These mythological tales, though they were known to the Sergeant in English, gained a vexing physical presence in the vernacular, so that in his dreams some strange man – perhaps O’Muichin – drove a herd of sheep, with the heads of men, before him; humans with whom he was somewhat familiar adopted the forms of animals he could not recognize; MacDonagh returned as a goose; and in one striking dream he saw his daughter Catherine ride a goat along the edge of a cliff while he called and called after her in vain. O’Muichin, besides reading hands, was also an interpreter of dreams, and on hearing the father’s dream of the goat he said that the dream went back to Jonathan Adams’ reading of Greek mythology. He said that the dream was one of two things, as all dreams are.

“And what are they, may I ask?” enquired the Master.

“I would have to know first,” smiled O’Muichin, “whether the goat was a nanny or a buck.”

Jonathan Adams for a long while considered the unruffled mien of the man who was telling him his dreams were prompted not by classical tales but by the gender of animals.

“Would you not consider that interpretation a bit farfetched?” he asked.

“Next time you see the goat,” whispered O’Muichin, and he came closer to the Sergeant, “next time, now, that you see the goat – excuse me – check to see if it has its equipment.”

“I see,” said the Sergeant.

O’Muichin winked, and turned the talk to Oisin.

“It’s hard to credit him, sometimes,” said Sara, elsewhere.

“He’s not afraid, anyway,” said Catherine in a tone of voice that intimated she was standing up for him.

It was a Sunday, and later on that afternoon the Irish speaker turned despondent. It was the same boredom as before. There were no lessons that day. Not a word after dinner could be got out of him, and even leaning on the pier of the gate considering the village going about its business could not raise his spirits.

“Are you not speaking to the poor?” Sara asked him.

“I feel like I am expecting someone,” he explained.

“There’s a dance next Friday night in Bangor-Erris, if you’d care to venture there.”

“B’fheidir,” he muttered. “I like the western ladies. I never heard the word lady used except in a derisory fashion till I came here. I like the western ladies, I must admit. They are very open.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do indeed.”

He remained preoccupied, and just nodded at everything she said. Sara sat up on the gate and kicked against the pier. Catherine passed between them and went up to the village thinking: “Where is the rotten fucker who will love me?” The other pair stayed on silent by the gate.

“When someone gets like you I always feel to blame,” Sara said.