, pulse 
 o' my heart, when I'm beside ye, Rosie! Rosie! ' 
 
 And so on through the dreary hours, over the wild 
 bogland, his voice rang in pitiful entreaty, until jagged 
 streaks of golden red llamed like trailing banners in the 
 East, and the birds, wide-awake, took up in a chorus, 
 clear-tongued and grateful, the morning song ; but alas ! 
 for him, whose song-bird had Uown afar, and for whom 
 the dawn henceforth should hold no radiance, nor the 
 rose-llushed mellow evening any passion. 
 
 Yet his frantic cry broke in upon the happy choir, 
 and the blackbird and thrush, from hedge and beechen- 
 tree, watched him staggering home in the sunshine, mur- 
 muring through lips that scarcely knew the words they 
 uttered — " Rosie, Rosie, girl dear, come home. ,, 
 
 Some hours later a turf -cutter, crossing the burn to 
 his work, caught a gleam of something bright under the 
 cold running water. It was little Rosie's fair head lying 
 against the stones in the shade of the drooping sally- 
 trees, whither through the darkness, blinded by her sor- 
 row, she had wandered to her death. 
 
 Jamie Boyson aged suddenly after that. When the 
 friends of his boyhood had grown into sturdy, middle- 
 aged men, strong and hearty, he was already old, with a 
 gloom upon him that no smile was ever known to lighten. 
 In time, when his mother died, and Hugh had married, 
 
70 
 
 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 he grew unable to bear the sound of children's chatter 
 through the rooms where he had once hoped to see his 
 own little ones at play, and came to live his life alone in 
 the cabin by the burnside, from whence he could watch 
 the very spot where poor Rosie's gentle head had laiu 
 under the clear cold ripples. 
 
 So the country folk, noting his absent dim blue eyes, 
 and wandering talk about the Wee Gray Woman, grew 
 to believe that it was little Rosie's ghost come to bear 
 him company until the call should sound for him, and 
 his broken and desolate heart should find peace. 
 
 That was many, many years ago; and, perhaps, they 
 have met long since in heaven, where Jamie Boyson, 
 young, and straight, and strong again, with all the bitter- 
 ness gone from his heart, has taken little Rosie in his 
 arms and told her the truth at last. 
 
CDe Singing Women of Corp, 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 
 
 TORY lies out in the blue Atlantic where the tides 
 are strong and the currachs go in danger. A 
 long narrow island it is — on the ocean-side pre- 
 senting a rock wall which rises out of the waves like a 
 line of towers, black and forbidding. On the land side 
 the fertile patches slope to a stony beach, and here the 
 fishermen's boats are gathered high up from the reach of 
 the waters. Round the ruins of St. Colum's Tower, with 
 its broken cross, cluster the cabins that make the village 
 — poor storm-beaten homes wherein melancholy finds a 
 steadier abiding place than mirth. Over on the main- 
 land, separated from Tory by a stretch of turbulent bil- 
 lows, Horn Head looms black above the dark surges, 
 while further round the coast the shining sand-hills of 
 Dunfanaghy and the strands of Falcarragh make a clear 
 belt of whiteness like a strip of neutral ground between 
 land and sea. On a day of mist, which is frequent, the 
 pleasant green hills beyond there are hidden with the 
 stately peak of Errigal, and then the dreary desolation 
 of sky and ocean lays its clutch upon the hearts of those 
 who dwell on that lonely island. Winter cuts them 
 adrift from the rest of the world, and the slow days pass 
 ia a gloomy monotony until the gray heaven grows 
 dappled again with the coming of spring. 
 
 A man's voice is never heard in song in Tory. It is 
 only the women who sing there, by the firesides when the 
 storms are abroad, or in the summer gloamings when the 
 
74 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 sea-haze creeps round crag and uplands, and the moon 
 sails placidly through her realm of stars. Then one may- 
 hear a sweet faint chorus float on the wind as the cailins 
 go arm in arm crooning the old Gaelic airs with their 
 haunting words that tell of love and hate and death. 
 The men sit on the rocks listening silently as they flit by 
 like shadows, but no strong, deep voice joins in the fine 
 tremulous notes that die out as silvery as the soft piping 
 of a bird. 
 
 In the old war times the men sang in Tory — rousing 
 battle strains that echoed far across the waters and made 
 the gulls pause in bewildered circles as they heard. And 
 those brave chants were handed down the centuries from 
 father to son, while the island had its king and it3 inde- 
 pendent laws. In his little territory the king— like 
 greater monarchs — had his harper and seanachie to fan 
 the flame of courage with tale and ballad of the fierce 
 past, or to soothe his weary senses with gentler dreams 
 through which the fair faces of women wandered. Those 
 were the prosperous days of Tory. With the going of 
 its kings the old customs went, and its glory. 
 
 There was no king to rule wisely and well when the 
 dread famine fell upon the people. It seemed as if God's 
 hand was lifted against them, for the fish deserted their 
 fishing-ground, and the edible birds avoided the cliffs 
 where they had been wont to build. The green things 
 growing in the fields died from the drouth that followed 
 the heavy cold rains, and food grew scarcer until 
 nothing remained save the sea-wrack and the limpets 
 clinging to the rocks. Men and women went about list- 
 less and idle, the glare of fever in their hungry eyes; 
 while the little children sickened and mercifully died. 
 In those days the songs were hushed, and one heard only 
 lamentations or the shrill keening for the dead. 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 75 
 
 It was the gauntncss in Mary Roarty's face that hurt 
 Eoin Macllugh more than any pangs of hunger. He 
 saw her fading clay by clay, and his anguish at the sight 
 was like a sword thrust through his heart. How could 
 he save her, how could he spare her? This was his one 
 cry. She, his own cailin deas (pretty girl) — the treasure 
 cf his soul. Was death, grim white Death, to prove the 
 stronger lover and drag her from his arms'? 
 
 Eoin was known far and near as the Singing Fisher- 
 man. Through his blood generations of bards made 
 music, and the beauty of his voice played upon the senses 
 of his listeners as the sweet south wind might play upon 
 the strings of a harp. It evoked a silent echo which 
 hovered between joy and sorrow, and no one knew which 
 feeling was the most to be desired. How one who had 
 toiled on the sea from childhood had escaped injury to 
 that exquisite voice was a marvel, yet it was so, and when 
 he sang the tender Gaelic ballads of his own making no 
 eye could keep the tears from falling. Many of his songs 
 were made on Mary Roarty. " Mary of the Glinting 
 Ringlets" he called her; or "Little Mary of the 
 Lambs " — in memory of the days when they herded to- 
 gether on the bare headlands where is the mound that is 
 called the House of Balor. " Mary, my Swan of Tender- 
 ness," was another of the dear names he had for his love. 
 When the famine had dealt its will on her there was 
 scarce any beauty left cither in her ringlets or in her 
 young face, but to Eoin she was fairer than ever in her 
 piteous dependence. The food that kept her alive was 
 his giving, and his poor home awaited her coming — had 
 awaited her for many a day. There, in his poet-fancies, 
 I13 saw her, seated by the fireside, like a star shining 
 through the smoke from the smouldering peat, and with 
 the love in her face glorifying the bareness of her setting. 
 
76 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 Sometimes he dreamed of a child in her arms; a little 
 child with the mother's bright hair, and a hint of the 
 father's strength in the tiny symmetry of its limbs. He 
 could never make up his mind as to whether he wished 
 the dream-child a boy or a girl. In his pride he thought 
 he would like the boy better ; that he might train him 
 up a fearless fisherman, with a steady nerve that could 
 dare the highest and most dangerous crags in search of 
 the eggs of the gannet and other wild fowl. But then, 
 the girl — the gentle, clinging girl. She would have his 
 dear Mary's ways, and would go about like a smaller star 
 in her mother's orbit, adding new radiance to their 
 home. He could picture her with her knitting in her 
 hand, bending to count the stitches by the light of the 
 fire, in all the sedate industriousness which foreshadowed 
 the woman in the child. And he knew what he would 
 call her. Her name should be Aislinn, which in the 
 poetical Gaelic means " a dream." 
 
 But Eoin's hopes were very far from realisation. Mary 
 would not leave her widowed father, nor would he share 
 her devotedness with another. Now that, withered with 
 the famine, burnt with the fever, he hovered on the 
 verge of the grave, her tender services were more essen- 
 tial to him than ever. Worn to a shadow, she nursed 
 him through his death-sickness uncomplainingly, and, 
 seeing the emaciation in every line of her face and figure, 
 many there were to prophesy that never would Mary 
 Roarty find a grey streak in her glinting hair. 
 
 When the sods had covered her father help came to 
 Mary. A relative, living on the mainland, had heard of 
 her distress, and brought a kind heart to the desolate 
 girl's relief. She offered her a home in the green, sunny 
 country that lay beyond the guardian hills across the 
 strait, and Mary, won by the motherly warmth of her 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 77 
 
 embrace, accepted. It was the sad parting then between 
 the young people. 
 
 " Mary, a mhuimin," said Eoin, as they stood together 
 on the uplands with the sea-wind blowing about them, 
 " put your hand in mine and say the words after me : 
 
 " Neither life shall come between, 
 Nor death, 
 Nor silver's sheen, 
 Not bitter breath 
 Of evil tongues 
 Shall tear apart 
 My heart — your heart." 
 
 " Say it, my share of the world, say it." And she said 
 it after him, slowly and tearfully. 
 
 " Oh, my God, Mary a stoir (my treasure), the hunger 
 was nothing to this, nor seeing the face of death. It is 
 my heart you are rending from my bosom, and your little 
 hands are round it clutching it, bruising it. They are 
 such little hands — they should be kind and soft." 
 
 She clung to him wildly. " I do not want to go, Eoin, 
 nm chroidhe (my heart). I want to stay with you 
 always." 
 
 ' And go barefooted over the rocks, a stoir, when it is 
 in the little warm shoes you should be walking. And 
 living on the fish and coarse meal from year's end to 
 year's end, when the good fresh meat is beyond there for 
 your eating. Ah, no, no ! Tis in Erin anyways my 
 thoughts will be after you. They will be following you 
 through the grand streets and the grand houses, and 'tis 
 I will be proud to think my girl is seeing all the beauti- 
 ful sights. Maybe then, when I gather the silver, it is 
 after my thoughts I will be going. Never fear, Mary 
 a ruin (my secret love), but my feet will find the way to 
 you." 
 
78 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 " There will be no one in Erin to make songs on me," 
 said Mary wistfully. 
 
 Eoin smiled through his grief. " Better so, cailin deas, 
 better so. It would not be right that there should be, 
 for the new songs might put the old ones out of your 
 memory." 
 
 She laid her head against his shoulder with a cry. 
 
 " There will be many a night here if God spares me," 
 Eoin went on, " when I am out in my boat drifting over 
 the dark water that I will be making new songs on you, 
 Mary mo chroidhe! Making them in my mind that they 
 may be ready for the singing to you when I start for the 
 big town. And they will be finer songs than any I made 
 before, because pain will be in them as well as joy, and 
 I have learned now that pain is stronger and — even 
 though it stabs one's heart — more to be sought than any 
 joy for through it we can guess the depth of love. Love 
 is like the great far-reaching sea there, and pain is like 
 the lead that we send down, down to find how deep it is. 
 I have thought of all this since you talked of going, 
 Mary a dhilis (my dear), and because of the pain I suf- 
 fered I have learnt how much I love you. It is love in 
 me that bids you go, that bids you take to the strange 
 life in which I will not be. If I did not love you, I would 
 keep you here in the poor island, where you would never 
 have any comfort like what is in store for you in the rich 
 town. That is the truth, God be my judge." 
 
 Mary had been gazing at him with a half-frightened 
 look of wonder while he was speaking. This was surely 
 a new Eoin, this man who talked unlike anything she 
 had heard in her life before. And in his eyes there was 
 a curious sad clearness, as if he saw beyond her sight, 
 some vision that was not altogether a beatific one. She 
 gave a little shudder. 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 79 
 
 " What is it, pulse of my heart ? " he whispered in her 
 ear. " Is it cold you are ? ' Then he drew her closer. 
 
