Brian's world of spring had been the world of men and women; Kenny's
world held Puck and Mab and Una. He called her Oonagh. If once he
remembered with longing that Oonagh's jovial fairy husband, King
Fionvarra, went to his revels on the back of a night-black steed with
nostrils aflame, he dismissed it as disloyal. Brian too had been
tired, though he called it "blissfully weary." That depended something
on the viewpoint.

When at last beside the embers of his camp fire, he spread his oilskin
and drew a blanket over him, the night sounds of the forest, a-crackle
with mystery, became the woodland spirits of King Arthur's men, blowing
their ghostly horns by the light of the moon. Likely the wee folk
would come and dance beside the embers of his camp fire.

"By the powers of wildfire!" cried Kenny drowsily, "it is good to be
alive!"

In the morning there was mist and rain and Kenny tramped the sodden
world in a mood of sadness. Melancholy dripped from the wet white
blossoms along the way. The drenched green of the meadows brought
tragic thoughts of Erin and her fate. Never a maid peeped over an
orchard fence. Kenny bolstered his spirits again and again with some
lines of Wordsworth which as a picturesque part of his road equipment
he had copied into his notebook.


"I roved o'er many a hill and many a dale,
. . . . in heat or cold,
Through many a wood, and many an open road,