The day was fine with a clear sky, and the sea was glittering beyond
the limestone. Further off a light haze on the cliffs of the larger
island, and on the Connaught hills, gave me the illusion that it was
still summer.
A little boy was sent off to tell the old woman that I was coming,
and we followed slowly, talking and carrying the baggage.
When I had exhausted my news they told me theirs. A power of
strangers--four or five--a French priest among them, had been on the
island in the summer; the potatoes were bad, but the rye had begun
well, till a dry week came and then it had turned into oats.
'If you didn't know us so well,' said the man who was talking,
'you'd think it was a lie we were telling, but the sorrow a lie is
in it. It grew straight and well till it was high as your knee, then
it turned into oats. Did ever you see the like of that in County
Wicklow?'
In the cottage everything was as usual, but Michael's presence has
brought back the old woman's humour and contentment. As I sat down
on my stool and lit my pipe with the corner of a sod, I could have
cried out with the feeling of festivity that this return procured
me.
This year Michael is busy in the daytime, but at present there is a
harvest moon, and we spend most of the evening wandering about the
island, looking out over the bay where the shadows of the clouds
throw strange patterns of gold and black.
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