 She clasped her arms about him and buried her face 
 where the blue fishing jacket fell away from his tanned 
 neck. He could feel her heart-beats upon his heart and 
 the sobs that stirred her. Yet it was more emotion at 
 the impending change in her fortunes that had unnerved 
 her, rather than regret at leaving her lover and her 
 home. Eoin did not guess this. In the simplicity of 
 his own great passion he fancied she suffered as he him- 
 self was suffering. He bent his head until his cheek 
 touched hers, tear-wet and deathly cold. They stood 
 thus for a time in silence while the night-wind blew chill 
 — and salty, in from the ocean. It was a quiet night, a 
 night of stars. The dirge of the sea was so faint that it 
 scarcely reached their ears, and the cry of a gull, almost 
 as faint, sounded like the beat of a far-off bell as it 
 flapped its lonely way across the waves. Eoin felt the 
 cool peace envelop him like a blessing. The fever left 
 his veins, his wild sorrow became soothed. He gently 
 raised Mary's fair head from its resting place and gazed 
 long and earnestly into her eyes. Then he gave a sigh, 
 and without a word their trembling lips clung together 
 in the parting kiss. 
 
 With the spring the famine and sickness went from 
 Tory. The fish came back in shoals, and the birds re- 
 turned to their breeding places. It was as if a curse had 
 been lifted. Eoin felt happier than he had been since 
 Mary left, and his songs were heard again as he rowed 
 home in the twilight or in the dawn trailing the full net 
 behind his currach. He began to put by a bright bit of 
 silver now and then. And it was noticed that he had 
 the brisk expectant air of one with some great purpose 
 in view. 
 
80 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 Then the blow fell. One of the islanders, returning 
 from Erin, had a wonderful tale to relate of a wedding 
 he had seen — the wedding of Mary Roarty. Eoin's Mary 
 of the Lambs, little Mary of the Ringlets, had married 
 an elderly farmer — a fine match — so the man said, and 
 had gone South with him to his home. Eoin was mend- 
 ing his nets in the midst of a group of fishermen when 
 the other man told the story. He did not cry out, nor 
 cease his work. Only his hands went as numb as death 
 so that he could not feel the cords, and his heart turned 
 to a thing of stone within him. 
 
 That night he was out late in a biting gale of wind and 
 heavy rain. His catch was small, for he handled his 
 lines unskilfully, and it was a stupid face he turned to 
 the talk of his comrades. They whispered a little among 
 themselves when, ere half the night was through, he set 
 his prow for the shore, and rowed off alone. There was 
 no song with him ; he leaned over the oars almost double, 
 scarce heeding the way he went. So the others saw as 
 they watched him out of sight. 
 
 The morning found him stretched on his straw bed 
 raving in the fever. He had one name only on his 
 parched lips. " Mary, Mary," he cried unceasingly, " I 
 am coming — coming," and he would break into snatches 
 of song, hoarse and untuned. During the weary days 
 and nights of watching those who tended him sent many 
 a bitter thought after the girl. His recovery was slow ; 
 slower than is usual in the case of youth. " Some memory 
 is vexing him," the doctor from the mainland said. 
 " There is a weight of sorrow on his heart and his brain 
 is tortured with it. I fear he will never be the same 
 man again." 
 
 While he was in his convalescence Eoin made a new 
 song. He had a very sweet air for it. The words were 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 81 
 
 sad as separation. He called it in the Gaelic An Cailin 
 Treig Me — The Girl who Forsook Me, and when he had 
 grown well enough to move out of doors he would sit on 
 the stone beneath the window, and go over the verses 
 monotonously, half aloud and half to himself. He never 
 mentioned Mary's name now, but sometimes they found 
 him stretched upon the headlands, his lace buried in the 
 sea-salt grass, lamenting, like one possessed. Then they 
 knew that his grief was ever as a gaping wound. 
 
 By degrees his mind seemed to grow more clouded, 
 until he had no memory for anything save the words of 
 his song. He wandered over the island in all weathers, 
 from dawn to nightfall, singing, and the men hearing 
 that melancholy voice forever chanting the caoine of its 
 buried hopes were forced to shudder at the sound. They 
 might foregather to listen to the seanachies tell the old 
 rutins their fathers had told before them of Torry in its 
 ancient days ; but the music that was wont to be a charm 
 to their ears at such times fell strangely and suddenly 
 out of repute with them. It grew to be almost a lost art. 
 Perhaps the gk>om born of the famine had scarcely left 
 their souls; or the abrupt speech of Coll O'Heggarty 
 might have been the cause. " Oh, let those pipes cease," 
 he cried out once in the midst of a gathering. " Thev 
 remind me of Eoin MacHugh. He went past me to-night 
 like a ghost, and the wind shrieking round him. He was 
 singing loud to deaden the noise of the wind. There ! 
 listen, listen ! It is surely enough music we are having 
 when that wail of his is never silent on Tory." 
 
 • • • • •-. . . . . , 
 
 It was seven years after Eoin's trouble fell upon him 
 that one day a woman landed from a currach on the 
 island. A slender fair woman she was : too young for 
 the sorrow on her face. 
 
 F 
 
8^ THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 " Take me to Eoin MacHugh," she said to the man 
 who was the first to speak to her. " Take me to lAm if 
 hv 1 is alive. If he is dead, take me to his grave." 
 
 " He is alive," he said, " but his mind is gone." 
 
 She hushed him with uplifted hand. " I know, T have 
 known for years. But I could not come. I was not 
 free." 
 
 " Why are you here now, Mary Roarty ? " 
 
 " Because I am free. My man is dead." 
 
 " Christ's pity on you, woman dear." 
 
 " No, no," she almost cried. " Do not say it. I want 
 no pity. I deserve no pity. I am free, Do you hear ? ' 
 she shook the man's arm roughly, " I am free." 
 
 He looked at her wonderingly : " You will find him up 
 yonder at the House of Balor," he said, and pointed to- 
 wards the cliffs. 
 
 She walked away quickly. When she came near the 
 rath she heard the faint voice intoning its sad song of 
 her own perfidy. The plaintive words came very clear 
 on the keen sea-air. 
 
 " O my sorrow, my bitter sorrow, that I am without her, 
 That was more to me than the sun in a speckled sky, 
 Than the safe white sands to a storm-tossed boat, 
 Or the cool grasses to feet grown weary." 
 
 Mary caught her breath. He did not perceive her, so 
 she stood listening, gazing at the forlorn figure with a 
 world of compassionate love in her eyes. His were star- 
 ing straight out towards the blue rim of the ocean where 
 the sky came down to meet the waves. 
 
 " Eoin," Mary's voice was sharp with suppressed 
 anguish, " Eoin a ghrddh " (my lovt). 
 
 He turned mechanically at the sound of his name. His 
 unseeing eyes roved over her. 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 83 
 
 " Eoin." She came nearer and sat beside him on the 
 rock. " Do you not know me ? ' 
 He continued his interrupted song. 
 
 " Tis she was fairer than wheat in the ripe sheaf, 
 The little ringlets of her fine and flowing." 
 
 " Oh, Eoin mo cliroidhe" the woman cried passion- 
 ately, throwing her arms about him and drawing the 
 weather-blanched head to her bosom. " Have I brought 
 you to this 1 ? Have I brought you to this? ' 
 
 He drew himself away hastily, looking at her with a 
 sudden frown. 
 
 ' My God, to think that you would be shrinking from 
 me," she waiJed, taking his emaciated hand in hers. 
 ' Eoin, 'tis little Mary of the Lambs that is speaking — 
 your own little Mary." 
 
 " Dead, dead," he muttered hoarsely. 
 
 " No, not dead, heait's dearest. She only went astray, 
 foolish and weak and easily flattered that she was. She 
 has come back to you." 
 
 • Dead," he repeated again, his vague gaze wandering 
 from her face to the bunch of white moor grass he toyed 
 with. 
 
 " Poor soul, no. Here is Mary beside you, loving ) ou 
 above all the world. And she never ceased to love you, 
 for all that she took the other man." 
 
 He pushed her from him petulantly, and resumed his 
 song. 
 
 ' If I were a shepherd on the brown mountain, 
 'Tis I would be seeking her in the sheltered places." 
 
 Mary wrung her hands, tears streaming down her 
 cheeks. Eoin was smiling as he sang. She followed his 
 look out to where the sun was sinking, a globe of fire, 
 
84 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 into the sea. The line of glory its radiance made across 
 the water seemed a pathway between heaven and earth 
 for the brown currachs dancing there. 
 
 " If I were a boat on the green billows, 
 'Tis I would rise higher than the foam to greet her," 
 
 went on the plaintive strain. The shadow of the rath 
 the islanders know as the House of Balor fell upon them 
 now — a dark shadow, heralding the coming twilight. 
 Then a cold wind crept inward from the ocean and the 
 thin gray mass of the upland stirred and murmured rest- 
 lessly. Eoin shivered as the damp mist gathered around 
 them. Seeing this Mary rose and wrapped the black 
 cloak she was wearing about his shoulders. She noticed 
 then how his figure had shrunken in the fisherman's suit 
 of rough blue homespun. 
 
 Slipping her arm through his she raised him from his 
 seat. " Eoin, come home with me," she said gently. 
 " You are my only care now. Come dear love, come." 
 
 He suffered her to lead him down the hill to the cot- 
 tage where he dwelt. Here Mary found the old woman 
 who tended him. Her name was Aoife (Eefa) Ni Bhroin, 
 and she was reputed to be very wise. She was cowering 
 over the smouldering peats when they entered. The 
 smoke hung thick about the rafters as she turned at the 
 sound of their footsteps, so that her dim eyes peering 
 through it did not at first recognise the new-comer. 
 
 " I am Mary Roarty." The diffident accents smote 
 familiarly upon old Aoife's ear. " I am come back to 
 Tory." 
 
 Aoife drew nearer until she came close to the pair, still 
 standing arm in arm. 
 
 " Is it really you, Mary Roarty ? ; There was menace 
 in the question. " Have you come back to end the work 
 you began ? " 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 85 
 
 " Oh, Aoife," Mary cried tremulously. " I have come 
 back to undo the harm, with the help of God." She 
 dropped Eoin's arm and caught that of the old woman. 
 
 " How can you do it, girl? Look at him, look at him 
 well. The wreck of the young strong man he was, poor, 
 grief-crazed, the pity of the island — and all through you. 
 Can you bring peace to him who has so long known un- 
 rest, or light to his clouded mind? The task will be 
 hard ; for heart-break and cold and hunger have done 
 their share. Ay, 'tis often he and I have had little to 
 keep us alive, though all were kind and spared what they 
 could. No, you have come to see him die. I had a 
 vision of your coining night after night — just as you were 
 standing there, and in the vision he lay at your feet. 
 The blight of death is on him even now. I see it. Do 
 you not see it too, girl ? What have you done to him ? " 
 
 The outburst of her anger ended in a shrill wail as she 
 ran towards Eoin where he leant against the wall, tremb- 
 ling and very white. 
 
 " Come to the fire, a leanbh mo chroidhe " — (O child of 
 my heart !) — her shrill voice had become soft as a 
 mother's whispering over her child. " Come and get 
 warm, a dhilis." He would not stir. Mary knelt down 
 suddenly on the uneven floor and lifted her hands to 
 heaven. 
 
 " Give him back his mind, O God, dear God," she sup- 
 plicated wildly; "give him back what I helped to take 
 away. And, if I may, let me suffer in his stead." 
 
 Then as she knelt, a strange thing happened. She 
 glanced towards Eoin to find his eyes fixed upon her. 
 The intelligence had returned to them, and there was 
 a puzzled frown between his brows. 
 
 "Who is it?" ho asked, passing his hand across his 
 eyes in a dazed fashion. 
 
86 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 " It is Mary Roarty — the woman who betrayed you," 
 cried old Aoife bitterly. 
 
 " Mary — Roarty." He seemed unable to comprehend. 
 
 " Yes, Mary Roarty, who left you for the rich widow- 
 man." 
 
 He looked down at Mary's bent head, where she still 
 knelt on the floor. 
 
