“Yes, I know,” Peterkin said gravely: “Hy Brásil: Eilidh told me that is where she and you are going to live. Will you take me there too?”
“Yes, you will come there too, mochree, some day.”
“But with you — when you and Eilidh go?”
“Perhaps we’ll not be going there together, Peterkin. But we won’t be forgetting our dear little Peterkin. We’ll be on the shore looking out for you when you come.”
“Why are your eyes wet, Ian, and Eilidh’s too?”
“Why, you unfeeling little wretch, it’s because we have left the poor swans, Fionula, and Aed, and Fiachra, and Conn, alone on the rough seas of the Moyle all this while.”
“Tell me, tell me now about the children of Lir. Did they see any one up there? Were they ever happy?”
“Eilidh knows the rest of the story as well as I do, Peterkin, so go and sit in her lap while she tells it to you and to me.”
With that, Ian Mor rose and put another log on the red peats. A shower of sparks shot up into the dark hollow of the chimney. Peterkin laughed.
“Hush!” whispered Eilidh, with smiling eyes: and then in her sweet, low voice resumed the tale of the Children of Lir, from where Ian had stopped.