an illusion, that this is different. Some shading that comes from the yews, some phenomenon of cliff and water" But even that did not circumscribe the rich, grave look of grounds and house A song from the "Tempest" came to him:

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange. . .

That was it, something rich and strange, like some old cloister into which one might turn from a quiet hubbuby street . . A knock at an oaken wicket; a peering shy brother, and one was on green lawns and the shadows of a a gabled monastery. Cowled, meditative friars, and the quiet of Christ like spread wings

But there was a reason for the cloister's glamour: cool thoughts and the rhythm of quiet praying, and the ringing of the little bell of mass, and the cadenced sacramental. All these were sympathetic magic But whence came the glamour of Tusa-h Erin?

And she said:

87

"Yes, of course, Antrim."
"Not all Ireland, then?"

"I never thought of Ireland as all Ireland."

"Oh, Shane Campbell, you 've sailed so much and seen so much! China they tell me, and South America, and the Levant. And in the North, Archangel. I'll warrant you don't know Ireland.”

"I never saw much, though, in any place outside Antrim."

"You never saw much in the little towns of the Pale, or Gray Dublin, with the Parliament where Grattan spoke, now a money-changer's business house, and the bulk of Trinity of Goldsmith and Burke or the great wide streets where four-in-hands used to go. And Three-Rock Mountain. And Bray. And the beauty of the Boyne Valley. And the little safe harbors of the South. And the mountains of Kerry. And all the Kingdom of Connacht. And the great winds of Donegal—”

"But it's so eery, deserted, a dead country. All like Tusa-h Erin was before you took it."

"If one could take it all, and do to it as I've done to Tusa-h Erin. By the way," she asked suddenly, "is Tusa-h Erin haunted?"

"No, I never heard. Did you see anything?"

"I think I heard something a few times. A piper piping when the storms rose. A queer little tune-like that thing about McCrimmon."

"Cha till, cha till, cha till McCrimmon."

"Are there words to it?"

"Le cogadh mo sidhe cha till McCrimmon."

With war or peace never will come McCrimmon.

For money or spoil never will return McCrimmon.

old-time heroes, of Cuchulain of the Red Branch; of Maeve, Queen of Connacht, in her fighting chariot, her great red cloak; of Dermot, who abducted Grania from the King of

"The drone was just the grinding of the waves, the air the wind among the yews."

"That 's possible. But is n't a phantom piper possible, too, in a land of ghosts?"

§ 8

"A land of ghosts." The phrase remained with him. And the lighted lamp and the burning peat fire seemed to invoke, like some necromantic ritual. How often, and he a young boy, had the names trumpeted through his being! Brian Boru at Clontarf, and the routed red Danes. And with the routing of the Danes, Ireland had come to peaceful days, and gentle white-clothed saints arose, and monasteries with tolling bells and great Celtic crosses And gone were the Druids, their cursing-stones, their Ogham script Gone old Celtic divinities, Angus of the Boyne; and Manannan, son of Lir, god of the sea And the peace of Galilee came over the joyous hunting land The little people of the hills, with their pygmy horses, their pygmy pipes, cowered, went into exile, under the thunder of Rome And the land was meek that it might inherit the kingdom of heaven And the The earls of

English came

And

And the

younger Hugh O'Neill, with his hardbitten Ulstermen at Benburb They had to bring the greatest general of Europe, Cromwell, the lord protector, to subdue the Ulster clans Sullen peace, and the Stuarts came back, and again Ireland was lulled with their suave manners, the scent of the white rose The crash of the Boyne water, and King James running for his life And Limerick's siege, and the treaty, and Patrick Sarsfield and the Wild Geese setting wing for France France knew them, Germany, Sweden, even Russia Ramillies and the Spaniard knew Lord Clare's Dragoons . And Fontenoy and the thunder of the Irish Brigade And Partick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, Idead at the end of the day Even to-day Europe knew them,O'Donnell, Duke of Tetuan and grandee of Spain; and Patrice McMahon, Duke of Magenta, who had been made president of the Republic of France,they were of the strain of Lucan's Wild Geese

And again a sullen peace, and Ulster rang to the trumpet of American freedom, and the United Irishmen arose in Belfast And Napper at Napoleon's court, and Hoche with his ships in Bantry Bay

...