 " Little Mary," he said slowly, like one feeling his 
 way, " Little Mary of the Ringlets? " 
 
 Mary rose to her feet and would have rushed to his 
 arms. 
 
 " Little Mary, who left and betrayed you," cried Aoife 
 again. 
 
 His face changed and grew strained with anger. " T 
 remember, I remember now," he spoke in a hushed, 
 horror-stricken tone. " She broke my heart." 
 
 " Oh, Eoin, forgive me, forgive," wailed Mary. " I 
 am free now. I have come back to you. Let me make 
 amends." 
 
 " You broke my heart." 
 
 " Do not say it, Eoin ; my sorrow is heavy enough 
 without hearing that from your lips." 
 
 " What is it to my sorrow, Mary Roarty ? You broke 
 my heart." 
 
 " I have repented," she wept, " repented with bitter 
 tears. God has forgiveness for even the worst of us and 
 yon — you who used to be so gentle, Eoin, are you going 
 to let me go forth without comfort and pardon ? " 
 
 " I cannot forgive you," he answered drearily, " it is 
 too much to ask." 
 
 '* As you hope for mercy, Eoin, be kind to me. I have 
 repented sorely, God knows. My life beyond there was 
 the hard life ; full of memories of other times that made 
 the days a weariness and the nights an agony. Oh ! 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 87 
 
 Eoin mo chroidhe, open your heart to mine again, for it 
 was the pain-racked lonely heart I carried in Erin." 
 
 He turned abruptly from her clinging hands, and 
 crossing quickly by her, entered his bedroom, bolting 
 the door behind him. 
 
 " That is your answer, Mary Roarty," Aoife said, point- 
 ing to the closed door. " Now you may go." 
 
 Mary crouched outside the door and beat her hands 
 upon the callous wood. " Oh," she cried, " only speak 
 one word of forgiveness and I shall go out of your sight 
 forever. Just one word, Eoin. I cannot go until you 
 say it. Just one word." 
 
 But no answer came. " He never loved me," she 
 moaned, rocking to and fro. " He never loved me." 
 Then she remembered remorsefully their sad parting on 
 the uplands. " Oh, he did love me, poor Eoin, he must 
 have loved me. If he had loved me less he never would 
 have suffered so." 
 
 She rose stiffly to her feet and sat in his chair by the 
 dying fire. The night came down and its dark hours 
 glided over her bowed head, but she did not heed their 
 passing. A stupor of misery was on her, through which 
 the heavy breathing of old Aoife, asleep in her corner, 
 seemed like the loud sough of wind on a night of storm. 
 Its monotonous rise and fall lulled Mary to sleep like- 
 wise. At length a chill touch upon her hand aroused 
 her from her uneasy slumbers. She started and stared 
 with wide-open eyes into the dark. 
 
 ' Mary," came to her ears in a faint whisper. 
 
 The fear sprang from her heart to her throat and 
 strangled her voice. 
 
 " Mary mo chroidhe." 
 
 At that the spell upon her senses relaxed and she 
 leaned towards him. She could not see him, ske only 
 
88 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 knew he was there by her side in the darkness holding 
 her hand in his. 
 
 "Is it you, Eoin?" 
 
 " Yes, pulse of my heart, it is I. Put your arms 
 around me, Mary, and love me. Oh, love me, Mary, love 
 me. I have been so long without your love." 
 
 " A ghrddh mo chroidhe, a ghrddh, a ghrddh! she 
 crooned the sweet words over him piteously. He stroked 
 her face with his thin fingers ; then he laid his cold cheek 
 upon hers with a sob. 
 
 " They were the cruel, cruel years, Mary a stoir, that 
 kept you from me. Where were you, Mary, and where 
 was I ? I do not understand. I feel as if I have awak- 
 ened from a long forgetfulness. Was it all a dream, 
 Mary, your going, and my loneliness — a bad deceitful 
 dream ? " 
 
 " Oh, my grief, it was no dream, Eoin dear. I was a 
 wicked girl who foolishly thought riches were happiness 
 and suffered sore for the thought. But now that you 
 have forgiven me, I will be putting all memory of those 
 black days away." 
 
 " I spoke bitter words, Mary, when you knelt on the 
 floor there, and held out your little hands to me. There 
 was a strange hate in my heart, but it is gone now, my 
 Mary of the Ringlets. It must have been a part of the 
 bad dream. How could I hate you at all ? If there was 
 any reason I have forgotten why." 
 
 1 Do not try to remember it now, Eoin. Let us think 
 of the new happy life we shall spend together." 
 
 Yes, that will be better," he said contentedly, " that 
 will be better." He pondered a while. " There's a song 
 running through my head, Mary : a song I must have 
 heard somewhere. Listen, a stoir " 
 
 " Where did I hear that song, Mary ? " 
 
THE SINGING WOMEN OF TORY. 89 
 
 Mary's whole body tingled with anguish as she list- 
 ened. He was as one groping for the light in darkness. 
 She saw that his brain was wrestling with recollections 
 too complex for its weakness, and she tried to change the 
 current of his thoughts. 
 
 " Oh," she said gaily, " 'tis I will be expecting great 
 songs from you now. And all about myself, mind, or it 
 is growing jealous I will be." 
 
 A pale cold gleam came creeping through the little 
 window. She looked down at his face upon her bosom, 
 and saw that he lay with closed eyes. Suddenly he 
 started up, and held his hand against his ear, listening. 
 c That is God's voice," he said joyfully, turning to her 
 with a smile. 
 
 She only heard a cock crowing faintly in the distance. 
 
 " I am cold," he whispered, " and tired, Mary." 
 
 She folded her heavy cloak close around him as he laid 
 his head back again on her breast. After a time she felt 
 that he slept, and then the balm of sleep descended too 
 upon herself. 
 
 A scream, wild, piercing, horror-stricken, recalled her 
 to waking life. She opened her eyes to behold the face 
 of Aoife peering into hers. The old woman was striving 
 to draw Eoin from her arms. 
 
 " Let him be," cried Mary, " he is mine now. Let 
 him be." 
 
 " Nay, but he is God's," said Aoife solemnly. " God 
 gave him peace while you slept, and heeded not." 
 
 AJ1 through the two days and nights of Eoin's wake 
 when Mary kept her place beside his body and would not 
 stir, she fancied she heard a voice singing the song the 
 dead man sang on the uplands, on the day of her home- 
 
90 
 
 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 coming. The words and air were very distinct. They 
 beat on her brain while she said her Rosary over and 
 over for his soul until she sometimes lost the trend of 
 her prayers listening. And even when he was laid to 
 rest with his kinsfolk on the wind-blown slope, the spirit- 
 song did not cease. It followed her everywhere she went, 
 until at length she found herself repeating it aloud. 
 
 " God has sent it for my Purgatory/' she said. She 
 sang it very faintly, so that deaf old Aoife could not 
 hear, but the girl-children passing by, who came to look 
 with curious eyes upon beautiful Mary Roarty, whose 
 cruelty had driven Eoin MacHugh astray, listened and 
 loved the song and the singer. The only ease of heart 
 that Mary knew was when she hearkened the doleful 
 chant in the sweet young lisping voices; for they took 
 pleasure in singing with her. So it happened in time 
 that these children crooned it over their infants at the 
 breast, and that a later generation of babies were hushed 
 to the same lullaby; though long before then Mary of 
 the Ringlets had joined Eoin beyond the gates of death. 
 
 And this is why the women only raise their voices in 
 song on Tory. 
 
Sorcba RuadD's Croubks. 
 
SORCHA RUADH'S TROUBLES. 
 
 DONEGAL lias lost count of her exiles, they have 
 been so many. Yet, in all their wanderings, 
 north or south, east or west, the faith of their 
 fathers, and the love of their motherland, have ever been 
 first with them through poverty and wealth, and it was 
 one of these — far away and tortured with heart-hunger — 
 who, keeping in memory the homestead in the Finn 
 Valley, that was his birth-place, sent in a letter to the 
 old people the sorrowful crude little song uhat Sorcha 
 Euadh sang as she stepped lightly between her wooden 
 pails of sweet spring water — 
 
 '' Farewell to Stranorlar and Ballybofey — 
 These towns they are beautiful, gallant, and gay ; 
 These towns they are beautiful, rare to be seen ; 
 An' they're close to Finn Water, ] ; gh Dreenan bleach- 
 green. 
 
 When I think upon Dreenan my heart it is sad — 
 My friends and acquaintances have all gone abroad ; 
 Far, far they have wandered from that distant shore — 
 Then fare-you-well, Dreenan, an' sweet Edenmore." 
 
 Her voice still held a note of youthfulness, and rang 
 out proudly, as if there lurked in her breast a conscious- 
 ness that it was not unpleasant to listen to, nor, indeed, 
 was the time so remote when Teague M'Goulrick's wife 
 shone as a sort of prima-dofina in the rural society of the 
 
94 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 district where she had been born and bred. But it was 
 at a wedding or a christening that her singing met with 
 its full reward, for, though an invited guest, she usually 
 took upon herself the onerous duty of entertainer as well, 
 and song followed song until the lark wakened up outside 
 and carolled back in answer. And who so oj^enly glad 
 of her success as her husband, Teague — first and most 
 constant of her many admirers. After twenty-five years 
 of wedded life he was her lover still, eliciting from Bible 
 Andy the eucomium that they were " Like two singing 
 birds in a nest — the lilt was seldom off their tongues, and 
 the hard word was never heard between them." 
 
 She made a bright, sturdy picture in the early sun- 
 shine as she walked along straightly and swiftly. Her 
 red hair, not golden, nor bronze, but aggressive warm 
 red, shone like a flame, her brown freckled face was very 
 pleasant and brave, and her strong white teeth flashed 
 now and again in a gay, irrepressible smile. She was in 
 a hurry this morning, though the blackbird called to her 
 from the thorn-tree, and the young frogs were croaking 
 in the ditches alongside the road. Usually she stopped 
 to listen to the cheerful sounds, and out of the happiness 
 of her own heart made reply in mocking imitation ; but 
 there was no time for such trifling to-day, for Teague was 
 about to start with the pigs for Stranorlar fair, and his 
 wife must be safe within the four walls of their cottage 
 before he set out. 
 
 " It 'ud be terrible onlucky if the boneens met me " — 
 she would say when the neighbours raised a laugh over 
 the manoeuvres of herself and Teague — " an' that's why 1 
 have to hide in the hedge many's the time when he comes 
 drivin' them up the road. An' there's no doubt at all 
 but I'm redheaded, aye, the worst sort of red-headed, 
 too If it was only like ould Miss Mackey's sunburnt 
 crimps, not a cratur need be afraid o' me." 
 
S0RCHA KUADh's TROUBLES. 95 
 
 But, " the more haste the worse speed," and Sorcha 
 Ruadh, glancing down the hilly road, saw the " rint," as 
 Teague called them, rooting calmly here and there, and 
 her man himself peeling a long sally-rod a short distance 
 off. He was singing as well as she, and the words reached 
 her clearly : — 
 
 " Oh, rise up, Willy Reilly, an' come along wi' me, 
 I mean for to go wi' ye an' leave this coun-ter-ie ; 
 To leave my father's dwelling his houses an' free Ian' — 
 An' away went Willy Reilly an' his dear Colleen Bawn." 
 
 She was close to a gate leading into one of their own 
 little fields, and so quite safe while she stood and watched 
 him unperceived for a moment. When the rod was 
 peeled to his satisfaction, he gave the nearest boneen a 
 cut with it that created an abrupt disturbance in the 
 mind of that lazy animal, causing it to trot up the hill in 
 terror, followed by its surprised companions. 
 
 "An' away went Willy Reilly an' his dear Colleen Bawn," 
 sang Teague emphatically. 
 
 The high notes were a marvel, and his wife, as he ended 
 tlm verse in a sentimental fashion, peculiarly his own, 
 could not control her impulse to laugh out aloud from 
 her shelter behind the hedge. He started slightly, until, 
 turning in the direction of the sound, his eye caught a 
 glimpse of familiar red, when with an amusing access of 
 dignity he straightened himself and walked on at a busi- 
 ness-like speed after the unruly pigs. He winked know- 
 ingly as he went, stopping to look back at the bend of the 
 road. 
 
