ht a sense
of faintness to Denis Donohoe, for he was ravenously hungry again.

He stumbled awkwardly in and out of the place with his armfuls of brown
sods The women moved with reluctance out of his way. Once a servant girl
raised the most melancholy pair of wide brown eyes he had ever seen,
saying to him, "It always goes through me to hear the turf falling in
the stair-hole. It reminds me of the day I heard the clay falling on me
father's coffin, God be with him and forgive him, for he died in the
horrors."

By the time Denis Donohoe had delivered the cartload of turf the little
donkey had eaten all the hay in the sack. In the small shop Denis
purchased some bacon, flour and tea, so that he had only some coppers to
bring home with him. After some hesitation he handed back one penny for
some biscuits, and these he ate as soon as he set out on the return
journey.

The little donkey went over the road through the hills on the way back
with spirit, for donkeys are good homers. Denis Donohoe sat up on the
front of the cart, his legs dangling down beside the shaft. The donkey
trotted down the slopes gayly, the harness rattling, the cart swaying,
jolting, making an amazing noise.

The donkey cocked his ears, flecked his tail, even indulged in one or
two buck-jumps, as he rattled down the hilly roads. Denis Donohoe once
or twice leaned out over the shaft, and brought his open hand down on
the haunch of the donkey, but it was more a caress than a whack.

The light began to fade, the landscape to grow more obscure. Suddenly
Denis Donohoe broke into song. They were going over a level stretch of
ground. The donkey walked quietly. The quivering voice rang out over the
darkening landscape, gaining in quality and in steadiness, a clear light
voice, the notes coming with the instinctive intonation, the perfect
order of the born folk singer. It was some old Gaelic song, a refrain
that had been preserved like the trunks of the primeval oaks in the
bogs, such a refrain as might claim kinship with the Dresden _Amen_,
sung by generations of German peasants until at last it reached the ears
of Richard Wagner, giving birth to a classic. As he sang Denis Donohoe
raised his swarthy face, his profile sharp against the pale sky, his
eyes, half in rapture like all folk singers, ranging over the hills, his
long throat palpitating, swelling and slackening like the throat of a
bird quivering in song. Then a light from the sash-less windows of M