It makes a bloke listen
to you."
Stoner was sitting on the bank of La Bassee canal, his bare feet
touching the water, his body deep in a cluster of wild iris. I sat
down beside him and took off my boots.
I pulled a wild iris and explained to Stoner how in Donegal we made
boats from the iris and placed them by the brookside at night. When
we went to bed the fairies crossed the streams on the boats which (p. 224)
we made.
"Did they cross on the boats?" asked Stoner.
"Of course they did," I answered. "We never found a boat left in the
morning."
"The stream washed them away," said Stoner.
"You civilised abomination," I said and proceeded to fashion a boat,
when it was made I placed it on the stream and watched it circle round
on an eddy near the bank.
"Here's something," said Stoner, getting hold of a little frog with
his hand and placing it on the boat. For a moment the iris bark swayed
unsteadily, the frog's little glistening eyes wobbled in its head then
it dived in to the water, overturning the boat as it hopped off it.
An impudent-looking little boy with keen, inquisitive eyes, came along
the canal side wheeling a very big barrow on which was heaped a number
of large loaves. His coat a torn, ragged fringe, hung over the hips,
he wore a Balaclava helmet (thousands of which have been flung away by
our boys in the hot weather) and khaki puttees.
The boy came to a stop opposite, laid down his barrow and wiped (p.
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