When I shrieked I could only echo the notes of
the rhythm.
At last with a moment of uncontrollable frenzy I broke back to
consciousness and awoke.
I dragged myself trembling to the window of the cottage and looked
out. The moon was glittering across the bay, and there was no sound
anywhere on the island.
I am leaving in two days, and old Pat Dirane has bidden me goodbye.
He met me in the village this morning and took me into 'his little
tint,' a miserable hovel where he spends the night.
I sat for a long time on his threshold, while he leaned on a stool
behind me, near his bed, and told me the last story I shall have
from him - a rude anecdote not worth recording. Then he told me with
careful emphasis how he had wandered when he was a young man, and
lived in a fine college, teaching Irish to the young priests!
They say on the island that he can tell as many lies as four men:
perhaps the stories he has learned have strengthened his
imagination. When I stood up in the doorway to give him God's
blessing, he leaned over on the straw that forms his bed, and shed
tears. Then he turned to me again, lifting up one trembling hand,
with the mitten worn to a hole on the palm, from the rubbing of his
crutch.