Wolfe Tone's mangled throat, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald murdered by his captors

What had made these men, sane men, Ulstermen mostly, risk life and face death so gallantly? What brought out the men of forty-eight and the men of sixty-seven? What was making little Bigger fight so savagely in Parliament, blocking the legislation of the empire? What had got under their skins, into their blood? Surely not for a gray, half-deserted city? Surely not for little boys and purple mountains? Surely not for an illiterate peasantry, half crazed by the fear of hell?

He tried to see Ireland as a personality, as one sees England, like the great Britannia on a copper penny, helmeted, full-breasted, great-hipped, with sword and shield, a bourgeois concept of majesty, a ponderous, self-conscious personality:

When Britain first, at Heaven's command,

Arose from out the azure main—

Just like that!

And Scotland he could see as a young woman, in kilt and plaid and Glengarry cap, a shrewd young woman though, with a very decisive personality, clinching a bargain as the best of dealers might, a little forward. He could think of her as the young girl whose hand Charles the Young Pretender kissed, and who had said to him directly, "I 'd liefer hae a buss for my mou'"-"I'd rather have a kiss on my mouth." Scotland knew what she wanted, and got it, a pert, solid, likable girl.

But Ireland, Ireland of the gray mists, the gray towns. How to see her? The country ballad came to

him. The Shan Van Vocht, the poor old woman, gray, shawled, pitiable, whom her children were seeking to reinstate in her home with many fields.

And where will they have their camp?

Says the Shan Van Vocht.
Where will they have their camp?
Says the Shan Van Vocht.
On the Currach of Kildare;

The boys they will be there.
With their pikes in good repair,
Says the Shan Van Vocht.
To the Currach of Kildare

The boys they will repair,
And Lord Edward will be there,
Says the Shan Van Vocht.

No, not enough. One might work, sacrifice money, for the Shan Van Vocht; but life, no! He thought again. Poor Mangan's poem flashed into his mind and heart:

O my Dark Rosaleen,

Do not cry, do not weep!
The priests are on the ocean green,
They march along the deep.
There's wine from the Royal Pope

Upon the ocean green.

And Spanish ale shall give you hope,

My Dark Rosaleen.

My own Rosaleen!

Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope;

Shall give you health and help and hope.

My Dark Rosaleen!

"I have sold it, Shane," she said. "I am sorry," was all he could say. A little silence, and he could feel her smiling through the dusk.

"You never ask any questions, Shane?"

"It never occurs to me to ask them, Granya. If people want to tell me a thing, I know they will, and if they don't, why should I intrude?"

"I should like to tell you why I sold Tusa-h Erin, but I cannot. It is not my secret."

He nodded in the dusk.

"I understand."

Erin?"

I know; the

you, Shane." She asked abruptly,

was alive until my babies died." "I don't understand, Granya." "I mean this, Shane: that things were so casual to me. They came and they went, and I was what I was, and that was all When you were a boy, Shane, you had what I never had, wonder I was the child of actors, Shane, brought up to a mechanical tradition, knowing the business thoroughly-a part was words and directions, and a salary That things were mimic meant nothing do you see? That there was a life that was unreal, and another life that was real, and then a further life, too subtle, too profound for the value of words

sees glimpses

one

"See the moon rising, Shane?” she paused. She turned again. "I got married, just got married. He was a good man, Shane, but I did n't love him. I loved nobody. I got married because he was suitable, and every one got married. And just the same way I accepted marriage And when he died, I was very sorry, but impersonally sorry

as

if something nice in the world had been gone a swan shot

"And my little people, Shane, they were very nice little people I was fond of them but as I might be fond of some terrier dogs I was good to them, Shane

And then I thought: 'God! if I had loved my husband, my heart would have been like a cracked cup when he died And when my babies died-I could not have lived And all I shed of tears was a little shower of April' O Shane, one is n't like that when one is hurt . . Do you remember David, Shane, when he went up to the cham