rich, dark hair, cut short, and curling in ringlets about her forehead and neck, and forming a fascinating tangle upon the top.

[Pg 16]

"Shall we go?" I asked Winifred.

"Yes," she answered; "if you are ready."

And so we went. Our course, at first, lay through the lanes strewn with wild flowers, primroses and early violets, with the hedgerows white with bloom. The balmy air of May, fresher and purer in Ireland, it seems, than elsewhere, gently stirred the tender green of the foliage. The lark and the thrush sang together a morning hymn. Soon, however, the scenery became wilder and wilder; rocky passes frowned upon us, and we looked down into ravines that might well make the unwary tremble.

Up the steep path I followed where the girl led with foot as sure as a mountain goat. She spoke from time to time in her soft, liquid accent. Perhaps it was part of her waywardness to show herself more shy and reserved than I had yet seen her, answering my questions in monosyllables, and briefly bidding me to beware of dangerous places. At last, in a winding of the road, we came upon one of those feudal keeps which marked the military character of bygone chiefs. Its walls were still intact, and a great donjon reared its head to the sky, in defiance of time.

We could not enter by the iron gates, still vainly guarding the ruin; for the path beyond them was choked with weeds and overgrown with grass. The child led me instead through a narrow pathway, and a low door in the thickest part of the wall, which had survived all attacks of the elements, and was, perhaps, of a later erection. Walls and roof were alike uninjured; but I had a strange feeling of [Pg 17]passing from daylight into chill darkness, when my guide silently ushered me into a stone-paved passage, where all was still and gloomy.

[Pg 17]

It was a relief, at last, to reach a large square room, appointed somewhat in the manner of a farm kitchen. A peat fire burned upon the hearth, a kettle sang upon the hob, a wooden settle stood close by, and strings of herrings hung from the beams of the ceiling, flanked by a flitch or two of bacon. Homely, comfortable objects they were, making me forget my plunge into the past, and convincing me that here was life and reality and domestic comfort. By the fire sat an old woman, erect and motionless; and though her face was turned toward us, she gave no sign of perceiving me, nor did she respond to my salute.

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