A Lonely Road in Connemara
There he slumbered as snug as an egg in a thrush's nest, and he might have slept about two hours, when he hears singing—a note of music, he used to say, would bring the life back to him if he had been dead a month—so he woke up; and to be sure, of all outlandish tunes, and, to quote his words again, 'put the one the old cow died of to the back of it,' he never heard the like before; the words were queerer than the music—for John was a fine scholar, and had a quarter's Latin, to say nothing of six months' dancing; so that he could flog the world at single or double handed reel, and split many a door with the strength of his hompipe. 'Meuhla machree,' he says, 'who's in it at all?' he says. 'Sure it isn't among haythins I am,' he says, 'smuggled out of my native country,' he says, 'like a poor keg of Inishowen,' he says, 'by the murdering English?' and 'blessed father,' he says again, 'to my own knowledge it's neyther Latin or Hebrew they're at, nor any other livin' language, barring it's Turky'; for what gave him that thought was the grand sound of the words. So, 'cute enough, he dragged himself up to the edge of the ledge of the rock that overlooked the wide ocean, and what should he see but about twenty as fine well-grown men and women as ever you looked on, dancing! not a hearty jig or a reel, but a solemn sort of dance on the sands, while they sung their unnatural song, all as solemn as they danced; and they had such queer things on their heads as never were seen before, and the ladies' hair was twisted and twined round and round their heads.
"Well, John crossed himself to be sure like a good Christian, and swore if he ever saw Newport again to pay greater attention to his duty, and to take an 'obligation' on himself which he knew he ought to have done before; and still the people seemed so quiet and so like Christians, that he grew the less fearful the longer he looked; and at last his attention was drawn off the strangers by a great heap of skins that were piled together on the strand close beside him, so that by reaching his arm over the ledge, he could draw them, or one of them, over. Now John did a little in skins himself, and he thought he had never seen them so beautifully dressed before; they were seal skins, shining all of them like satin, though some were black, and more of them grey; but at the very top of the pile right under his hand was the most curious of them all—snowy and silver white. Now John thought there could be no harm in looking at the skin, for he had always a mighty great taste for natural curiosities, and it was as easy to put it back as to bring it over; so he just, quiet and easy, reaches in the skin, and soothering it down with his hand, he thought no down of the young wild swan was ever half so smooth, and then he began to think what it was worth, and while he was thinking and judging, quite innocent like, what it would fetch in Newport, or maybe Galway, there was a skirl of a screech among the dancers and singers; and before poor John had time to return the skin, all of them came hurrying towards where he lay; so believing they were sea-pirates, or some new-fashioned revenue-officers, he crept into the sand, dragging the silver-coloured skin with him, thinking it wouldn't be honest to its rale owner to leave it in their way. Well, for ever so long, nothing could equal the ullabaloo and 'shindy' kicked up all about where he lay—such talking and screaming and bellowing; and at last he hears another awful roar, and then all was as still as a bridegroom's tongue at the end of the first month, except a sort of snuffling and snorting in the sand. When that had been over some time he thought he would begin to look about him again and he drew himself cautiously up on his elbows, and after securing the skin in his bosom (for he thought some of them might be skulking about still, and he wished to find the owner), he moved on and on, until at last he rested his chin upon the very top of the ledge and casting his eye along the line of coast, not a sight or a sign of any living thing did he see but a great fat seal walloping as fast as ever it could into the ocean: well, he shook himself, and stood up; and he had not done so long, when just round the corner of the rock, he heard the low wailing voice of a young girl, soft and low, and full of sorrow, like the bleat of a kid for its mother, or a dove for its mate, or a maiden crying after her lover yet ashamed to raise her voice. 'Oh, murder!' thought John O'Glin, 'this will never do; I'm a gone man! that voice—an' it not saying a word, only murmuring like a south breeze in a pink shell—will be the death of me; it has more real, true music in it than all the bagpipes between this and Londonderry. Oh, I'm kilt entirely through the ear,' he says, 'which is the high-road to my heart. Oh, there's a moan! that's natural music! The "Shan Van Do," the "Dark Valley," and the "Blackbird" itself are fools to that!' To spring over was the work of a single minute; and, sure enough, sitting there, leaning the sweetest little head that ever carried two eyes in it upon its dawshy hand, was as lovely a young lady as ever John looked on. She had a loose sort of dress, drawn in at her throat with a gold string, and he saw at once that she was one of the outlandish people who had disappeared all so quick.
"'Avourneen das! my lady,' says John, making his best bow, 'and what ails you, darling stranger?' Well, she made no answer, only looked askew at him, and John O'Glin thought she didn't sigh so bitterly as she had done at first; and he came a little nearer, and 'Cushla-ma-chree, beauty of the waters,' he says, 'I'm sorry for your trouble.'
"So she turns round her little face to him, and her eyes were as dark as the best black turf, and as round as a periwinkle.
