“The sound of that beast’s voice does get on my nerves,” said Patsy.
“He has a powerful voice, sure enough, God bless him! Sit down there by the hedge and light the fire while I’m getting the things ready; the night will be on us in a few minutes and it will be a cold night.”
While she moved busily from the cart to the hedge her father employed himself lighting a fire of turf in a wrinkled bucket. When this was under way he pulled out a pipe, black as a coal, and off which half the shank was broken, and this he put into his mouth. At the moment he seemed to be sunken in thought, his eyes to the grass and his feet planted, and it was in a musing voice that he spoke:
“Do you know what I’d do, Mary, if I had a bottle of porter beside me in this field?”
“I do well,” she replied; “you’d drink it.”
“I would so, but before I’d drink it I’d put the end of this pipe into it, for it’s newly cracked, and it sticks to my lips in a way that would anger a man wanting a smoke, and if I could stick it into the porter it would be cured. I don’t suppose, now, that you have a sup of porter in the cart!”
“I have not.”
“Because if you had a small sup I’d be able to get a smoke this night, as well as a drink.”
“You’re full of fun,” said she sourly.
“I saw a bottle in your hand a while back,” he continued musingly, “and it looked like a weighty bottle.”
“It’s full to the neck with spring water.”
“Ah!” said her father, and he regarded that distant horizon whereon the pink cloud was now scarcely visible as a pinkness and was no longer the shape of a great whale.
After a moment he continued in a careless voice:
“You might hand me the bottle of spring water, alanna, till I wet my lips with it. It’s a great thing for the thirst, I’m told, and it’s healthy beside that.”
“I’m keeping that sup of water to make the tea when we’d be wanting it.”
“Well, I’ll only take a drop out of it, and I won’t lose the cork.”
“You can get it yourself, then,” said Mary, “for I’ve plenty to do and you haven’t.”
Her father, rolling his tough chin with his fingers, went to the cart. He found the bottle, lifted the cork, smelt it, tasted:
“It is spring water indeed,” said he, and he thumped the cork back again with some irritation and replaced the bottle in the cart.
“I thought you wanted a drink,” said his daughter mildly.
“So I do,” he replied, “but I can’t stand the little creatures that do be wriggling about in spring water. I wouldn’t like to be swallowing them unknown. Ah! them things don’t be in barrels that you buy in a shop, and that’s a fact.”
She was preparing the potatoes when a remark from her father caused her to pause.
“What is it?” said she.
“It’s a bird. I saw it for a second against a white piece of a cloud, and I give you my word that it’s as big as a haystack. There it is again,” he continued excitedly, “there’s three of them.”
For a few minutes they followed the flight of these amazing birds, but the twilight had almost entirely departed and darkness was brooding over the land. They did not see them any more.
II
And yet it was but a short distance from where they camped that the angels first put foot to earth.
It is useless to question what turmoil of wind or vagary of wing brought them to this desert hill instead of to a place more worthy of their grandeur, for, indeed, they were gorgeously apparelled in silken robes of scarlet and gold and purple; upon their heads were crowns high in form and of curious, intricate workmanship, and their wings, stretching ten feet on either side, were of many and shining colours.
Enough that here they did land, and in this silence and darkness they stood for a few moments looking about them.
Then one spoke:
“Art,” said he, “we were too busy coming down to look about us carefully; spring up again a little way, and see if there is any house in sight.”
At the word one of the three stepped forward a pace, and leaped twenty feet into the air; his great wings swung out as he leaped, they beat twice, and he went circling the hill in steady, noiseless flight.
He returned in a minute:
“There are no houses here, but a little way below I saw a fire and two people sitting beside it.”
“We will talk to them,” said the other. “Show the way, Art.”
“Up then,” said Art.
“No,” said the Angel who had not yet spoken. “I am tired of flying. We will walk to this place you speak of.”
“Very well,” replied Art, “let us walk.”
And they went forward.
Around the little bucket of fire where Mac Cann and his daughter were sitting there was an intense darkness. At the distance of six feet they could still see, but delicately, indistinctly, and beyond that the night hung like a velvet curtain. They did not mind the night, they did not fear it, they did not look at it: it was around them, full of strangeness, full of mystery and terror, but they looked only at the glowing brazier, and in the red cheer of that they were content.
They had eaten the bread and the turnip, and were waiting for the potatoes to be cooked, and as