 ' Poor Sally," he murmured, " she's ever an' always the 
 same, whether the sun shines down on her or the clouds 
 
96 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 are dark an' heavy. Brave an' true you always wor, 
 a bhean a' tighe, an' brave an' true you'll be to the end. 
 God bless ye ! " 
 
 And Sorcha Ruadh, for her part, putting down her 
 pails on the roadway, stood gazing after him, shading 
 her tear-dim eyes with her hand : — 
 
 " Ah, Teague, my man," she said, " there's little male 
 in the chest, an' the stockin's nigh empty, but so long as 
 the love holds out between you an' me, I'm content," and 
 smiling through her tears she took the three lucky steps, 
 not" to be omitted, towards his retreating form. 
 
 One trouble, and one alone, had entered into the 
 happy life of these two. They would scarcely acknow- 
 ledge it by this name, for Teague M'Goulrick was inor- 
 dinately proud of his only son, and Sorcha Ruadh adored 
 him ; but the handsome, dark-eyed boy was an enigma to 
 the parents. Full of vague ambitions and dreams be- 
 yond their ken, imbued with aspirations in which their 
 contented thoughts could have no place, he seemed to 
 belong to another sphere than theirs. He was as 
 sweet-natured as his mother's son could be ; patient and 
 thoughtful in the little incidents of their everyday life — 
 helpful in all the farm-work with his father, never idle, 
 never sullen, and yet they felt that the lad's days were 
 embittered by discontent and unfulfilled desires. They 
 could not understand him, and he knew it, and suffered 
 tenfold agony accordingly. Their sufferings were as in- 
 tense as his own, and a sense of inferiority gave them an 
 added pang, until they felt sometimes as if he were a 
 stranger in whom they had no part. Yet, though each 
 was conscious by instinct of the other's misery, husband 
 and wife never discussed their trouble — it would have 
 seemed like disloyalty to the boy — but in their own 
 loving, homely way they strove to dispel the shadow 
 
BORCHA RUADH's TROUBLES. 97 
 
 brooding in the dark eyes, and graving melancholy lines 
 on the young face, by their genial plans for his comfort 
 and amusement. Hugh was quick enough to see the pa- 
 thetic little subterfuges, and to note the jealousy with 
 which they regarded his silent moods, the books that he 
 pored over in the long winter nights, and the solitary 
 rambles he took in the summer gloamings up to the hill- 
 side, where he could stretch himself on the heather alone 
 with his dreams. I le was counted " terrible unsociable ' 
 by all the neighbours, and the girls of the valley, stroll- 
 ing down to the riverside with their knitting, in the cool 
 of the pleasant evenings, whither they were usually fol- 
 lowed by the boys, quite by accident, found that their 
 simple allurements were thrown away on " M'Goulrick's 
 Hugh." Into those cherished dreams of his no woman 
 had entered as yet, so the girls turned their saucy glances 
 upon more responsive admirers, and left him to the 
 quietude he sought. 
 
 But there was an awakening in store for the boy, and 
 the inward voice urging him out into the strife of the 
 world was to be hushed by another dearer summons that 
 came sweet and low, like the song of the linnet at sunset, 
 and called him to love and happiness instead, making 
 every vein of his heart flush warm with gladness, until 
 for him earth took a nobler beauty, and the heavens a 
 higher and holier grandeur. 
 
 It was a simple thing, indeed, or so it would appear to 
 many, that accomplished all this — only the coming of tall, 
 slender Grania Mulkerian to live with her aunt and uncle 
 in their childless home at Carrickmagrath ; yet to Hugh 
 M'Goulrick, faultily imaginative as he was, it seemed as 
 if she came in all her tender womanliness for his sake 
 alone, a ray of glory to brighten his sombre life, and 
 satisfy the undefined yearning that had tortured him for 
 years. 
 
 G 
 
98 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 Sorcha Euadh was the girl's godmother, and the long 
 separation had been powerless to lessen the affection that 
 prevailed between them. Grania made it almost her fir§t 
 duty to visit the elder woman, and one day Hugh, enter- 
 ing the kitchen unexpectedly, saw her — her brown hair 
 bent over the flowering in her hand — sitting close beside 
 his mother, whose kindly fingers stroked the waving 
 tresses lovingly. As he stopped abruptly, a few paces 
 off, she lifted her sweet gray eyes and looked full into the 
 dark ones gazing down at her. He drew back and stood 
 speechless. It was as if a flash of lightning had blinded 
 him, and blotted out his memory of all things, save the 
 beauty of those gray eyes, and the shy smile that dwelt 
 in them. 
 
 His mother broke the silence — "Tis little Grania grown 
 up and come back to her aunt and uncle, don't ye mind 
 her, boy? — little Grania that ye took bird-nestin' long 
 ago, and brought home many's the time cryin', with a 
 thorn in her foot, for ye'd always tramp in among the 
 whins and blackberry bushes — the rover that ye wor. 
 Spake to her, boy, an' say she's welcome home." 
 
 How could he speak with those sweet eyes smiling 
 and waiting, yet he did somehow, though his voice 
 sounded unreal even to his own ears. 
 
 " So you did not know me, Hugh," she said, gently — 
 " 'tis a long time, sure enough, still, I thought you'd re- 
 member." She looked at him half reproachfully, like a 
 disappointed child, and he felt the guilty blush burning 
 over cheek and brow in answer, but to himself he mur- 
 mured afterwards — " How could I guess that it wasn't an 
 angel sitting by my mother's fireside, and the sunlight 
 falling in a golden shower all over and around her, why, 
 it was shining in her eyes as well, and that took the 
 speech away from me entirely." 
 
SORCIIA RUADIl's TROUBLES. 99 
 
 For many days after he could never meet her without 
 the crimson flushing his dark cheek, and an awkward 
 silence making his presence somewhat of an embarrass- 
 ment to her. But by degrees her gentle ways made him 
 feel less conscious, and it was then she learned the long- 
 ing that was in the heart of her old playmate, lie would 
 talk to her by the hour of his love for their country : — 
 
 " That's why I'd like to be soldier in her cause, to 
 show to the whole world that life is sacred only for her 
 sake after God's, and that deatli is ten thousand times 
 welcome if it would but lead her one little step on the 
 road to Freedom. And day by day I fret for her, Grania, 
 just as if she were my real, breathing mother, and in my 
 hand lay the power of drying up her tears. That's how 
 it is — I feel her suffering as a personal pain, and night 
 and morning I pray that I may be called upon to help 
 her, and endure if need be. Sometimes I have longed 
 for comforts that my poor father and mother have never 
 had, that I can never find here, but I've learned to put 
 the longing aside and say to myself that Ireland has been 
 praying and longing for her Dawn more than seven cen- 
 turies, and if I am to be her soldier I must learn to be 
 heroic in little ways as well as great." 
 
 The girl's gray eyes reflected back the glow that 
 burned in the brown ones, as they sat and talked thus in 
 a little world of their own, while Sorcha Ruadh, listening 
 intently to every word, would shake her red head now 
 and then in a mixed wonder of admiration and reproof. 
 Io seemed as if God had intended those two for each 
 other from the beginning. There was no jarring note in 
 their friendship- — his thoughts, his hopes, his dreams, 
 were to be like her own. She entered into his fancies 
 fondly, unreservedly, rejoicing in his pleasures and griev- 
 ing in his grief. He hardly understood how strong and 
 
100 THE PASSIONATE HEAKTS. 
 
 true her affection was— there is a limit to a man's sym- 
 pathy for a woman, but none to a woman's for a man 
 whom she comes nigh to loving ; and so it ended for 
 Grania, who awakened from her dreaming to find that 
 she had crossed the border line between earth and para- 
 dise. 
 
 The knowledge came upon her suddenly one May eve 
 down by the river, when the hawthorns loaded the air 
 with fragrance, and the daisies gleamed like little stars 
 in the short damp grass. She had gone there alone that 
 she might strive to understand what life would be with- 
 out Hugh, for, at last, wearied by the lad's persistence, 
 Teague M'Goulrick had consented to give him his passage 
 money to America out of their scanty hoard. 
 
 " I doubt if ye'll be happier, boy, than your mother an' 
 me would have made ye, but start, in God's name, an' 
 try for yerself," he said. 
 
 The poor soft-hearted mother smiled through her 
 tears, and held his head on her shoulder while he told her 
 in a broken voice that it was for all their sakes he desired 
 to go, for all their sakes— and for Grania's, too, he added 
 slowly. 
 
 Sorcha Ruadh noted the changed tone, and a keen stab 
 of jealousy went through her. 
 
 " Ye 're terrible fond o' Grania, darlin', aren't ye?' 
 she asked. 
 
 He lifted his head at once, and spoke out eagerly — 
 " Oh, mother, I love her, I love her, I love her. I can't 
 tell you how much or how madly. She's everything to 
 me. I'm wild at the thought of leaving her, but how 
 can I win her if I've nothing to offer — so I must go. 
 You'll watch over her when I'm away, won't you, my 
 own kind mother? I couldn't help this, dear; I meant 
 to keep at home and be a comfort to you, and tried to get 
 
> ) 
 
 > 
 
 SORCHA RUAlYtt's TROUBLES. 101 
 
 > ^ > ■ 
 
 rid of iny fancies — then Granii came, aud when we 
 talked together they grew stronger than ever — she 
 seemed like a part of my hopes, and I found that I must 
 have been waiting for her always. And she doesn't know 
 — she looks upon me as a brother almost, though I be- 
 lieve I could teach her to care if I had a chance of 
 making a home for her like other men. I must try and 
 make it, mother, and you'll guard her for me, and talk 
 about me now and then, so that she'll remember." 
 
 Jealousy and giief still wrenched at her heart-strings, 
 but tSurcha liuadli overcame them. 
 
 " Tell her yer story yerself, a y radii,' she said, " an' 
 God speed ye. That's the worst o' men— they never 
 know when a woman is breakin' her heart for them, be- 
 cause she keeps the smile before the world, when maybe 
 'tis her mornin' an' evenin' prayer that somebody 'ud 
 only spake the word she's dyin' to hear. Never judge 
 the girl ye love by her face, son, but go an' tell her. 
 Don't wait for riches — love is the best of all, an' some of 
 us 'ud rather starve on a crust, an' be loved, than live in 
 a gran' palace without it. Look at yer father an' me — 
 we had a hard struggle many's the time, an' we knew 
 what the hunger was, too, but we had the love between 
 us, an' we had you." 
 
 The boy caressed her tenderly as she clung to him in a 
 paroxysm of grief for a moment. " Go, darlin'," she re- 
 peated, " an' spake to yer little girl, an' bid her come to 
 the mother that's waitin' for her." 
 
 Hugh felt that Grania would be watching for him by 
 the riverside as usual, and there he found her leaning 
 against a tree trunk, with her slender hands folded idly 
 in her lap, and her grey eyes full of mourning. She 
 noted the quiver in the sensitive lips, the pallor on the 
 dark face, and waited for him to speak. 
 
102 r''- ',CllE tA^SIGNATE HEARTS. 
 
 " I've told father and mother, Grania dear, that I've 
 made up my mind to go away and do something with my 
 life. They wouldn't listen at first, but now they see it 
 is best." 
 
 " When do you leave, Hugh 1 " she faltered. 
 
 " The sooner the better, or I can't go at all. God 
 pardon me for giving them this grief, but I must ease 
 their lot of pinching and grinding work, though they are 
 happy enough in it, somehow, and then I must be worthy 
 of you, Grania. Oh, my dearest, don't you know it — 
 that I love you, every hair on your dear brown head, 
 every smile in your sweet, sweet eyes. Have I startled 
 you, a ruin? Then forgive me, but I love you beyond all 
 expression — you are the one woman in the universe for 
 me — the one star to draw me from sinful ways into the 
 upward path you tread. I can't tell you how I feel, how 
 undeserving I am of you, but if you would only give me 
 one grain of hope to cany away into my new strange 
 wanderings, it would help to keep me strong and brave 
 and true. .One little word, dearest." 
 
