And then they spoke of Peter. James said he was too great a scholar for a farmer, and it was a pity he could not find out what he was fit for--for surely he was fit for something great after all. And Catherine said:-- "I shall be able to make something out of Peter." His emotion almost overcame him, and Catherine looked aside so that she should not see his tears. "This is no time for talking of Peter," she said. "You are going away, James, but you will come back. You will find another woman better than I am in America, James. I don't know what to say to you. The train will be here in a minute. I am distracted. But one day you will be coming back, and we shall be very proud of you when you come back. I shall rebuild the house, and we shall be all happy then. Oh! here's the train. Good-bye; you have been very good to me. Oh, James! shall I ever see you again?" Then the crowd swept them along, and James had to take his father's hand and his brother's hand. There were a great many people in the station--hundreds were going away in the same ship that James was going in. The train was followed by wailing relatives. They ran alongside of the train, waving their hands until they could no longer keep up with the train. James waved a red handkerchief until the train was out of sight. It disappeared in a cutting, and a moment after Catherine and Peter remembered they were standing side by side. They were going to be married in a few days! They started a little, hearing a step beside them. It was old Phelan. "I think," he said, "it is time to be getting home." CHAPTER IV HOME SICKNESS He told the doctor he was due in the bar-room at eight o'clock in the morning; the bar-room was in a slum in the Bowery; and he had only been able to keep himself in health by getting up at five o'clock and going for long walks in the Central Park. "A sea voyage is what you want," said the doctor. "Why not go to Ireland for two or three months? You will come back a new man." "I'd like to see Ireland again." And then he began to wonder how the people at home were getting on. The doctor was right. He thanked him, and three weeks afterwards he landed in Cork. As he sat in the railway carriage he recalled his native village--he could see it and its lake, and then the fields one by one, and the roads. He could see a large piece of rocky land--some three or four hundred acres of headland stretching out into the winding lake. Upon this headland the peasantry had been given permission to build their cabins by former owners of the Georgian house standing on the pleasant green hill. The present owners considered the village a disgrace, but the villagers paid high rents for their plots of ground, and all the manual labour that the Big House required came from the village: the gardeners, the stable helpers, the house and the kitchen maids.