VILLAGE GHOSTS


In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our
minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities;
people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce.
Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge.
When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your
favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it.
We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all
the affairs of the universe. The dumb village multitudes pass on
unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all
our talk: good seasons and bad follow each other as of old. The dumb
multitudes are no more concerned with us than is the old horse peering
through the rusty gate of the village pound. The ancient map-makers
wrote across unexplored regions, "Here are lions." Across the villages
of fishermen and turners of the earth, so different are these from us,
we can write but one line that is certain, "Here are ghosts."

My ghosts inhabit the village of H-----, in Leinster. History has in
no manner been burdened by this ancient village, with its crooked
lanes, its old abbey churchyard full of long grass, its green
background of small fir-trees, and its quay, where lie a few tarry
fishing-luggers. In the annals of entomology it is well known. For a
small bay lies westward a little, where he who watches night after
night may see a certain rare moth fluttering along the edge of the
tide, just at the end of evening or the beginning of dawn. A hundred
years ago it was carried here from Italy by smugglers in a cargo of