"THERE! THAT IS CROWLIN"
Eighteen may not seem a great age to my reader, and does not to me to-day, when I can cap it with fifty years and more, but on that June day in the year '46, when I stood and knocked the dust of the road off my shoes, I felt like a man who had spent a lifetime away from all he had known as a boy, and my heart grew so big within me that I could hardly say the words, "There! that is Crowlin."
"Aye, Giovannini, and the man is blessed that has a Crowlin to come back to," Father O'Rourke said, laying his hand on my shoulder.
"Oh, I don't mean that, Father; 'tis a poor place enough," I answered, for fear he should think I was vaunting it.
"And I didn't mean that either, Giovannini," he said, smiling. "But let us be going."
So on we went, each familiar object breaking down the first feeling of separation until the years between vanished before a voice within, saying, "I saw you yesterday! I saw you yesterday!" as we passed the big rock by the bend of the road, and followed the little path with the same turns across the fields and over the brook, with the same brown water slipping between the same stepping-stones. "You crossed o'er yesterday! You crossed o'er yesterday!" it seemed to say; and so on, until the dogs rushed out barking at us from the house itself.
"Go in first, lad—go in. I'll stay and make friends with the collies," said Father O'Rourke, seating himself, and I left him.
I found my father sadly changed; much more so than I had gathered from the news I had received; indeed, it was easy to see that his disease was fast nearing its end. He was greatly brightened by my return, and heartily welcomed Father O'Rourke, the more so when he learned his true character, and they took to each other at once.