The big farm laborer drew back in a terror he instantly disguised. "I was just lookin' for you, Moira, aroon," he said propitiatingly. I was wishin' to tell you—to tell you—why, that it's all pretend. There aren't any little people really, you know. 'Tis just old Tim's nonsense." He shivered at the blasphemy and crossed himself. "Or, if there are any, 'tis only in th' ould country." The child rose to her feet, eying him strangely, her eyes like deep pools.
He went on conscientiously, with a mental eye on Father Delancey, "An' if there are any, which they aren't, they're bad things for Christians to have aught to do with, because they know neither right nor wrong, and 'tisn't fit that mortals should iver be light an gay wi' that burden gone! So they're bad for us an we shouldn't think of thim, and just cross ourselves wheniver"
The unspoken protest in the child's face was grown so passionate that he interrupted himself to answer it in a burst of sympathy. "Och, Moira, acushla, sure an' I know how 'tis to ye" And then with a reaction to virtue, he said sternly, "An' if they're not bad, why do they go when you call on the blessed saints?"
At this the child's face twisted again for tears. "Och, bad Piper Tim, to scare them away from me! It's not that they're bad—only that good's too heavy for them. They're such little people! It's too heavy! It's too heavy." She ran away through the dusk, sobbing and calling this over her shoulder reproachfully.
In the weeks which followed, old Timothy Moran, as he was called, could scarcely complain that he was but half awake. He seemed to be making up for the dull apathy of his long exile by the storminess of his days
