“It will do good, though,” said the old man.  “Clane out some of their dirty ould drains, I’m thinkin’.”

Then he spoke of Martin, whom he had seen off, saying he would surely come back.

“’Deed he will though.  A boy like yander wasn’t born to lave his bark in the ice and snow . . .  Not if his anchor’s at home, anyway”—­with a “glime” in my direction.

How the glen sang to me that morning!  The great cathedral of nature seemed to ring with music—­the rustling of the leaves overhead, the ticking of the insects underfoot, the bleating of the sheep, the lowing of the cattle, the light chanting of the stream, the deep organ-song of the sea, and then the swelling and soaring Gloria in my own bosom, which shot up out of my heart like a lark out of the grass in the morning.

I wanted to run, I wanted to shout, and when I came to the paths where Martin and I had walked together I wanted—­silly as it sounds to say so—­to go down on my knees and kiss the very turf which his feet had trod.

I took lunch in the boudoir as before, but I did not feel as if I were alone, for I had only to close my eyes and Martin, from the other side of the table, seemed to be looking across at me.  And neither did I feel that the room was full of dead laughter, for our living voices seemed to be ringing in it still.

After tea I read again my only love-letter, revelling in the dear delightful errors in spelling which made it Martin’s and nobody else’s, and then I observed for the first time what was said about “the boys of Blackwater,” and their intention of “getting up a spree.”

This suggested that perhaps Martin had not yet left the island but was remaining for the evening steamer, in order to be present at some sort of celebrations to be given in his honour.

So at seven o’clock—­it was dark by that time—­I was down at the Quay, sitting in our covered automobile, which had been drawn up in a sheltered and hidden part of the pier, almost opposite the outgoing steamer.

Shall I ever forget the scene that followed?

First, came a band of music playing one of our native songs, which was about a lamb that had been lost in the snow, and how the Big Man of the Farm went out in search of it, and found it and brought it home in his arms.

Then came a double row of young men carrying flags and banners—­fine, clean-limbed lads such as make a woman’s heart leap to look at them.

Then came Martin in a jaunting car with a cheering crowd alongside of him, trying to look cheerful but finding it fearfully hard to do so.

And then—­and this touched me most of all—­a double line of girls in knitted woollen caps (such as men wear in frozen regions) over their heads and down the sides of their comely faces.

I was crying like a child at the sight of it all, but none the less I was supremely happy.

When the procession reached the gangway Martin disappeared into the steamer, and then the bandsmen ranged themselves in front of it, and struck up another song: