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“How soon are you going back to London?”

“I am not going back to London. Miss Hickey. I am not yet tired of Four Mile Water.”

“I am sure that Four Mile Water ought to be proud of your approbation.”

“You disapprove of my liking it, then? Or is it that you grudge me the happiness I have found here? I think Irish ladies grudge a man a moment’s peace.”

“I wonder you have ever prevailed on yourself to associate with Irish ladies, since they are so far beneath you.”

“Did I say they were beneath me, Miss Hickey? I feel that I have made a deep impression on you.”

“Indeed! Yes, you’re quite right. I assure you I can’t sleep at night for thinking of you, Mr. Legge. It’s the best a Christian can do, seeing you think so mightly little of yourself.”

“You are triply wrong, Miss Hickey: wrong to be sarcastic with me, wrong to discourage the candor with which you think of me sometimes, and wrong to discourage the candor with which I always avow that I think constantly of myself.”

“Then you had better not speak to me, since I have no manners.”

“Again! Did I say you had no manners? The warmest expressions of regard from my mouth seem to reach your ears transformed into insults. Were I to repeat the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, you would retort as though I had been reproaching you. This is because you hate me. You never misunderstand Langan, whom you love.”

“I don’t know what London manners are, Mr. Legge; but in Ireland gentlemen are expected to mind their own business. How dare you say I love Mr. Langan?”

“Then you do not love him?”

“It is nothing to you whether I love him or not.”

“Nothing to me that you hate me and love another?”

“I didn’t say I hated you. You’re not so very clever yourself at understanding what people say, though you make such a fuss because they don’t understand you.” Here, as she glanced down the road she suddenly looked glad.

“Aha!” I said.

“What do you mean by ‘Aha!'”

“No matter. I will now show you what a man’s sympathy is. As you perceived just then, Langan–who is too tall for his age, by-the-by–is coming to pay you a visit. Well, instead of staying with you, as a jealous woman would, I will withdraw.”

“I don’t care whether you go or stay, I’m sure. I wonder what you would give to be as fine a man as Mr. Langan?”

“All I possess: I swear it! But solely because you admire tall men more than broad views. Mr. Langan may be defined geometrically as length without breadth; altitude without position; a line on the landscape, not a point in it.”

“How very clever you are!”

“You don’t understand me, I see. Here comes your lover, stepping over the wall like a camel. And here go I out through the gate like a Christian. Good afternoon, Mr. Langan. I am going because Miss Hickey has something to say to you about me which she would rather not say in my presence. You will excuse me?”

“Oh, I’ll excuse you,” he said boorishly. I smiled, and went out. Before I was out of hearing, Kate whispered vehemently to him, “I hate that fellow.”

I smiled again; but I had scarcely done so when my spirits fell. I walked hastily away with a coarse threatening sound in my ears like that of the clarionets whose sustained low notes darken the woodland in “Der Frieschutz.” I found myself presently at the graveyard. It was a barren place, enclosed by a mud wall with a gate to admit funerals, and numerous gaps to admit peasantry, who made short cuts across it as they went to and fro between Four Mile Water and the market town. The graves were mounds overgrown with grass: there was no keeper; nor were there flowers, railings, or any other conventionalities that make an English graveyard repulsive. A great thornbush, near what was called the grave of the holy sisters, was covered with scraps of cloth and flannel, attached by peasant women who had prayed before it. There were three kneeling there as I enterd; for the reputation of the place had been revived of late by the miracle; and a ferry had been established close by, to conduct visitors over the route taken by the graveyard. From where I stood I could see on the opposite bank the heap of stones, perceptibly increased since my last visit, marking the deserted grave of Brimstone Billy. I strained my eyes broodingly at it for some minutes, and then descended the river bank and entered the boat.