to talk of Goban, the legendary
mason, and his wisdom, but said presently, "Aristotle of the Books,
too, was very wise, and he had a great deal of experience, but did not
the bees get the better of him in the end? He wanted to know how they
packed the comb, and he wasted the better part of a fortnight watching
them, and he could not see them doing it. Then he made a hive with a
glass cover on it and put it over them, and he thought to see. But when
he went and put his eyes to the glass, they had it all covered with wax
so that it was as black as the pot; and he was as blind as before. He
said he was never rightly kilt till then. They had him that time
surely!"

1902.

THE SWINE OF THE GODS

A few years ago a friend of mine told me of something that happened to
him when he was a. young man and out drilling with some Connaught
Fenians. They were but a car-full, and drove along a hillside until
they came to a quiet place. They left the car and went further up the
hill with their rifles, and drilled for a while. As they were coming
down again they saw a very thin, long-legged pig of the old Irish sort,
and the pig began to follow them. One of them cried out as a joke that
it was a fairy pig, and they all began to run to keep up the joke. The
pig ran too, and presently, how nobody knew, this mock terror became
real terror, and they ran as for their lives. When they got to the car
they made the horse gallop as fast as possible, but the pig still
followed. Then one of them put up his rifle to fire, but when he looked
along the barrel he could see nothing. Presently they turned a corner
and came to a village. They told the people of the village what had
happened, and the people of the village took pitchforks and spades and
the like, and went along the road with them to drive the pig away. When
they turned the comer they could not find anything.

1902.

A VOICE

One day I was walking over a bit of marshy ground close to Inchy Wood
when I felt, all of a sudden, and only for a second, an emotion which I
said to myself was the root of Christian mysticism. There had swept
over me a sense of weakness, of dependence on a great personal Being
somewhere far off yet near at hand. No thought of mine had prepared me
for this emotion, for I had been pre-occupied with Aengus and Edain, and
with Mannanan, son of the sea. That night I awoke lying upon my back
and hearing a voice speaking above me and saying, "No hu