One winter evening an old knight in rusted ?armour rode slowly along the woody southern slope of Ben Bulben, watg the sun go down in crimson clouds over the sea. His horse was tired, as after a long journey, and he had upon his helmet the crest of no neighb lord or king, but a small rose made of rubies that glimmered every moment to a deeper crimson. His white hair fell in thin curls upon his shoulders, and its disorder added to the melancholy of his face, which was the face of one of those who have e but seldom into the world, and always for its trouble, the dreamers who must do what they dream, the doers who must dream what they do.
After gazing a while towards the su the reins fall upon the neck of his horse, and, stretg out both arms towards the west, he said, O Divine Rose of Intellectual Flame, let the gates of thy peace be opeo me at last! And suddenly a loud squealing began in the woods some hundreds of yards further up the mountain side. He stopped his horse to listen, and heard behind him a sound of feet and of voices. They are beating them to make them go into the narrow path by the ge, said someone, and in another moment a dozen peasants armed with short spears had e up with the knight, and stood a little apart from him, their blue caps in their hands. Where do you go with the spears? he asked; and one who seemed the leader answered: A troop of wood?thieves came down from the hills a while ago and carried off the pigs belonging to an old man who lives by Glen Car Lough, aurned out to go after them. Now that we know they are four times more than we are, we follow to find the way they have taken; and will presently tell our story to De Courcey, and if he will not help us, to Fitzgerald; for De Courcey and Fitzgerald have lately made a peace, and we do not know to whom we belong.
But by that time, said the knight, the pigs will have beeen.
A dozen men ot do more, and it was not reasohat the whole valley should turn out and risk their lives for two, or for two dozen pigs.
you tell me, said the knight, if the old man to whom the pigs belong is pious and true of heart?
He is as true as another and more pious than any, for he says a prayer to a saint every m before his breakfast.
Then it were well to fight in his cause, said the knight, and if you will fight against the wood?thieves I will take the main brunt of the battle, and you know well that a man in armour is worth many like these wood?thieves, clad in wool aher.
And the leader turo his fellows and asked if they would take the ce; but they seemed anxious to get back to their s.
Are the wood?thieves treacherous and impious?
They are treacherous in all their dealings, said a peasant, and no man has knowo pray.
Then, said the knight, I will give five s for the head of every wood?thief killed by us in the fighting; and he bid the leader show the way, and they all went on together. After a time they came to where a beaten track wound into the woods, and, taking this, they doubled back upon their previous course, and began to asd the wooded slope of the mountains. In a little while the path grew very straight and steep, and the knight was forced to dismount and leave his horse tied to a tree?stem. They khey were on the right track: for they could see the marks of pointed shoes in the soft clay and mingled with them the cloven footprints of the pigs. Presently the path became still more abrupt, and they knew by the end