rters,
and his stay with the O'Beirnes lengthened into months as the summer
slipped away. At this time the forge was owned by Felix O'Beirne,
blacksmith, shebeener, and ex-whiteboy, and with him lived his orphan
grandsons, Daniel and Nicholas, his very old, ancient mother, who still
drew enjoyment in whiffs through the stem of her black dudeen, and his
elderly sister, Bridget, who had taken little pleasure in anything since
the redcoats shot her sweetheart in the War. The missing third
generation was represented occasionally when Mrs. Dooley, Felix's
married daughter, came on a visit. It was conjectured among them that
"the fancy the ould gintleman had for larnin' all manner to young
Nicholas continted him to stop." And this may have had something to do
with it, though less, probably, than the vaguer fact that he from the
first "took kindly" to the O'Beirnes, and they to him. His appearance
puzzled them a little. He was of a massive, large-boned frame, such as
nature seems to design for rough uses; but, as Felix remarked, "you
could aisy tell be ivery finger and thumb on him that hard work wasn't
the handle he'd took a hould of the world by." He wore a very long, grey
frieze coat, and a chimney-pot hat so old and tall that it looked as if
it must have grown slowly to its great height. When he took it off he
uncovered a shock of soft white hair, like the wig of a seeded
groundsel, about a face which was furrowed and wrinkled ruggedly enough,
in a different pattern somehow from what is commonly seen at Lisconnel,
where sun and wind have a large share in the process. His baggage
consisted of two bundles, very unequal in size and weight. The contents
of the smaller one were mainly a shirt and three socks, knotted loosely
in a blue cotton handkerchief; the other was done up carefully in
sacking, and he liked to have it under his eye.

Of course the O'Beirnes' visitor was often talked about among the groups
gathered of an evening, much as they are nowadays, for gossip and poteen
within the broad-leaved forge doors, through which on dark nights the
fire still blinks as far across the bog as the amber of the sunset, or
the rising glow of the golden harvest moon. Even from Felix's first
report it appeared that the stranger was no ordinary person.

"Won'erful fine discoorse he has out of him, anyway," he told the
neighbours a few nights after the arrival; "ivery now and agin he'll out
wid a word as grand like and big as his Rive