music. It was the most beautiful and living moment of the year; one
could listen to the spring's heart beating in it. He got up and went
to find his master. The green boughs filled the door, and he had to
make a way through them. When he entered the room the sunlight was
falling in flickering circles on floor and walls and table, and
everything was full of soft green shadows. But the old man sat
clasping a mass of roses and lilies in his arms, and with his head
sunk upon his breast. On the table, at his left hand, was a leathern
wallet full of gold and silver pieces, as for a journey, and at his
right hand was a long staff. The boy touched him and he did not move.
He lifted the hands but they were quite cold, and they fell heavily.

'It were better for him,' said the lad, 'to have told his beads and
said his prayers like another, and not to have spent his days in
seeking amongst the Immortal Powers what he could have found in his
own deeds and days had he willed. Ah, yes, it were better to have
said his prayers and kissed his beads!' He looked at the threadbare
blue velvet, and he saw it was covered with the pollen of the
flowers, and while he was looking at it a thrush, who had alighted
among the boughs that were piled against the window, began to sing.




THE CURSE OF THE FIRES AND OF THE SHADOWS.


One summer night, when there was peace, a score of Puritan troopers
under the pious Sir Frederick Hamilton, broke through the door of the
Abbey of the White Friars which stood over the Gara Lough at Sligo.