So they passed the time for a year, until there came a day when
Guleesh was lying by himself, on the grass, on the last day of the
last month in autumn, and he was thinking over again in his own mind
of everything that happened to him from the day that he went with
the sheehogues across the sea. He remembered then, suddenly, that it
was one November night that he was standing at the gable of the
house, when the whirlwind came, and the sheehogues in it, and he
said to himself: "We have November night again to-day, and I'll
stand in the same place I was last year, until I see if the good
people come again. Perhaps I might see or hear something that would
be useful to me, and might bring back her talk again to Mary"--that
was the name himself and the priest called the king's daughter, for
neither of them knew her right name. He told his intention to the
priest, and the priest gave him his blessing.

Guleesh accordingly went to the old rath when the night was
darkening, and he stood with his bent elbow leaning on a grey old
flag, waiting till the middle of the night should come. The moon
rose slowly; and it was like a knob of fire behind him; and there
was a white fog which was raised up over the fields of grass and all
damp places, through the coolness of the night after a great heat in
the day. The night was calm as is a lake when there is not a breath
of wind to move a wave on it, and there was no sound to be heard but
the _cronawn_ of the insects that would go by from time to
time, or the hoarse sudden scream of the wild-geese, as they passed
from lake to lake, half a mile up in the air over his head; or the
sharp whistle of the golden and green plover, rising and lying,
lying and rising, as they do on a calm night. There were a thousand
thousand bright stars shining over his head, and there was a little
frost out, which left the grass under his foot white and crisp.