 And Grania ; she rose from her seat under the blossom- 
 ing chestnut, and placing one hand on the lad's dark 
 head, with the other she raised his sorrowful face to her 
 own and kissed it. 
 
 " It is the first time I've done it to any man, love," she 
 whispered, " but now let it bear comfort to your heart. 
 Whether the waiting be short or long, whether you come 
 back to me or never come again, I will be watching for 
 you, God granting, either here or beyond the grave. My 
 love is yours for all time, and my faith and my hope." 
 
 What need of further words between them when their 
 souls had spoken in the agony of impending separation ; 
 but they clung to each other in a silence that was more 
 fraught with tenderness than any speech could be. 
 
SORCHA KUADh/s TROUBLES. 103 
 
 Yet Hugh's departure was not so near as either ima- 
 gined. The old folk, losing courage at the last, begged 
 their boy to stay until after the harvest, and as he looked 
 on his father's bent form, and at his mother's wan smile, 
 that tried to be brave, he promised. 
 
 June" came in with torrents of heavy rain that lasted 
 almost without intermittance throughout July. Such a 
 wet season had rarely been known in a country that suf- 
 fered much from heavy floods, and the farmers discussed 
 anxiously the fate of the crops, dotted here and there 
 with pools of water, and beaten down with the incessant 
 showers. The damp heat pervaded the whole valley, 
 bringing fever in its train. First it attacked the little 
 children, and then the kindly parish priest, journeying 
 between the grief-stricken households, fell a victim to the 
 insidious disease. Lamentations arose from end to end 
 of the district; in the graveyard every day saw fresh pits 
 open to receive the pallid holocausts, and no man knew 
 when his own hour might come. 
 
 Grania went about like an angel of mercy from one 
 bedside to the other, soothing the wild ravings of a 
 frightened sufferer, or wiping the death-damp off a brow 
 from whose worn pitifulness God's Hand had banished 
 the pain. She was untiring in her sympathy and gentle 
 attentions to the distraught people. Night after night 
 she sat watching and praying, until shadows ringed her 
 sweet grey eyes, and the lovely bloom forsook her cheeks. 
 Hugh M'Goulrick shared her vigils as often as it was pos- 
 sible, and in vain begged her to take a rest. He grew 
 full of dread at sight of the weariness that brooded over 
 her, though she never complained, and only smiled when 
 he held her little thin hand against his lips. 
 
 At last a day came when her devotedness cost her dear, 
 and the news went abroad that Grania Mulkerian was 
 down with the fever. 
 
104 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 The sick, who had learned to look for her presence near 
 them, might call and call to her, bnt the soft voice never 
 answered their distressing cries. Never on earth again 
 would she press an aching head, nor lift a little ice-cold 
 child from its mother's clinging arms to prepare it for 
 the tomb. 
 
 The Great Summoner had touched her with his wings, 
 and the gates of Heaven were opened wide to let her 
 through. 
 
 One poor boy, who loved her better than all the world, 
 knelt in speechless agony by her side, while her burning 
 lips breathed his name faintly and fondly. His strained 
 dark eyes never left her face, and his fingers kept their 
 frantic grasp of hers even when the pure soul had for- 
 saken its earthly tenement. When the mourners had 
 left her to the last sleep he fell upon the grave, and lay 
 there in an apathy of despair, without sigh or tear, and 
 those who came to seek him in the twilight, raising his 
 head with kindly hands, feared that his anguished spirit 
 had gone to join hers beyond the skies. 
 
 Ever after he went about with the look of one seeking 
 for something lost. His father's hay grew tardily ripe 
 in the meadows — the sodden fields needed draining — 
 the thatch over their heads gave sign of wear and tear, 
 but from Hugh M'Goulrick all interests in life had de- 
 parted when the clay was piled over the gray-eyed girl 
 he worshipped. The old people endured this ordeal for 
 a time, until they saw that the boy's salvation laj in a 
 change of scene. So they hinted to him, diffidently, that 
 the passage-money had been kept safe against his de- 
 parture, rolled up in the old stocking in the chest. He 
 made no reply to the suggestion, nor referred to it again, 
 but it was evident that though he might resent any in- 
 trusion upon his grief, yet he seemed to turn more grate- 
 
sorcha ruadh's troubles. 105 
 
 fully to his mother than he had done during the more 
 poignant period of his desolation. 
 
 At last the blow fell, and the pain of parting with 
 their only son was added to the trouble already weighing 
 on the overburdened hearts of Sorcha Ruadh and her 
 husband. He held ont no hope of returning to his home, 
 but bade them good-bye with a solemnity that seemed 
 meant for ever, and they understood and blessed him in 
 the soft impressive Gaelic of their native valley. 
 
 A few letters reached the lonely couple, telling how he 
 had joined Meagher's Brigade, and giving an account of 
 what had befallen him. lie wrote that a soldier's death 
 was the only boon he craved, except their loving prayers. 
 
 When the roll was called on the morning of December 
 14th, 1862, there was no response from Private Hugh 
 M'Goulrick, for he lay face downwards on the blood- 
 stained slope at Fredericksburg, with a bullet through 
 his breast. His comrades, in after-days, by many a 
 camp-fire, told how this quiet Irish lad had been the 
 bravest of the brave, fighting with the grimmest deter- 
 mination in the wake of the General, and when the dead 
 were being removed from the battle-field, he was found 
 lying close to the earthworks, behind which the Georgian 
 Militia had taken their stand. 
 
 When the news reached the old people it found them 
 somewhat prepared — though their grief was beyond all 
 earthly consolation, and the last glint of red in Sorcha 
 Ruadh' s hair faded slowly afterwards, until it grew as 
 white as one of the nodding blossoms of the bog-cotton. 
 Her song was heard no more by the banks of Finn Water, 
 and the blackbird might whistle from the garden hedge 
 without fear of rivalry ; her singing days were over when 
 her son clasped hands with sorrow. The meeting Above 
 
106 
 
 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 was now her sole desire, and on balmy summer evenings, 
 when she had put everything to rights within the little 
 cottage, Sorcha Ruadh would lead her feeble husband to 
 the stone seat under the clinging honeysuckle outside 
 their door, and so sitting together, and talking of their 
 dear, dead boy, and Grania, they prayed God in his 
 mercy not to part them, but to send the last call for both 
 together. 
 
 
 A? W\ 1m V 
 
 
 %S& 
 
 
 Er Kj ^* - \-^^fflfi^ / ^^^**l^'^y^^(L^ 
 
 ^v4ll^O^ 
 
 
 
 
Bp tbe mislp Burn* 
 
BY THE MISTY BURN. 
 
 QP on Gortawarla the heather grew so thick and 
 tall that the two children who crouched in the 
 nook they had made there were hidden as if in 
 a little nest where they could exchange confidences un- 
 disturbed, and kiss each other in childish joy of the com- 
 panionship. Beside them, on a bed of soft grass, lay a 
 fiddle, which the boy eyed with tender affection, reaching 
 out his thin hand to touch it lovingly. He was a hand- 
 some lad, dark-curled, and with a high clever brow, but 
 the pallor on his face, and the weariness in the brown 
 eyes were sad to see. A crutch lying near told the tale 
 of his sufferings, and why a thrill of pain rang ever in his 
 voice. 
 
 The girl was a small, elfin, agile creature, red-haired, 
 and violet-eyed. She was like a streak of sunshine 
 against the dark boy. " 'Tis the bright little blossom 
 she is," people said, and only her father's second wife 
 thought otherwise, having no children of her own. So 
 the love that came bubbling up from the heart of Una 
 MacFelimy was given, in all its lavishness, to the crip- 
 pled lad from the mill, since in her home there was none 
 t:> prize it. When she could steal an hour from the 
 herding in the summer afternoons she would run panting 
 up the slope, to the trysting-place, and in the sobbing 
 and laughing of Shameen's fiddle she found her joy. He 
 had a wonderful way with it. His slender body used to 
 quiver with passionate sympathy as he played, and his 
 
110 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 touch was delicately firm and true. In these treasured 
 moments Una was his sole audience and critic, and in 
 her violet eyes he read his praise or blame. 
 
 It was when Shameen was slowly recovering from the 
 terrible fall that had crippled him for life, and old Cor- 
 mac MacKenna used to, come with his fiddle to soothe 
 him, that Roger O'Cahan gave the Little Red Lark to 
 his son. The name was Shameen's own. " For it is the 
 little red lark she will be surely, father dear, when I 
 learn to play on her, and she'll sing all the songs you 
 love to hear," he said, clutching the new fiddle to his 
 breast, and the father turned away with a sigh as the 
 eyes of his dead wife looked at him gratefully out of the 
 pinched pale face. 
 
 Shameen lay back on his pillows and gave himself up 
 to the happiness of possession. He kissed the fiddle 
 through a rain of tears. 
 
 " Oh, fiddle dear, fiddle mo chroidhe" he cried ten- 
 derly, " my own little fiddle. Look at the little strings 
 of her, and the shine all over her, and the little keys that 
 are so white and smooth. Oh fiddle, a ghradh, sure it is 
 my heart you are, and, when I wake the music that's in 
 me you'll speak it all out on your beautiful strings. 
 What will Una MacFelimy say at all, at all 1 " 
 
 For hours he sat there, oblivious of the flight of time, 
 drawing the bow softly to and fro. His dreams were 
 well-nigh a living ecstasy — they were so sweet. 
 
 " It is yourself will not be slow to learn," said old 
 Cormac, when he came to give him his first lesson, " for 
 she knows you already, and when a fiddle knows you, 
 you needn't care how the wi^d blows or the world wags, 
 if you have the music in you. She'll bring you peace if 
 your heart's sore with trouble, and friendship if you're 
 lonely; and she'll make you forget the hunger and thirst 
 
BY THE MTSTY EUTIN. Ill 
 
 when the poverty's on yon. Ah, true, Shameen Beag, 
 the gift is yours, and God send you speed with it." 
 
 It was not long then until Shamcon knew the old 
 man's repertoire by heart, and after that he began to 
 make little airs of his own. To these he used to sing 
 verses composed on the subjects which affected him most 
 at the time ; the trill of a bird rising from the heather j 
 the fall of the hawthorn blossoms in a shower of pink 
 and white on the grass below ; the swish of the great 
 mill-wheel as it churned the water into froth under his 
 gable-window. He was happy with a glad, grateful hap- 
 piness, yet in every note he played a sadness lurked, as if 
 in spite of himself the boy's soul was drenched with 
 sorrow. His father said he believed Shameen thought 
 and prayed in music, as he heard the strains come softly 
 from the gable-room upstairs. The neighbours called it 
 unnatural : " The boy is being destroyed entirely by his 
 fiddling and his fancies. He sits there day after day by 
 the Burn-side, fiddling, fiddling, always, except when he 
 is poring over a book, and it is not a word he will be giv- 
 ing you when you speak ; he will let you pass by as if 
 you were a ghost, and he had no eyes or cars for anything 
 but his own dreams." 
 
 One day quite a flutter of excitement was caused in 
 the drowsy village by the sight of Shameen limping down 
 the road in animated converse with the fairy-woman, 
 Shivaun Sheehy. She was a half-witted vagrant, with a 
 rather bad reputation around the countryside. It was 
 said she blinked the cattle, and was accustomed to say 
 her prayers backward, which meant that her spells might 
 have power over her enemies. She came begging to Kil- 
 meena every summer, sleeping under the hedges or in 
 some unguarded barn. One of her accomplishments was 
 fortune-telling, which the foolish young lovers of the 
 
112 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 place often encouraged, unknown to their elders. 
 Charms and love potions, too, she carried round, in her 
 ragged pack, and had a keen eye to a bargain in her deal- 
 iDgs. But no one ever thought to see the quiet boy, 
 whose shyness made him avoid the social life of the vil- 
 lage, standing with his hand in hers, and his eyes rivet- 
 ted on her withered face. 
 
