“I’d fallen asleep on the snow-white sand. There was no sand here now, sure; all was green and gold, and shrubs and flowers and coloured fountains were all around me. But it was night all the same. And the strange thing was this, every leaf and flower gave out light of its own colour. But, glimmering down through the beautiful haze, I could see the twinkling stars, and I offered up a prayer and felt safe.
“The music grew quicker, merrier, madder, and at last sure I couldn’t stand it a moment longer, and up I starts.
“‘Och! if you plaze,’ I says, ‘I’ll mingle in the mazy dance meself, and there isn’t a boy in Ballyporeen can bate me at the rale ould Oirish jig.’
“But sure, boys, as Burns says—
“‘In a moment all was dark.’
“Away went shrubs and flowers and fountains and sylphs and fairies and fays and all, and there stood poor Rory O’Reilly on the sands once more, with the wee waves frothing up at his feet, and scratching his head, and feeling more like a fool than ever he did in his born days.
“‘Well, sure,’ says I to myself, ‘there is no knowing what to make av it. But,’ I says, ‘a little more sleep won’t hurt me, anyhow.’
“So down I lies again on the sand.
“It was daylight when I awoke again once more. But where was I now? No fairies this time. But sure I was among the strangest race of beings imagination could conceive av. The country all around me was honest and purty enough; trees, fields, hills, and houses, and all might have been a part of ould Oirland itself. But the people, boys—why, it was indiarubber they must have been made av, and nothing else. At one moment a man would be as tall and thin as a flagstaff, next moment about the shape and fashion of a bull frog. They could stretch their arms out till twenty yards long, and make their mouths big enough to swallow a sheep. It wasn’t in at the door either they’d be going when entering their dwellings, but straight through the keyhole.
“It was, maybe, a handy arrangement one way or the other, but troth it frightened poor Rory O’Reilly, and as none av the ugly craytures seemed to take any notice av me, I made my feet my friends, and got quietly away.