Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/244

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230
SHIANA

the music, a corresponding change took place in the movement of the people, or in the dancing, if it was dancing. Things went on in that way between them, at both sides of the river, until some time well on in the night. He does not remember how he parted with them, but when the daylight came he woke out of his sleep inside the eye of a lime-kiln which was there at the roadside, with the new pipes beside him. No sooner was he fully awake than he fixed the pipes on him and began to play the music again, exactly as he had played it during the night. He played it from beginning to end. again and again, and he put into it correctly every twist and turn and change, as they put them in it during the night for him when they were playing it on the other side of the river, until he knew it by heart and there was no fear of his ever forgetting any part of it. When he had satisfied his mind upon that, he stood up and came out of the limekiln and looked about him. The road and the fences were full of people all round the limekiln. They had been collecting there while he was playing the music so as to master it. According as one or two would come, they would stop to listen to the music, until the place was crowded with them. They were full of wonder and amazement, because they knew that people used to hear that same music often in the same place, at night; but that was the first time it had ever been heard during the day. When they saw 'Eerie John' coming out of the eye of the limekiln, and when they realised that it was he that had been playing the weird music, they shook their heads and said among themselves that he would not escape long without being carried off.