yesterday that he went away, not years agone.
But tell me, does he ever think of me?' I questioned.

"'He thinks of you,' he said, 'as one for whom the masses for the dead
are spoken; but while I knew him, first and last, the memory of you was
with him.'

"With that he got off his horse, and said: 'I'll walk with you to his
father's home.'

"'You'll not do that,' I replied; 'for it's level with the ground. God
punish them that did it! And they're lyin' in the glen by the stream
that he loved and galloped over many a time.'

"'They are dead--they are dead, then,' said he, with his bridle swung
loose on his arm and his hat off reverently.

"'Gone home to Heaven together,' said I, 'one day and one hour, and a
prayer on their lips for the lad; and I closin' their eyes at the last.
And before they went they made me sit by them and sing a song that's
common here with us; for manny and manny of the strength and pride
of Farcalladen Rise have sailed the wide seas north and south, and
otherwhere, and comin' back maybe and maybe not.'

"'Hark,' he said, very gravely, 'and I'll tell you what it is, for I've
heard him sing it, I know, in the worst days and the best days that ever
we had, when luck was wicked and big against us and we starvin' on the
wallaby track; or when we found the turn in the lane to brighter days.'

"And then with me lookin' at him full in the eyes, gentleman though
he was,--for comrade he had been with the man I loved,--he said to me
there, so finely and kindly, it ought to have brought the dead back from
their graves to hear, these words:

"'You'll travel far and wide, dear, but you'll come back again,
You'll come back to your father and your mother in the glen,
Although we should be lyin' 'neath the heather grasses then
You'll be comin' back, my darlin'!'

"'You'll see the icebergs sailin' along the wintry foam,
The white hair of the breakers, and the wild swans as they roam;
But you'll not forget the rowan beside your father's home--
You'll be comin' back, my darlin'.'"

Here the girl paused longer than usual, and the priest dropped his
forehead in his hand sadly.

"I've brought grief to your kind heart, father," she said.

"No, no," he replied, "not sorrow at all; but I was born on the Liffey
side, though it's forty years and more since I left it, and I'm an old
man now. That song I knew well, and the truth and the heart of it too.
... I am listening."

"Well, toge