64 STRAY -AW AYS 



rather muzzy. I remember what the loose wall felt 

 like when we climbed it, and how the dog and the 

 bicycle-lamp complicated everything, but I said to 

 myself that I wasn't going to do without either. 

 That white, cloudy look was all through the wood, 

 and several times I saw the white hounds in front, 

 that I can swear, but they were always outside the 

 light of the bicycle-lamp, no matter how I turned it. 

 I remember standing still, with the dog trembling 

 against my leg in a most infectious way, and my head 

 very dizzy. That drifting white stuff made every- 

 thing swim^ — but I had to go on. The water was in 

 over the top of my boots, as cold as ice. Suddenly 

 we were going down a steep bit, and I saw the hounds 

 gliding away over a fiat, open place, and then the 

 white stuff covered it all. There were rocks, and I 

 lumbered on to one, the fishing boots making very 

 bad going. I was going to jump down when the Dog 

 from Doone jerked back hard, and I lost my balance, 

 and went down into miles of fog. Something that 

 was alive and frightened in me said, " You're done 

 for," and went away. 



A week afterwards Lally stood at the foot of my 

 bed and said that thanks be to the Lord Almighty, 

 I was grand. There were bandages on my head, 

 and^it ached. 



He found me as he went through the wood on his 

 way to early Mass on the Holyday. And I might 

 be in it now, only for the dog. Divil such yowling 

 and barking ever he heard as what was in the wood, 

 and it in the one place always, and what did he get 

 in it only myself, and the back of my poll cracked on 

 the rock, and the dog minding me, and a puce sthring 

 out of his neck. And what signified only the shwallow- 

 holc that was before me, and it able to take a rick of 

 turf with the flood that was in it — " It's what the 



