constantly heard from the lively Irish pedestrian, did not while away the
tedium of his walk. It was night when Andy was breasting up a low ridge of
hills, which lay between him and the end of his journey; and when in
silence and darkness he topped the ascent, he threw himself on some
heather to rest and take breath. His attention was suddenly caught by a
small blue flame, which flickered now and then on the face of the hill,
not very far from him; and Andy's fears of fairies and goblins came
crowding upon him thick and fast. He wished to rise, but could not; his
eye continued to be strained with the fascination of fear in the direction
he saw the fire, and sought to pierce the gloom through which, at
intervals, the small point of flame flashed brightly and sunk again,
making the darkness seem deeper. Andy lay in perfect stillness, and in the
silence, which was unbroken even by his own breathing, he thought he heard
voices underground. He trembled from head to foot, for he was certain they
were the voices of the fairies, whom he firmly believed to inhabit the
hills.

"Oh! murdher, what'll I do?" thought Andy to himself: "sure I heerd often,
if once you were within the sound of their voices, you could never get out
o' their power. Oh! if I could only say a _pather_ and _ave_,
but I forget my prayers with the fright. Hail, Mary! The king o' the
fairies lives in these hills, I know--and his house is undher me this
minit, and I on the roof of it--I'll never get down again--I'll never get
down again--they'll make me slater to the fairies; and sure enough I
remember me, the hill is all covered with flat stones they call fairy
slates. Oh! I am ruined--God be praised!" Here he blessed himself, and
laid his head close to the earth. "Guardian angels--I hear their voices
singin' a dhrinking song--Oh! if I had a dhrop o' water myself, for my
mouth is as dhry as a lime-burner's wig--and I on the top o' their house
--see--there's the little blaze again--I wondher is their chimbley afire