 " 'Tis telling him his fortune she is surely," they ex- 
 claimed in amazement, watching the pair from their 
 doorways. " Telling him his fortune, no less ! Well, 
 God help the poor garsun, for he's lost what little sense 
 he had at last. What fortune could she be telling him 
 that's a cripple and half-astray into the bargain 1 '' 
 
 It was by mere accident that Shameen had met her 
 there. As she passed him by she tottered in weariness, 
 and the bundle on her shoulders slipped from its insecure 
 fastenings. Observing this, the boy, hurrying forward, 
 stooped to pick it up. She took the bundle from him 
 without a word, looking into his eyes long and fxedly. 
 Then she lifted his right hand and peered closely at the 
 lines on his palm. 
 
 " So, so," she muttered at last in her high cracked 
 voice. " You are another one with the eyes to see but 
 not the sense to use them. Oh, boy dear, there a cailin 
 will be waiting for you when your day comes to be a man, 
 a sweet cailin, with a heart of gold, and the soul of a 
 dove, and she'll love you — that she will, a mhilis — more 
 than life and beyond death. You have the music in you, 
 too. Well, she will stir it to the very depths, and in 
 every note you play you will hear her. Listen for her 
 and her footfall will be near you ; call her and she will 
 come ; love her and her love will be stronger than death. 
 Don't let her pass by, or the sorrow will be on you till 
 your dying day; and you'll never be rid of the loneliness 
 
BY THE RUSTY BUiiN. 113 
 
 till the shroud is wrapped about you. Though there is 
 a blight on you, and you'll never be like other men, her 
 love will burn the fiercer for that, mo bhuachaill. Mind 
 now what old Shivaun says, for it is put into my heart 
 to know and my tongue never lies/' She spoke rapidly, 
 with many gesticulations. Her speech was in Gaelic, 
 and its picturesque diction made the boy feel rather than 
 hear. He stood wondering and trembling when she had 
 left him and gone her way. Then he turned towards 
 Gorfcawarla, longing for the quiet of its heathery crest in 
 this new and most unexpected sensation that had be- 
 fallen him. 
 
 He lay, his fiddle resting beside him, stretched out on 
 the mountain blossoms, thinking deeply, when the voice 
 o f Una MacFelimy broke in upon his reverie. She threw 
 herself down panting. An excited curiosity flamed in 
 her violet eyes, and rang shrilly in her eager greeting. 
 
 ■* Oh, what did the little fairy woman say to you, 
 Shameen? " 
 
 Shameen Beag twisted round in the heather half- 
 petulantly, while his dark brows met in a sudden frown 
 above his beautiful eyes. 
 
 " Is it what the little witch-woman said to me, Una 
 MacFelimy, you want to know? Well, then 'tis not my- 
 self will tell it, not even to you/' 
 
 Una looked at him in amazement, not comprehending 
 this first refusal from his lips. He saw the surprise in 
 her face, and his voice grew gentler. 
 
 '• Tis a secret, so it is, a chailin 6g, between her and 
 me, and you'd never understand the wonder of it, and 
 the fear. For it is fear that is with me since she spoke 
 and told me " 
 
 He broke off, suddenly realising how near h<3 had 
 drifted towards confidence. 
 
 " Told you what, Shameen, a ghtadht " 
 
114 THE PASSIONATE HEAUTS. 
 
 " Now, Una Buadh, 'tis no use to ask me, for this is my 
 own secret and you have nothing to do with it. It is 
 about a lovely lady that I am to many when I am a 
 man." He smiled proudly. " But I'll tell you no more. 
 I\ T o, not even one single word more." 
 
 " A beautiful lady, Shameen ! Who is she, and where 
 dees she live ? " 
 
 " That I don't know," replied the boy, " but she is 
 somewhere in the world and waiting for me, and she 
 loves me truly wherever she may be. She is so beautiful, 
 so beautiful ! and when the old woman held my hand I 
 seemed to see her standing there in the sunlight." 
 
 " But you said you would marry me," cried Una 
 vehemently. " You always said you would marry none 
 but me." 
 
 ' Oh, that was before I knew," said Shameen calmly. 
 ' It is different now, and I am bound to her." 
 
 Tears stood thick on Una's long fair lashes, and her 
 small red mouth quivered piteously. She laid her 
 bright tangled head against his black one with a sob. 
 
 " Vo, vo, vo," she wailed. " Shameen, is this all the 
 love you have for me that you'd go away to marry a 
 stranger. O, vo, sure you don't mean it, Shameen, a 
 chuisle? " 
 
 There was a touch of impatience in his voice as he 
 turned to soothe her. " Don't cry so, a chailin 6g. It 
 won't be till I am a man, and somebody will be coming 
 for yourself maybe before that." 
 
 At this Una's tears fell faster, and she buried her face 
 upon his shoulder. '* Shameen," she whispered, " it 
 wasn't me grown up you saw — was it now? Had she e'er 
 a look of me at all ? " 
 
 ' You, Una MacFelimy. You ! Did I not say that 
 she was a beautiful strange lady whose heart is half of 
 
BY THE MISTY BURN. 115 
 
 my heart, and whose soul is twin of my soul. And how 
 could that be you? You are only a little country girl, 
 and she was like a queen." 
 
 At this the tangled red head was lifted haughtily, and 
 a Hash came into the tear-wet eyes. "Very well, Shaineen 
 O'Cahan," she said fiercely. " Go to your lady. I'll 
 net hinder you. Maybe 'tis like the lady of the castle 
 beyond shell be — sweet outside and bitter within, and 
 tie tongue of her like a two-edged sword. What will 
 you do then, Shaineen ? " 
 
 He moved wearily away from her. " I think I will 
 play," he said, " for I am tired, and you are cruel, Una 
 MacFeliiny." 
 
 At this the girl's arm went round his neck in a pas- 
 sionate embrace. " There now, there now, Shaineen 
 dear," she murmured, as tender as any mother, ' there 
 now. Sure I wouldn't vex you for the whole wide 
 world." 
 
 He returned her kiss gravely, and took up his fiddle, 
 pacified, forgetful for the moment oi all else but his 
 music. " It is the Song of the Misty Burn I will be 
 playing you, now, a chailin 6<j," he said. " I played it 
 last night until I got frightened all by myself in the 
 dark. The ghosts walked about in the corners, or may- 
 bj 'twas the shadows moving— but I thought them 
 ghosts. The little witch-woman said I'd see wonderful 
 things, but that they'd never harm me. 
 
 " 'Tis you that's the great boy, Shameen," murmured 
 Una reverently, nestling closer to him; " great entirely. 
 No other boy in Kilmeena can tell all about the stars 
 above, and what the waters sing — and play it on your 
 fiddle, too. And the Misty Burn. No, what is the Song 
 of the Misty Burn, a ghradh 1 " 
 
 Her eyes smiled into his, and the lad drew himself 
 
116 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 ereet with the fiddle held under his chin, and the bow up- 
 lifted. 
 
 " Nobody knows it but me," he said proudly, " except 
 the trout, and the wind, and the little grasses that grow 
 on the banks. The fishers never hear it, for their hearts 
 are hard to the fishes, and the Burn will not make music 
 for them. Nor do the children hear it — the children 
 who throw stones in to make the bubbles rise, for they 
 drown the song with their noise. Only someone that 
 sits quietly listening until it begins can catch it; so 
 softly at first and so sweetly, then louder, and louder and 
 louder, but it is always soft and sweet and sad. If you 
 close your eyes you can hear it coming afar off down the 
 little ripples." 
 
 He drew the bow across the strings and began to play 
 a quaint tremulous air. Then he broke into soft chant- 
 ing like a lamentation: — 
 
 " Running water, running water, rippling all the day, 
 'Tis my grief for little Maire who is gone, 
 Ah, the eyes your waves went over, when you swished 
 and danced above her, 
 Above the little cailiii ban! 
 
 " Running water, running water, 'twas her flaxen hair 
 Trailed like a net of gossamer in the dewy dawn 
 Across your stones below, when they came and found 
 her so, 
 Found the little call tit ban! 
 
 " Running water, running water, her father cannot sleep, 
 
 He listens to the wind at night, sobbing, sobbing on — 
 
 And he hears her gasping breath who fought a figkt 
 
 with death. 
 Mo bhron, his little cailin ban! 
 
BY THE MISTY BURN. 117 
 
 " Running water, running water, her mother's heart is 
 wild 
 For the clinging hand now cold, the cheek that's wan, 
 For the child who was her pleasure; her golden store 
 and treasure, 
 Her little laughing cailin ban! " 
 
 " Ah then but she was cold and white, little Maire 
 Boyle, and dripping wet when they brought her home in 
 the morning," he mused — his song ended. " That's why 
 the Misty Burn is sad; for there was no harm, oh, no 
 harm at all in little Maire, and no reason why she should 
 die under the water, and she so small and young." 
 
 Una looked at the boy wistfully. Her cheeks were 
 pale because of his theme; but her pride in him shone 
 out like a glory from her sweet blue eyes. 
 
 " That's what the witch-woman knew was in you, 
 a ghradh — only, only Shameen dear, don't believe what 
 she told you about the beautiful lady. Sure you won't, 
 sure you won't? It's me you love — me, and I'll love you 
 true and always. Kiss me, Shameen, a^ain, again, 
 
 again ! 
 
 It was after this that Brien MacFelimy's second wife 
 put a stop to Una's rambles over Gortawarla. " She is 
 growing a big girl now," she said to her husband, " and 
 soon someone will be asking her to a home of her own. 
 She must learn to milk and churn and spin like another 
 woman. That mad boy of O'Cahan's, with his fiddling 
 and queer ways, is not fit company for her." 
 
 She so filled Una's days with work that the girl, when 
 evening came, was fain to rest rather than climb the 
 steep hill to the trysting-place. After a time the acute 
 daily longing to see Shameen left her, but she saw him 
 
118 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 in her dreams at night. Though his life was a secluded 
 one in the remote Millhouse she still heard much of what 
 concerned him. She knew of his wild sorrow when his 
 father died and of his lonely life with old Molshie, his 
 nurse, as sole companion. True, he had his books, and 
 his Little Red Lark ; but Una did not know how often 
 he yearned for the playmate of his childhood and her 
 quick loving sympathy, in those moments of depression 
 which comes to weak and strong alike. Shameen had 
 many a bitter dreary hour to himself in the stillness of 
 the night, when sleep hovered afar, and the sharp stings 
 of pain rent his body like the passage of a burning sword. 
 Then he found that it needed all his resignation to thank 
 God for existence. Sometimes, of a Sunday, Una and 
 he met in the Chapel-yard, and walked gravely and 
 slowlv together down the lane. He still suffered from 
 the lameness of his boyhood, though now he had no 
 longer need of a crutch to help his steps. Una had 
 grown into a pretty girl ; the tangled red hair had been 
 repressed into decorous coils, and the violet eyes had 
 learned to keep their flashes of joy and glooms of sorrow 
 hidden behind the veil of their long lashes. Speech was 
 rare with her on these occasions ; Shameen it was who 
 poured out all his thoughts and longings as of old, while 
 she listened to his every word with rapt attention. Per- 
 haps her own thoughts were too sacred for words when 
 he was near ; so she moved discreetly by his side, content 
 and blissful ; loving that poor slight body of his with all 
 the devotedness of her first pure love. He seemed to 
 feel it intuitively, for his dark eyes were always tender 
 when he turned them on her flower-face ; but if he cher- 
 ished a regard for her beyond that of mere affection born 
 of their childish intimacy, he never appeared to realise 
 it; he only knew that he was happier on those Sunday 
 
BY THE MISTY BURN. "119 
 
 strolls than at any other time, and with the knowledge 
 of this momentary pleasure his period of introspection 
 began and ended. The Glen's folk, looking after the 
 boy and girl, shook their heads sagely. " He doesn't 
 know his mind," they said, " though he is now his own 
 master and can take his way. But she knows hers, does 
 Una MacFelimy, if he would but speak the word.'' Yet 
 no word of love came from his lips, and if she held a 
 secret hope to her heart she gave no sign, only the little 
 bright face grew paler in those days of suspense as she 
 listened to the kindly commiseration that came, unwit- 
 tingly, in indiscreet whisperings to her ear. 
 
