Page:My Irish Year.djvu/29

"Arrah," said one of the women, "will you read us something that will make the people's teeth chatter in their heads with terror?" "December: in this month will pass away a determined enemy of Ireland. Fortified by her long struggle and united under her trusted leaders, Ireland advances towards her place amongst the nations—Dia Saor Eire."

As soon as breakfast was over, the Markeys left the house. Peter took up the bill-hock and went back along the road, and I saw Farral opening a gate and crossing hurriedly to his work in the bog. The priest and myself were part of the road together., He had been ordained for the foreign mission, and he would leave Ireland in a few weeks. Some years hence I might see him again, when he would be taking a holiday in Ireland. Then he would be a capable Irish-American priest with something of a "hustle" upon him. We parted at the cross roads.

And now I had the clouds for company. The heather of the bog ran into the deep grass that grew each side of the roadway. Big broad-leaved poplars stood up into the light. The bog, each side of the road, had colour and expanse, and the bog myrtles that grew out of the bog had the sun upon their leaves. There were black patches where the bog had been cut to the ooze. The canavan or bog cotton was scarce; against the blackness of the cut-away bog it showed a few tremulous white heads. So far, the empty brown road had gone between low ditches. Now untidy hedge-rows began to hem it in, the fields had no cultivation; in one, a party of crows were making savage depredation; in