"Piper Tim! Piper Tim!" was breathed close to his ear. He sprang up, with wide, startled eyes.
"Piper Tim," said the little girl gravely, "I've seen them."
The man stared at her in a breathless silence.
"A little wee woman with a red hat and kerchief around her neck, an' she
said, 'Go straight to Piper Tim an' tell him to play "The Call o' the
Sidhe" as he sits on the Round Stone, for this is th' day of the Cruachan
Whistle.'"
The child put out her hand, and drew him to the pipes, still keeping her deep eyes fixed on him, "Play, Piper Tim, an' shut your eyes an' I'll see what you should see an' tell you what 'tis."
The first notes were quavering as the man's big frame shook, but the little hands across his eyes seemed to steady him, and the final flourish was like a call of triumph. In the silence which followed the child spoke in her high little treble with a grave elation. "They're here, Piper Tim, all the river fog in the valley is full of them, dancin' and singin' so gay-like to cheer up the poor hills. An' whist! Here they come up the road, troops and troops of them, all so bright in the ferlie green; an' sure," with a little catch of merriment, "sure, they've no toes on their feet at all! They've danced them all away. And now, Piper Tim, hold your breath, for they'll be after comin' by, but all so still, so still! so you won't hear them and maybe think to open your eyes and see them—for that 'ud mean—sh! sh! Piper Tim, don't stir! They're here! They're here!"
His eyes ached with the pressure of the strong little hands across them, his ears ached with straining them into the silence which lay about them. His heart beat fast with hope and then with certainty. Yes, it was no longer the thin, dead silence of the New England woods he knew so unhappily well. It was the still that comes with activity suspended. It was like the quivering quiet of a dancer, suddenly stricken motionless to listen for the sound of intruding footsteps. There was not the faintest sound, but the silence was full of that rich consciousness of life which marks the first awakening of a profound sleeper.
The hands were withdrawn from before his eyes, but he did not open them. He reached blindly for his pipes, and played "The Song of Angus to the Stars," tears of joy running from between his closed eyelids, to recognize in his own music the quality he had been starving for; the sense of the futile, poignant beauty, of the lovely and harmless tragedy, of the sweet, moving, gay sad meaning of things.
When he looked about him he was quite alone. Moira was gone, and the road lay white and still before him.