Page:Dorothy Canfield--Hillsboro People.djvu/330

 and the upland bogs, of the fog and the Round Stone, and desecrated a sacred thing with every word.

It would have been a comfort to him if she had even talked with an apostate's yearning bitterness for his betrayed religion, if she had spoken harshly of their old, sweet folly; but she was all kindness and eager, willing reminiscence. Just as she spoke his name, his faëry name of "Piper Tim," in a tone that made it worse than "Uncle Tim," so she blighted one after another of the old memories as she held them up in her firm, assured hands, and laughed gently at their oddity.

After supper as Tim sat again in the kitchen watching her do the evening work, the tides of revulsion rose strong within him. "We were a queer lot, an' no mistake, Piper Tim," she said, scraping at a frying pan with a vigorous knife. "An' the childer are just like us. I've thried to tell them some of our old tales, but—I dun'no'—they've kind o' gone from me, now I've such a lot to do. I suppose you were up to the same always, with your nephews an' nieces out West. 'Twas fine for ye to have a family of your own that way, you that was always so lonely like."

Timothy's shuddering horror of protest rose into words at this, incoherent words and bursts of indignation that took his breath away in gasps. "Moira! Moira! What are ye sayin to me? Me wid a family! Anyone who's iver had th' quiet to listen to th' blessed little people—him to fill up his ears wid th' clatter of mortial tongues. No! Since I lift here I've had no minute o' peace—oh, Moira, th' country there—th' great flat hidjious country of thim—an th people like it—flat an fruitful. An' oh, Moira, aroon, it's my heart breakin' in me, that now