 One wild evening in late autumn Sliameen sat in his 
 corner of the settle playing idly. He began several airs ; 
 but broke off impatiently after a bar or two of each. A 
 fever of restlessness pervaded him; his pulse throbbed 
 hotly. His thoughts w 7 ent back to his childhood on 
 Gortawarla, and the little playmate of those vanished 
 days. She was a woman now, and he a man ; though he 
 could not run and leap, and shoulder the camdn like the 
 other men he knew. Ah, dear God, the pity of it! 
 Yes, Una was a woman, a sweet wild rose— a winsome, 
 lovely — ah, dear God, dear God ! 
 
 His eyes grew dim as memory quickened, and in the 
 corners of the old kitchen fantastic shadows danced be- 
 yond the flickering glow 7 of the fire. Molshie knitted 
 away placidly on her three-legged stool in the ingle. 
 
 He a man ! Yes, Christ lie sees — but a man lonely 
 and unhappy often. " It is not good for man to be 
 alone." True, true ! But when a man is waiting for a 
 prophecy to come to pass he can never be unhopeful, and 
 never quite alone. And such a prophecy ! What did 
 
120 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 the f airy-woman say ? " A cailin with a heart of gold 
 and the soul of a dove, who will love you with a love that 
 is strong as death." His beloved ! He could picture 
 her as he fancied her through all these years ; tall, fair 
 and pale, gray-eyed ; the only colour in her face was on 
 those smiling red lips ; the flaxen hair of her was a sunny 
 glory. She had kept his heart from other women, for 
 how could he look upon a less when the star of all woman- 
 hood was his to win. Ah, send her soon, soon, dear God 
 —the waiting is weary. 
 
 Outside, the rain lashed heavily against the shutters, 
 and the Misty Burn sobbed as it swept, swelled high by 
 the floods under the window. He bent his head to listen 
 to the sough of the wind. A wild, wild night, and the 
 leaves scurrying by with a patter like the footfall ci fairy 
 
 folk. 
 
 He lifted his bow, but before he could draw it across 
 
 the strings a timid tap on the door caused him to start. 
 
 ' Molshie, woman dear," he cried, " there's r:ome poor 
 creature knocking without. Open to whoever it is in 
 God's name." 
 
 ' In God's name I bid ye come out of the storm," said 
 she, throwing the door wide. 
 
 The slender figure that entered came straight to the 
 fire without a word. Her cloak was heavy with rain, a 
 dark hood shrouded her face. Shameen peered at her 
 through the uncertain light half in doubt. 
 
 " Is it Una MacFelimy ? — Is it yourself that's in it, 
 my girl ? " His voice was full of bewilderment. 
 
 She threw back the cloak with an abruptness that left 
 little streaks of rain-water upon the white hearthstone. 
 He saw that the red curls were tossed and wet, also, and 
 that above her flushed cheeks her eyes shone with un- 
 natural brightness. Was it the rain that lay upon their 
 lashes — or tears? 
 
BY THE MISTY BURN. 121 
 
 " Una, Una, what has brought you so far in the storm ? 
 Is all well with you, a learibh ? " 
 
 She gave a little gasping cry, and threw out her hands 
 towards him in supplication. 
 
 " Oh, Shameen Beag, is there a God above us, at all, 
 at all 1 Tell me, tell me quick. Is He looking down on 
 me this bitter night, or am I dreaming or mad 1 ' 
 
 ' Come here, a chailin 6g, come here," he crossed to 
 the fire and took her cold hands in his, tenderly. 
 
 " Sit beside me, a ghradh, and tell me your trouble." 
 
 " Ah, not beside you, Shameen, yet awhile," she said, 
 sinking down on the floor near his seat. " This is how I 
 used to sit with you when we were little. Don't you re- 
 member? " 
 
 He nodded silently. 
 
 1 1 haven't been in this kitchen for years now, Sham- 
 een, not since I grew up, but it is as homely as ever, and 
 as restful. There never was such a restful place in the 
 world. The crickets made the only noise when the wheel 
 was silent. I used to envy you and wish it was my home 
 as well as yours." 
 
 She leaned her elbow on the settle, and looked up wist- 
 fully into his face. Her lips trembled piteously. 
 
 " 'Tis a sorrowful errand, Shameen, that is mine this 
 night. But on earth there was no one I could come to 
 only you. And they've forgotten me in heaven." 
 
 " What is your sorrow, giarsa? " 
 
 " They're marrying me in the morning, Shameen." 
 
 "A leanbh! A leanbh! " 
 
 " Yes, in the morning, to Denis Freel, of Ardtrasna, 
 over the mountain. Black Denis that has buried his 
 second wife, and has sons as big and rough as himself. 
 Black Denis, Shameen, and I never dreamt that when he 
 came to bargain for my father's cows it was on me his 
 
122 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 eye had fallen. Oh, Mhuire a's truagh! I never dreamt 
 — not the least little bit." 
 
 Hitherto she had forced herself into a sort of calmness, 
 but the pent-up tempest could not be restrained longer. 
 
 " I am so young, so young," she wailed. " I begged 
 them to let me stay and work and be happy, and I 
 prayed to Mary and my dead mother; but none heeded 
 me. They're selling me to slavery and sorrow, Shameen ; 
 for it's whispered that the other women died of heart- 
 break. Oh, I could work for my bite and sup with the 
 strangers if they would only leave me free — ay, work my 
 fingers to the bone and be glad." 
 
 " God help you, a chailin 6g, God help you." 
 
 She rose from where she cimiched upon the floor, and 
 came closer, kneeling by him. 
 
 " Is there a heart in you at all, Shameen Beag 
 O'Cahan, that you can sit there and pity me? What 
 good are your words ? Will words comfort me wh^n I'm 
 wild with trouble, and this is my last night — my last 
 night — in my father's house. Ah, Shameen." 
 
 Her sudden fierceness ended in a sob. She folded her 
 arms on his knees and looked straight into his sad dark 
 eyes. 
 
 " Have you forgotten Gortawarla, a hhiinchaUl dubh?" 
 she whispered softly, 'and the happy times we had to- 
 gether there ? There was no one in the whole wide world 
 1 loved so well as you." 
 
 " And I loved you, a chailin deas." 
 
 " And when, many's a time, the rain fell on us up in 
 the heather who kept you dry and warm under the little 
 frock she took off herself, because you were a dawny 
 boy?" 
 
 " You — 'twas you, a ghradh." 
 
 " And when the pain came on you from your poor hurt 
 
BY THE MISTY BURN. 123 
 
 limb, who cried because she could not bear it instead — • 
 ci Led and cried till her heart grew sore? " 
 " Oh, Una, mo mhuirnin, 'twas you." 
 " And who," her eyes burned now, " stood in front of 
 you that day the wild bull of Manus Mor's met us on the 
 Ridge, until she felt his breath on her face, and his cruel 
 sharp horns almost against her before Big Manus came?" 
 
 " Who but you, a stoir— who but you? " 
 
 ' And is it only words of pity you have for me, Sham- 
 een O'Cahan, after that? " 
 
 Her e) r es held his steadily. For a moment an answer- 
 ing passion seemed to kindle in his dark young face ; 
 then he paled somewhat, and drew back in embarass- 
 ment. 
 
 'Is that all, I ask you?' Una repeated bitterly. 
 "All, Shamecn Beag?" 
 
 He looked at her as if he scarcely understood, and lift- 
 ing up his fiddle again, drew the bow shaq)ly across the 
 strings. 
 
 " All," he replied reluctantly. " What can I do or 
 sav more than I have done? The fault isn't mine, Una, 
 but theirs chat bargained you to the widow-man." 
 
 At this her hands clenched wildly, and she rocked to 
 and fro in a tortured silence. Shameen gazed down on 
 the bowed head of curls, for her face was hidden. Then 
 she rose, pallid as death, but tearless, and threw the 
 heavy cloak around her once more. 
 
 " God sees," said old Molshie, " that you can't go out 
 in that storm, a hanbh. Stay the night and sleep in my 
 v ed." 
 
 The girl laughed. " It is my way home I must be 
 taking, instead, good woman — my thanks to you, all the 
 same. And my blessing on you, Shameen O'Cahan, for 
 the comfort you've given me this night." 
 
124 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 She 0£>ened the door hastily, and passed out into the 
 darkness. A shudder shook the house as gust after gust 
 hurled itself against the walls. The rain came sweeping 
 in sheets down the valley, but Una set her face co meet 
 it and walked steadily on. Her heart was a dead thing 
 in her breast; she no longer felt the whip of the rain or 
 the buffetting of the storm. 
 
 Shameen, as she stepped across the threshold, had half- 
 arisen. His hands went out towards her. " A chailin, 
 a chailin 6g, do not go," trembled on his lips. " Stay, 
 a leanbh" but the door-feel shut with a clash behind her, 
 and his words were lost in the noise. 
 
 He drew his fingers wearily across his brow. " Maybe 
 'tJ3 better so/' he murmured, " since it is bespoke I am 
 already. But, oh ! poor little Una — my grief — my grief." 
 
 It was when the red of her hair had faded into gray, 
 and the uprightness had left her still slender form, that 
 Una streaked her husband for his burial. He had been 
 a hard man, and had died hard. Her life with him was 
 sordid and weary, crowded with daily duties which she 
 fulfilled in an uncomplaining Hstlessness. No children 
 were born to her, and for that she thanked heaven. Had 
 there been — she shuddered to hear the rough man curs- 
 ing his labourers outside — the sons would have partaken 
 of their father's vices perhaps ; and the daughters — what 
 was before them save a life such as she herself had known 
 in that riotous household? Yes, through all her misery 
 she thanked God for this blessing withheld. 
 
 Occasionally, news reached her from the other side of 
 th<„ mountain, carried thither by pedlars and travelling 
 women. Her ears were keen to listen, as she moved 
 through the kitchen quietly, and her heart leapt almost 
 
UY TUE MISTY BUttN. 125 
 
 to suffocation at the sound of one dear name. Jt was 
 then she learned how Shameen fared, and she wondered 
 that he still lived alone. She was jealously glad of his 
 loneliness, although she pitied him for it. " The pro- 
 phecy hasn't come true, then," she would whisper to her- 
 self. " The fairy- woman had other meaning for what 
 she told him, maybe. Oh, pulse o' my heart, nad you 
 only loved me instead/' No one heard her cry, it had 
 its beginning and eiidiug in her patient soul. 
 
 At the wake of Black Denis she knew that desolation 
 lay heavy indeed upon Shameen O'Cahan. " lie is bed- 
 ridden now, the poor crathur, the little strength he had 
 has given way at last," one told her. " The neighbours 
 go in and out to him, but 'tis little they can do." 
 
 When the sods were heaped upon her husband's giave, 
 Una gathered her scanty belongings and bade farewell to 
 his family. " I am going back to my own people/'' she 
 told them, " and I want nothing from you but the 
 clothes I wear. Vv 7 hatever your father left to me can be 
 divided amongst you." 
 
 But it was not to the house where she was born, and 
 where she had known her first, and bitterest, sorrow, the 
 pale woman went. She set her feet straight for the goal 
 of her heart, and the gladness in Shameen's eyes was her 
 recompense as she bent above him. 
 
 " Is it an angel from heaven, or Una come back to 
 me? " he whispered, holding her hand. 
 
 She had no voice to speak — the tears were too near. 
 
 " Una, a ghradh, you will never leave me again '. 
 
 >> 
 
 " Never again, Shameen, never again." 
 
 " Oh, God be thanked, mo mliuirnin. God and Mary 
 be thanked." 
 
 There were no gossiping tongues to insult her in that 
 peaceful valley; for each and all valued her sacrifice at 
 
126 THE PASSIONATE HEARTS. 
 
 its true worth. So she stayed on tending him through 
 the days that followed ; tending bim with a love and de- 
 votedness that saw in his increasing querulousness only 
 something that touched her motherliness to the core. 
 He had power to hurt her still, as when he regretted his 
 lost youth, and the non-realisation of the ideal he had 
 treasured through so many years of suffering. 
 
 " I was not able to go out into the world and seek 
 her," he would say. " So she grew tired of waiting for 
 me, and I have missed her for ever." 
 
