The Heart of the Spring

A very old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a
bird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-
covered isle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-
faced boy of seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows
dipping for flies in the still water. The old man was dressed in
threadbare blue velvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue
cap, and had about his neck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two,
and half hidden by trees, was a little monastery. It had been burned
down a long while before by sacrilegious men of the Queen's party,
but had been roofed anew with rushes by the boy, that the old man
might find shelter in his last days. He had not set his spade,
however, into the garden about it, and the lilies and the roses of
the monks had spread out until their confused luxuriancy met and
mingled with the narrowing circle of the fern. Beyond the lilies and
the roses the ferns were so deep that a child walking among them
would be hidden from sight, even though he stood upon his toes; and
beyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak trees.

'Master,' said the boy, 'this long fasting, and the labour of
beckoning after nightfall with your rod of quicken wood to the beings
who dwell in the waters and among the hazels and oak-trees, is too
much for your strength. Rest from all this labour for a little, for
your hand seemed more heavy upon my shoulder and your feet less
steady under you to-day than I have known them. Men say that you are
older than the eagles, and yet you will not seek the rest that
belongs to age.' He spoke in an eager, impulsive way, as though his
heart were in the words and thoughts of the moment; and the old man
answered slowly and deliberately, as though his heart were in distant
days and distant deeds.

'I will tell you why I have not been able to rest,' he said. 'It is
right that you should know, for you have served me faithfully these
five years and more, and even with affection, taking away thereby a
little of the doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise.
Now, too, that the end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is at
hand, it is the more needful for you to have this knowledge.'

'Master, do not think that I would question you. It is for me to keep
the fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong,
lest the wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take the
heavy books from the shelves, and to lift from its corner the great
painted roll with the names of the Sidhe, and to possess the while an
incurious and reverent heart, for right well I know that God has made
out of His abundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives,
and to do these things is my wisdom.'