And now as they marched the atmosphere had changed; there was once more peace or the precursor of it; from Mac Cann a tempered happiness radiated as of old: he looked abroad without misgiving and he looked at his daughter with the cynical kindliness habitual to him. They trod so for a little time arranging their thoughts, then:
“We are near enough to that house to be far enough from it if there’s any reason to be far,” said Mac Cann, “so this is what I say, let us stop where we are for the night and in the morning we’ll go on from here.”
“Very well,” said Mary, “let us stop here.”
Her father drew the ass to the side of the road and there halted it.
“We’ll go to bed now,” he shouted to the company, and they all agreed to that.
“I’m going to unyoke the beast,” said Mary with a steady eye on her father.
He replied heartily.
“Why wouldn’t you do that? Let him out to get something to eat like the rest of us.”
“There isn’t any water,” he complained a minute later. “What will that animal do? and what will we do ourselves?”
“I have two big bottles of water in the cart,” said Mary.
“And I have a little bottle in my pocket,” said he, “so we’re all right.”
The donkey was unyoked, and he went at once to stand with his feet in the wet grass. He remained so for a long time without eating, but he did eat when that idea occurred to him.
The brazier was lit, the sacks strewn on the ground, and they sat about the fire in their accustomed places and ate their food. After a smoke and a little conversation each person stretched backwards, covering themselves with other sacks, and they went heartily to sleep.
“We will have to be up early in the morning,” was Patsy’s last remark, “for you are in a hurry to get back your things,” and saying so he stretched his length with the others.
When a still hour had drifted by Mary raised cautiously and tiptoed to her father. As she stood by him he slid the sacks aside and came to his feet, and they moved a little way down the road.
“Now,” said Mary, “you can do what you said you’d do.”
“I’ll do that,” said he.
“And get back as quick as you can.”
“It’s a distance there and back again. I’ll be here in the morning, but I’ll be late.”
“Bury the things the way they were before.”
“That’s all right,” and he moved a step backwards.
“Father!” said Mary softly.
He returned to her.
“What more do you want?” said he impatiently.
She put her arms about his neck.
“What the devil are you doing?” said he in astonishment, and he tried to wriggle loose from her.
But she did not say another word, and after a moment he put his own arms about her with a grunt and held her tightly.
“I’m away now,” said he, and, moving against the darkness, he disappeared.
For half a minute the sound of his feet was heard, and then the darkness covered him.
Mary returned to her place by the brazier. She stretched close to Eileen Ni Cooley and lay staring at the moving clouds.
In a few minutes she was asleep, although she had not felt any heaviness on her eyes.
XXXII
No one was awake.
In the brazier a faint glow peeped from the white turf-ash; the earth seemed to be holding its breath, so still it was; the clouds hung immovably each in its place; a solitary tree near by folded its wide limbs into the darkness and made no sound.
Nothing stirred in the world but the ass as he lifted his head slowly and drooped it again; his feet were sunken in a plot of grass and he was quiet as the earth.
Then I came softly, and I spoke to the ass in the darkness.
“Little ass,” quoth I, “how is everything with you?”
“Everything is very well,” said the ass.
“Little ass,” said I, “tell me what you do be thinking of when you fix your eye on vacancy and stare there for a long time?”
“I do be thinking,” said the ass, “of my companions, and sometimes I do be looking at them.”
“Who are your companions?”
“Last night I saw the Cyclops striding across a hill; there were forty of them, and each man was forty feet high; they had only one eye in their heads and they looked through that; they looked through it the way a fire stares through a hole and they could see well.”
“How do you know they could see well?”
“One of them saw me and he called out to the others; they did not wait, but he waited for a moment; he took me in his arms and he stroked my head; then he put me on the ground and went away, and in ten strides he crossed over the mountain.”
“That was a good sight to see!”
“That was a good sight.”
“Tell me something else you saw.”
“I saw seven girls in a meadow and they were playing together; when they were tired playing they lay on the grass and they went to sleep; I drew near and stretched beside them on the grass, and I watched them for a long time; but when they awakened they disappeared into the air and were gone like puffs of smoke.
“I saw the fairy host marching through a valley in the hills; wide, silken banners were flying above their heads; some had long swords in their hands and some had musical instruments, and there were others who carried a golden apple in their hands, and others again with silver lilies and cups of heavy silver; they were beautiful and proud and they marched courageously; they marched past me for three gay hours while I stood on the slope of a hill.
“I saw three centaurs riding out of a wood; they raced round and
