ried needles. He did
not weep, but from time to time a long sigh heaved his shoulders. Then he
turned over and lay on his back, looking at the sunset-yellow sky through
the green, thick-clustered needles, noticing how the light made each one
glisten as though dipped in molten gold. His hand strayed out to his
pipes, lying beside him with mute, gaping mouths. "The Gold o' the
Glamour," he murmured to himself, and as he broke the silence with the old
tune faintly blown, he felt the wood peopled about him as of yore with
twilight forms. Unseen bright eyes gazed at him from behind tree-trunks,
and the branches were populous with invisible, kindly listeners. The very
hush was symbolic of the consciousness of the wood that he was there
again. There was none of the careless commonplace of rustling leaves, and
snapping twigs, and indifferent, fearless bird-song. In the death-like
still he felt life quivering and observant with a thousand innocent,
curious, welcoming eyes.

When he had quavered through the last note he let the pipes fall and gazed
about him with a smile, like a happy old child. The sun sank behind the
mountain as he looked, and he pulled himself heavily up. His way to the
farm lay over bare upland pastures where his feet, accustomed for years to
the yielding prarie levels, stumbled and tripped among the loose stones.
Twilight came on rapidly, so that he found himself several times walking
blindly through fairy rings of fern. He crossed himself and bowed his head
three times to the west, where the evening star now shone pale in the
radiance of the glowing sky. Between two of the ridges he wandered into a
bog where his feet, hot in their heavy boots, felt gratefully the oozing,
cool brown water.

And then, as he stepped into the lane, dark with dense maple-trees and
echoing faintly with the notes of the hermit thrush, he saw the light of
the little house glimmer through the trees in so exactly the spot where
his hungering eyes sought it that his heart gave a great hammering leap in
his breast.

He knocked at the door, half doubtfully, for all his eagerness. It might
be she lived elsewhere in the parish now. He had schooled himself to this
thought so that it was no surprise, although a heavy disappointment, when
the door was opened by a small dark man holding a sleeping baby on his
arm. Timothy lowered his voice and the man gave a brief and hushed answer.
He spoke in a strong French-Canadian accent. "Moira O'Donn