The old people who have direct tradition of the Rebellion, and a
real interest in it, are growing less numerous daily, but one still
meets with them here and there in the more remote districts.

One evening, at the beginning of harvest, as I was walking into a
straggling village, far away in the mountains, in the southern half
of the county, I overtook an old man walking in the same direction
with an empty gallon can. I joined him; and when we had talked for a
moment, he turned round and looked at me curiously.

'Begging your pardon, sir,' he said, 'I think you aren't Irish.' I
told him he was mistaken.

'Well,' he went on, 'you don't speak the same as we do; so I was
thinking maybe you were from another country.'

'I came back from France,' I said, 'two months ago, and maybe
there's a trace of the language still upon my tongue.' He stopped
and beamed with satisfaction.

'Ah,' he said, 'see that now. I knew there was something about you.
I do be talking to all who do pass through this glen, telling them
stories of the Rebellion, and the old histories of Ireland, and
there's few can puzzle me, though I'm only a poor ignorant man.' He
told me some of his adventures, and then he stopped again.

'Look at me now,' he said, 'and tell me what age you think I'd be.'

'You might be seventy,' I said.