We then fell to talking of many commonplace things, and my friend did not once toss up his beard, but was very friendly.  At last the gaunt old tax-gatherer got up to go, and my friend said, “I hope we will have a glass together next year.”  “No, no,” was the answer, “I shall be dead next year.”  “I too have lost sons,” said the other in quite a gentle voice.  “But your sons were not like my son.”  And then the two men parted, with an angry flush and bitter hearts, and had I not cast between them some common words or other, might not have parted, but have fallen rather into an angry discussion of the value of their dead sons.  If I had not pity for all the children of reverie I should have let them fight it out, and would now have many a wonderful oath to record.

The knight of the sheep would have had the victory, for no soul that wears this garment of blood and clay can surpass him.  He was but once beaten; and this is his tale of how it was.  He and some farm hands were playing at cards in a small cabin that stood against the end of a big barn.  A wicked woman had once lived in this cabin.  Suddenly one of the players threw down an ace and began to swear without any cause.  His swearing was so dreadful that the others stood up, and my friend said, “All is not right here; there is a spirit in him.”  They ran to the door that led into the barn to get away as quickly as possible.  The wooden bolt would not move, so the knight of the sheep took a saw which stood against the wall near at hand, and sawed through the bolt, and at once the door flew open with a bang, as though some one had been holding it, and they fled through.

AN ENDURING HEART

One day a friend of mine was making a sketch of my Knight of the Sheep.  The old man’s daughter was sitting by, and, when the conversation drifted to love and lovemaking, she said, “Oh, father, tell him about your love affair.”  The old man took his pipe out of his mouth, and said, “Nobody ever marries the woman he loves,” and then, with a chuckle, “There were fifteen of them I liked better than the woman I married,” and he repeated many women’s names.  He went on to tell how when he was a lad he had worked for his grandfather, his mother’s father, and was called (my friend has forgotten why) by his grandfather’s name, which we will say was Doran.  He had a great friend, whom I shall call John Byrne; and one day he and his friend went to Queenstown to await an emigrant ship, that was to take John Byrne to America.  When they were walking along the quay, they saw a girl sitting on a seat, crying miserably, and two men standing up in front of her quarrelling with one another.  Doran said, “I think I know what is wrong.  That man will be her brother, and that man will be her lover, and the brother is sending her to America to get her away from the lover.  How she is crying! but I think I could console her myself.”  Presently the lover and brother went away, and Doran