baby goes with
them into their mountains; the door swings to behind, and the new-born
or the new-wed moves henceforth in the bloodless land of Faery; happy
enough, but doomed to melt out at the last judgment like bright vapour,
for the soul cannot live without sorrow. Through this door of white
stone, and the other doors of that land where geabheadh tu an sonas aer
pighin ("you can buy joy for a penny"), have gone kings, queens, and
princes, but so greatly has the power of Faery dwindled, that there are
none but peasants in these sad chronicles of mine.

Somewhere about the beginning of last century appeared at the western
corner of Market Street, Sligo, where the butcher's shop now is, not a
palace, as in Keats's Lamia, but an apothecary's shop, ruled over by a
certain unaccountable Dr. Opendon. Where he came from, none ever knew.
There also was in Sligo, in those days, a woman, Ormsby by name, whose
husband had fallen mysteriously sick. The doctors could make nothing of
him. Nothing seemed wrong with him, yet weaker and weaker he grew. Away
went the wife to Dr. Opendon. She was shown into the shop parlour. A
black cat was sitting straight up before the fire. She had just time to
see that the side-board was covered with fruit, and to say to herself,
"Fruit must be wholesome when the doctor has so much," before Dr.
Opendon came in. He was dressed all in black, the same as the cat, and
his wife walked behind him dressed in black likewise. She gave him a
guinea, and got a little bottle in return. Her husband recovered that
time. Meanwhile the black doctor cured many people; but one day a rich
patient died, and cat, wife, and doctor all vanished the night after.
In a year the man Ormsby fell sick once more. Now he was a goodlooking
man, and his wife felt sure the "gentry" were coveting him. She went
and called on the "faery-doctor" at Cairnsfoot. As soon as he had heard
her tale, he went behind the back door and began muttering, muttering,
muttering-making spells. Her husband got well this time also. But after
a while he sickened again, the fatal third time, and away went she once
more to Cairnsfoot, and out went the faery-doctor behind his back door
and began muttering, but soon he came in and told her it was no use--
her husband would die; and sure enough the man died, and ever after
when she spoke of him Mrs. Ormsby shook her head saying she knew well
where he was, and it wasn't in heaven or hell or purgatory either. Sh