“Mother, mother! listen, it is quite true,” said Con, and he hastened to pour out the story of his wonderful adventure. His mother did look astonished, but naturally enough she could not believe it. She would have it he had fallen asleep at old Nance’s cottage and dreamt it all.
“But who was the boy that brought the message then?” said Con. “I know he was a fairy.”
And his mother could not tell what to say.
“I know what to do,” he went on; “will you come with me to Nance’s cottage and ask her?” and to this his mother agreed.
And that very morning to the old woman’s cottage they went. It was in perfect order as usual, not a speck of dust to be seen; the little bed made, and not a stool out of its place. But there was no fire burning in the little hearth—and no Nance to be seen. Con ran all about, calling her, but she had utterly disappeared. He threw himself on the ground, sobbing bitterly.
“She has gone back to them instead of me—to prevent them coming after me,” he cried, “and oh! she will be so unhappy.”
And nothing that his mother could say would console him.
But a night or two afterwards the boy had a dream, or a vision, which comforted him. He thought he saw Nance; Nance with her kind, strange smile, and she told him not to be troubled. “I have only gone back for a time,” she said, “and they cannot hold me, Connemara. I shall have conquered after all. You will never see me again here. I am soon going to a country very far away. I shall never come back to my little cottage, but still we may meet again and you must not grieve for me.”
So Con’s mind was at peace about his old friend. Of course she never came back, and before long her cottage was pulled down. No one could say to whom it belonged, but no one objected to its destruction. She had been a witch they said, and it was best to do away with her dwelling.
What Con’s mother really came in the end to think about his story, I cannot say; nor do I know if she ever told his father. I fancy Con seldom, if ever, spoke about it again. But as all who knew him when he grew up to be a man could testify, his taste of the land of “all play and no work,” never did him any harm.