A man, with thin brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked, along the road that wound from the south to the town of Sligo. Many called him Cumhal, the son of ad many called him the Swift, Wild Horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti?coloured doublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. Also he was of the blood of the Ernaans, and his birth?place was the Field of Gold; but his eating and sleeping places where the four provinces of Eri, and his abiding place was not upon the ridge of the earth. His eyes strayed from the Abbey tower of the White Friars and the town battlements to a row of crosses which stood out against the sky upon a hill a little to the eastward of the town, and he ched his fist, and shook it at the crosses. He khey were y, for the birds were fluttering about them; ahought how, as like as not, just suabond as himself was hanged on one of them; atered: If it were hanging or bing, or stoning or beheading, it would be bad enough. But to have the birds peg your eyes and the wolves eating your feet! I would that the red wind of the Druids had withered in his cradle the soldier of Dathi, whht the tree of death out of barbarous lands, or that the lightning, when it smote Dathi at the foot of the mountain, had smitten him also, or that his grave had been dug by the green?haired and green?toothed merrows deep at the roots of the deep sea.
While he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came out upon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon many crosses. He passed over two hills and uhe battlemented gate, and then round by a left?hand way to the door of the Abbey. It was studded with great nails, and when he k it, he roused the lay brother who was the porter, and of him he asked a pla the guest?house. Then the lay brother took a glowing turf on a shovel, ahe way to a big and naked outhouse strewn with very dirty rushes; and lighted a rush?dle fixed between two of the stones of the wall, ahe glowing turf upon the hearth and gave him two unlighted sods and a wisp of straw, and showed him a bla hanging from a nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, and a tub in a far er. Then the lay brother left him a back to his place by the door. And Cumhal the son of ac began to blow upon the glowing turf that he might light the two sods and the wisp of straw; but the sods and the straw would not light, for they were damp. So he took off his pointed shoes, and drew the tub out of the er with the thought of washing the dust of the highway from his feet; but the water was so dirty that he could not see the bottom. He was very hungry, for he had en all that day; so he did not waste muger upoub, but took up the black loaf, and bit into it, and then spat out the bite, for the bread was hard and mouldy. Still he did not give way to his anger, for he had not druhese many hours; having a hope of heath beer or wi his days end, he had left the brooks untasted, to make his supper the more delightful. Now he put the jug to his lips, but he flung it from him straightway, for the water was bitter and ill?smelling. Then he gave the jug a kick, so that it broke against the opposite wall, aook down the blao it about him for the night. But no sooner did he touch it than it was alive with skipping fleas. At this, beside himself with anger, he rushed to the door of the guest? house, but the lay brother, being well aced to such outcries, had locked it oside; so he emptied the tub