Page 159 - The snake's pass

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CHAPTER VIII.
A VISIT TO JOYCE.
With renewed hope I set out in the morning for
Knocknacar.
It is one of the many privileges of youth that a few
hours' sleep will change the darkest aspect of the entire
universe to one of the rosiest tint. Since the previous
evening, sleeping and waking, my mind had been fram-
ing reasons and excuses for the absence of ... . !—it was
a perpetual grief to me that I did not even know her
name. The journey to the mountain seemed longer than
usual ; but, even at the time, this seemed to me only
natural under the circumstances.
Andy was to-day seemingly saturated or overwhelmed
with a superstitious gravity. Without laying any
personal basis for his remarks, but accepting as a stand-
point his own remark of the previous evening concerning
my having seen a fairy, he proceeded to develop his
fears on the subject. I will do him the justice to say
that his knowledge of folklore was immense, and that
nothing but a gigantic memory for detail, cultivated to
the full, or else an equally stupendous imaginitaon