 There came a time, all too soon to the weary watcher, 
 when he seemed to forget this fancy. Una felt sorrow- 
 fully then that the end was nearing. Her heart had 
 been torn between love and pity; for his pain was so 
 great and prolonged at periods, that she prayed he might 
 be taken and relieved, but at other times she could only 
 think of her loss and yearn to keep him still. 
 
 The last night of his life, as she knelt beside bim, he 
 begged her to prop him up and lay the fiddle to his hand. 
 She did so, wondering. Raising the bow, with the flour- 
 ish she used to smile at in the old days, he played, one 
 after the other, his childish compositions, never missing 
 a note ; with his head bent forward as if listening to an 
 echo of them somewhere. Suddenly he laid down the 
 bow and looked into her upturned eyes. His own were 
 very bright, the glow of youth seemed alight again on his 
 face. 
 
 "Have I found you at last, a dhilisV he cried 
 eagerly. " A chuisle mo chroidhe, my own, my own. Put 
 your dear hand in mine, my treasure, and say you love 
 
 me." 
 
 Una obeyed him, and in her eyes he read her thought 
 that his mind was wandering. 
 
 " No, Una a stair, not that, not that. It is my mind 
 
By Tin; MISTY burn. 127 
 
 that is clear at last, and I see now what I have been blind 
 to so long. It was you I waited for, and yours are the 
 eyes I saw that day my dream first came to me. I have 
 lost the joy of life because I followed the dream, and 
 did not see my true star shining within my reach. Lay 
 my head close to your heart, now, a chailin 6g. Closer, 
 closer. We will be parted soon. Say you forgive me, 
 Una mo chroidhef " 
 
 ' Oh, Shameen, dear," she moaned, " don't break my 
 heart entirely." 
 
 ' Ah, the fond, fond heart it was always, Una. And 
 I was so unworthy. But maybe God will make it up to 
 us beyond the grave." 
 
 He turned half round with a restless movement, and a 
 sigh, and she heard him mutter drowsily : 
 
 " 'Tis the beautiful fiddle surely — the sweet little 
 fiddle she is, my Little Red Lark. Oh, sorra the little 
 fiddle's like her in the whole country. She's my treasure ; 
 aud listen, listen fiddle a ruin — 'tis my heart's song you'll 
 be singing when I play on you. What will Una Mac- 
 Feliiny think, fiddle, a stair, when she hears me and you 
 together? — when — she — hears " 
 
 His voice trailed off into silence, and when, in an 
 agony of dread, Una lifted her white face from the pil- 
 low, she was alone with her sorrow. 
 
 Then through the stillness before dawn, there came to 
 her, like a caoin, the sound of running water over the 
 stones of the Misty Burn. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 [P.T.O. 
 
t^XJOvj 
 
 Printed by An Clo-Ctmuuin, Ltd., Great Strand Street, Dublin 
 
 ■^exjo^ 
 
ETHNA CARBERY'S POEMS. 
 
 ^"NNE of the most remarkable things in the Irish 
 ^"^^ book world during recent years has been the 
 phenomenally rapid sales and wide appreciation of 
 Ethna Carbery's poems, " The Four Winds of 
 Eirinn/' which, being published only eleven 
 months, has gone into its Tenth Edition. Probably 
 no book in recent years was received with such 
 enthusiastic praise by critics of all ways of thinking. 
 Extracts from a few of the opinions expressed are 
 here given. 
 
 The mysterious Fiona Mac Leod, in an article 
 
 upon the book in the Fortnightly Review, said : — 
 
 "One Copy of such a book as "The Four Winds of Eirinn " 
 
 is enough to light many unseen fires In essential poetic 
 
 faculty Ethna Carbery stan/'s high among the Irish poets of to-day. In 
 this respect indeed she falls behind none save Mr. Yeats and "A.E." ; 
 and as an Irish writer for an Irish public, I doubt if any of those just 
 named has more intimately reached the heart of the people. Than Mr 
 Yeats, Ethna Carbery, while not less saturated with the Gaelic atmosphere, 
 possesses a simplicity of thought and diction foreign to the most subtle of 
 
 contemporary poets Her earliest as her latest verse has the 
 
 quality of song and the vibration of poetry. And prom first to last there is 
 in it the Gaelic note so distinctive from any other note ; here Ethna 
 Carbery is Irish in a sense in which the other women poets of her hour and 
 
 nation cannot claim to be One may quote from each poem in 
 
 the book. All are Gaelic in mould of thought and colour of art. Perhaps 
 the poems which longest will lie close to the Irish heart are those which 
 show the shadow of Irish sorrow and the rainbow gleam of Irish hope — 
 — that sorrow and that hope which, from the grey glens of Donegal to 
 Kerry of the Kings, inspire all the songs that are sung, and all that is 
 imperishable in the Nation's heart." 
 
 " Many weary days shall pass, and years will be counted by 
 the score, before the touches of Ethna Carbery's genius, the 
 wail of her song, and the music of her lyre, will be forgotten. 
 
She has touched a chord that must needs awaken the hearts of 
 Erin's sons and daughters the wide world over. In her poems 
 the spirit of the Nation is once more revived, and the utterance 
 she has given it shall be re-echoed from afar. She has lit the 
 torch of hope in a good cause, and of faith and confidence in 
 the brawny arms of her countrymen at home, and in the deter- 
 mination of many an exiled son." — The Leader (San 
 Francisco). 
 
 " This is the most charming volume of poems published in 
 Ireland, or out of it, for many a long day. ... A beautiful 
 monument, 'tis true, and far more enduring than carved granite 
 of Donegal. . . . The dominant notes are, tenderness, truth, 
 and a passionate love of country. Here are love songs as Irish 
 as the singer's heart. . . . Ethna Carbery's poems alternately 
 bring tears to one's eyes, and quicken the blood in one's veins. 
 .... There are few phases of Irish life, history, or legend, 
 that her many-sided genius did not adorn." — The Irish People. 
 
 *' Steeped to the lips in the legendary lore of Ireland, she 
 lived in a world of imagination, which had its roots in the past, 
 and its hopes and ideas in the future. . . . While in this book 
 we move from wonder to wonder, nowhere are we distracted or 
 tortured by the misshapen fantasies of a sickly brain. It is 
 natural magic in the truest sense of the word. No less remark- 
 able than the prodigality of fancy is the richness and variety of 
 melody which animate its sounds. They are purely lyric in 
 quality and form. The music is everywhere true, and as full as 
 it is new. One marvels at the spontaneousness of every thought 
 and every word. With as little effort, or premeditation, as the 
 birds in the Land of Perpetual Youth, sang this gifted child of 
 Irish song. This must not be taken to imply that there is no 
 art in her verses ; but her art is the art of nature ; an instinct 
 rather than an acquisition. Anna MacManus, one feels in read- 
 ing this volume, sang with an intensity which must inevitably 
 have consumed the vital energies in a short space of time." — 
 The Daily News. 
 
 " Her songs are a heritage for all people and for all time, and 
 we are proud and glad to claim her as our own child to-day." — 
 The Northern Whig. 
 
 " In this book we hear the pathetic voice of National love and 
 aspiration, embalmed in true song. There is no trace of poetic 
 imitation in her work. It is not easy to name a new, or a late 
 poet— and perhaps none since Jean Ingelow — whose verse is so 
 
 essentially melodious as Ethna Carbery's As Emerson 
 
 says, the titles are half poems."— The New York Times. 
 
 " Wherever a true son or daughter of Ireland is to be found, 
 at home or abroad, a heartfelt welcome will be extended to this 
 
exquisite book of verse. Her genius is so unmistakable that 
 none could deny its existence even if they were not in sym- 
 pathy with her sentiments. No one who has been swayed by 
 the passion of patriotism, no one who has learned to know the 
 meaning of love, and drank of its bitter-sweet draught, can fail 
 to feel their heart's fibres stir as they read the words wafted to 
 them on The Four Winds of Eirinn. . . . Many moods find 
 expression in the poems — mystical and simple, lofty and 
 humble, passionate and tender ; but every mood gives express- 
 ion to the sympathy of the country. The voice of Ireland 
 speaks to us through the singer. There is not a line in the book 
 that is not full of interest and beauty and charm. Few books 
 have been published of late years of such merit, and possessing 
 such strong claims on the Irish public." — The Irish Weekly 
 Independent. 
 
 " Ireland incarnate — Ethna Carbery sang of its beauty, its 
 joys : its sorrows, with a wistful hope, like a pathetic little heart- 
 break, running through all her songs. It is a chord more notice- 
 able now that she has laid aside the lute for ever ; though the 
 music she gave the world still sings on in the hearts of others. 
 Her personality, as seen through her work, is peculiarly like 
 that of the Southern women of Dixie Land — so rich is it in 
 hope, faith, love, and loyalty ; so unswerving in devotion to 
 duty. Women with Ethna Carbery's talent and loyalty are so 
 rare, and the world needs them so much, that their loss is 
 keenly felt. Yet there is this comfort: — Their deeds, their 
 patriotism, and the courage they inspire, will live on for ever." 
 The Memphis Scimitar (Tenn., U.S.A.). 
 
 " The wide sympathy with which she wrote, the tender deli- 
 cate touches that revealed the hidden beauty, .... She was 
 herself a poem incarnate ; tender and sweet, and true and pure, 
 gracious and refined as one of her Irish princesses, and kindly 
 as one of her peasants. God gave her grand, rare gifts, and she 
 dedicated them to a high, holy cause. Her life was all too 
 short, but her works will live after her for all time." — The 
 United Irishman. 
 
 " Those who knew her only through her writings loved her so 
 much that her name came to their lips every time their thoughts 
 turned to Irish Ireland." — The Southern Cross (Buenos Ayres). 
 
 " Here is given to the Irish race a memorial, which they 
 should dearly prize, of one of Ireland's truest and most loving 
 singers — of her whose poems have enkindled and fed in other 
 bosoms the sacred fire of love of Ireland, and of all that was 
 truly Irish." — The Irish Emerald. 
 
 " The poems herein enshrined are vibrant with a passionate 
 love of the Land of the Gael ; instinct with the Gaelic spirit, 
 
saturated with Gaelic legend, breathe true Gaelic mysticism and 
 spirituality ; tell of Gaelic valour, heroism, love ; and fear not 
 to couple the names of God, and Mary His Mother, of Patrick, 
 Bridget and Columcille." — The Irish Catholic. 
 
 " This is the song book of one who lived and worked for her 
 country, who strenuously tried to keep alive in youthful and 
 manly hearts the hope for freedom, and the aspiration after fine 
 ideals ; of one who was a source of helpfulness, and joy, and 
 enthusiasm." — The- Freeman's Journal. 
 
 " The book is indeed full of beauty, and that bright spirit of 
 hope which was part of Ethna Carbery's nature. In herself she 
 represented the new forces which are weaving light and colour 
 into the life of the land. The destiny of Ireland was no mourn- 
 ful destiny to her. Her clear vision lifts itself above the 
 caoiners of the centuries, she moves in Red Hugh's triumphs, 
 and sees the grandeur of the past. Forward she beholds the 
 dawning light, and heralds it with song. . . . Ethna Carbery 
 had that insight into hidden and spiritual things, the possession 
 of which is the mark of a true poet. . . . The Four Winds of 
 which she sang brought her voices from dun and rath, from 
 fairy mound and ruined castle, from high Aileach of the sleep- 
 ing heroes, from royal Tara and the cairn of kings. And what 
 she heard, her subtle and delicate fancy re-shaped, and set forth 
 in lasting form. Her love-songs are full of tender and exquisite 
 expression, as if to her the birds of Angus Og had revealed the 
 inmost soul of love and beauty. In her more mystical poems 
 there is a glamour, a vision of beauty caught in glimpses, a 
 reticence and mystery." — The Irish Daily Independent. 
 
 This book, in a handsomely designed cover, 
 costs is. in paper binding, and 2S. in Irish linen ; per 
 post to any part of the world, 2d. extra. It may be 
 had from all booksellers, or per post, from 
 " IRISH NIGHTS" OFFICE, 
 
 70 GREAT STRAND STREET, DUBLIN. 
 
 A second volume of Ethna Carbery's stories 
 will appear next season. 
 
r N.r 
 
 r - DAI TTA LIBRARY 
 
p 
 
 235564