AT THE RIVER'S EDGE 7 



niitisli woman, yet, had I read the story to her, she 

 would instantly have understood that strong heart, 

 and its pride and grief and rapture. Human nature 

 was as clear to her as to the other illiterate people 

 of her village and countryside, and, like them, she had 

 the scriptural method of narrative, that curves on 

 its way like running water, and sinks to its one and 

 inevitable channel. I bethought me of the theory 

 that the original Irish race, or some constituent of 

 it, came from a southern shore of the Mediterranean ; 

 and all the while the boots of Anastasia confronted 

 me, planted at the edge of the turf ashes on the hearth, 

 like boulders on a foamy beach. 



" But that woman that seen me the first time," 

 she resumed, " she was a little strange that way in her 

 mind, and when she came to live inside here in the 

 town they said she drew a great many of Thim 

 Things round the place. You'd hear them walking 

 round the doors at night. Well, there's many a 

 quare thing like that, and ye wouldn't know " 



The narrative faded out in murmurs that seemed to 

 be both apologetic and religious, intended, I think, 

 to present a proper diplomatic attitude towards all 

 the powers of darkness. Anastasia lived by herself 

 outside the village, in a crooked cabin with a broken 

 door ; she did well to recognise officially the existence 

 of Thim Things. Her brother, over whose establish- 

 ment she had once reigned, had married, and his wife 

 was not favourable to Anastasia; that she herself 

 had not married was an unusual state of affairs, but 

 it implied no slur upon her attractions, nor did it 

 imply the blighted love affair. Marriage, not flirta- 

 tion, is the concern of Anastasia's social circle; the 

 creature that we indulgently and sympathetically 

 term Passion is by them flogged to kennel under 

 another name. 



