"For love of heaven, don't tell me that the dark is fallin' on your eyes too."
"No, Shon, I am not growing blind."
"Will you not tell me what gives the ache to your words?"
"I see in the Valley—snow . . . snow."
"It's a laugh you have at me in your cheek, whin I'd give years of my ill-spent life to watch the chimney smoke come curlin' up slow through the sharp air in the Valley there below."
"There is no chimney and there is no smoke in all the Valley."
"Before God, if you're a man, you'll put your hand on my arm and tell me what trouble quakes your speech."
"Shon McGann, it is for you to make the sign of the Cross . . . there, while I put my hand on your shoulder—so!"
"Your hand is heavy, Pierre."
"This is the sight of the eyes that see. In the Valley there is snow; in the snow of all that was, there is one poppet-head of the mine that was called St. Gabriel . . . upon the poppet-head there is the figure of a woman."