women in the cornfields and the bawns. On the low table in the centre were large flasks and jars of pottery and leather, and even a small barrel of shining wood, cunningly hoopedthe motley harvest of many wrecks. Drinking vessels of glass, of horn, of metal and of shells were strewn here, and on the floor beside the men. Of these latter the meaner sort were fast locked in drunken slumber. The rowers from Teige's boat had their way to bemused dreamland still to make. They were stretched on their bellies, for the most part with elbows propped, and hands folded over the drinking mugs before them, and chins upon these hands. Even when they were lifting the drink to their lips, their eyes were fixed upon Teige in his blue mantle, and upon the stranger in the chimney-corner beyond him.

This new comer, a man of years, short and lean and dryly dark of aspect, wore the simple half-gown and tunic of the humblest of his class. The garments were worn and faded, and the bands wound round his thin old legs were little better than rags. But there were rings upon his fingers, as they moved among the strings of the harp on his knee; and when he held back his head, and fixed his black eyes upon the candles guttering in their sconces on the wall above him, he had the face of a proud man, who might have sung to kings.

"The song of the young woman!" repeated Teige. He half closed his eyes, the more fully to understand the charm of what the bard sang, and swung his head to the rhythm and beat with his thick fingers on his chin.

"It is a noble poem." He spoke again when the minstrel's thin voice was silenced. And will it be what you imagined in your own thoughts, or do you know that there is such a young woman? It is your word that her eyes are like the planets of a harvest night, and that her high bosom is whiter than the gull's wing, and that her walking is to be compared with the tread of the red deer in the glen. There are no VOL. XII. 598

LIVING AGE.

young women like this here in all Ivehagh, nor on the islands,, nor have I heard reports of any such in O'Donovan's country beyond. My brother bore his spears through that land, and he brought on his return no high opinion at all of the women. And if what you sing of is what is in your mind, and nowhere else, I will have you tell me so."

The wandering man stroked the bar of his harp with his ringed fingers, and smiled wisely into the eyes of Teige. "It is not I who will be heard singing of Ivehagh," he said, "or of yon paltry islands, much less of the O'Donovan's land of misery and swinish violence. In all these darkened parts there is no man but you that I have seen worthy to listen to a poem of politeness and high feeling. And therefore how will their women be better than themselves? But you are born out of your place here, in these poor surroundings."

Teige's wide brow narrowed itself in frowning lines, and he lifted his head. The bard put out a hand to restrain him, and mixed oil with his voice.

"It is no belittling of you to speak thus," he urged. "The fame of Ballydevlin is very well known to me, as a castle which has needed only such a head as the saints have given it now, to force itself upon the fears of princes, and loom darkly in the dreams of kings. And I bless the exceeding good fortune which bent my steps hither.-"

"But it is of the young woman that I would be hearing," broke in the chief, with sharpness. "I know my own worth very well, and do not need to be told it by my guests. But about her merits, the warmth of your words stirs my mind, and I have to ask you if she is alive, and has a name and a country, or have you eaten up my time with visions out of your own head?"

The bard sighed softly, even while he stole glances at Teige's huge arms and shoulders, and the weapon at his belt, and the fighting men on the floor in the shadows behind it.

"How should I dare to sing any false thing at your fireside?" he replied. "It would work a great wrong to your hospitality, and I am a humble man whose life is spent in the exercise of gratitude. The subject of my poor poem, though it lifts itself in my esteem since it has your praise-is a short-veiled woman of my own people. It is Grace O'Sullivan that I sing ofthe unequalled daughter of a kinsman of mine, the matchless jewel of a family whose women shine in Tiobrad like gems upon a monarch's crown. And what I sang was but a partial rumor, a faint, distant little echo, of the wonderful truth. But you will have been hearing often of the women of the O'Sullivan. Our very name, "eye of the sun," gleams radiantly from the sweet faces of our mothers and sisters, and

last. "We are the people of the Coast of White Foam; we are born on the sea, and we wage war from our boats. You O'Sullivans are not of the water, and you would have no comprehension of such matters."

The stranger lifted his head and wagged it. "There is no kinsman of mine who is not more at home on the waves than in his own bed."

"But you yourself," said Teige; "it is my meaning that you would not be a sea-going man."

"These are my years of decay and calm," replied the other, "and I pass them best on land. But when the fire of youth was in me I loved the water like a fish. With my two handsbefore they bore these rings which hospitable lords bestow upon me now for my small skill in entertainment--I have brought a boat of eight from Inverdurrus, past whirlpool and sunken crag, through tempest and high-rushing waves, to within sight of this headland which owns you for its lord."

"This is very good news for me," remarked Teige. He rose on the word to his feet, with a resolute upward spring of a strong man intent upon deeds. At his gesture, and the look on his face, the waking men leaped from the floor, and crowded forward.

"To you, Flann, and you, Manus," Teige ordained, "I give the charge of this guest of mine. You are to keep drink from your lips and sleep from your eyelids, till the hour after the dawn. He is not to be denied sleep if he will take it, but you will not suffer him to stir beyond the inner gate. And at that hour I will be roused, and with me every man in Ballydevlin, for there is a great feat which I will perform."

The bard of the O'Sullivans had risen as well. The harp trembled in his hand, and his small old knees shook together. "I cling to the skirt of your hospitality, O'Mahony!" his alarmed voice quavered.

Teige smiled with broad graciousness upon him. "No single grey hair of yours shall be stroked awry. I will

be having you bear me company, as if you were the most favored of my own men. The service you shall render me is very great. I am a young man, and I am in the first hours of my lordship. The drunken people from my father's burial are not yet awake, but I will not sleep in a naked bed until I have announced myself to other princes and chieftains by an achievement worthy of my high spirit."

"But age is heavy on me," pleaded the stranger, with perplexed eyes. "It is a burden and an encumbrance that I would be; in any warlike adventure. My legs are weak underneath me; I cannot move along with strong men in the marching."

"You shall be taking your ease, seated on soft skins in my big vessel," replied Teige calmly. "No task shall be laid upon you, or aught required of you save your counsel. The man who has brought a boat of eight from Inverdurrus hither in his youth can bring a boat of twelve hence to Inverdurrus in the seed-time of his life. He will be having it all in his mind."

The O'Sullivan man gazed hard about him, and bit his lip, seeking for words. "But is such great haste becoming to you?" he ventured at last to ask.

"I cannot tarry," said Teige with decision. "In two days more I should be having the new moon upon my back, and that would be evil fortune for me without doubt for you also."

III.

"It is indeed a higher mountain than any in my country, or within the sight of our people. You have not deceived me at least upon this matter."

Teige, leaning upon his axe, stood upright in the prow of his large boat. The stranger of the O'Sullivans, crouched upon the skins at his feet, seemed shrunken and smaller for the Voyage of two days. He held his head above the side of the vessel, and stared before him with glassy eyes.

The mountain of Iovar rose grimly from the dark water, black and straight, three arrow-flights away. At its base, on the farther side,

a spur of green-clad land spread itself outward to the sea, and hung above the breakers' line of foam. The vessel had entered upon calm water; all about it, save at the entrance in its wake, tall cliffs reared themselves, the homes of countless sea-fowl, whose screams and flutterings filled the air. It was the hour before the setting of the sun.

"But I do not see the lofty fortress of your kinsman Hugh," pursued Teige. "And the leap of the grey stream-the 'foaming sheet of mist' that your poem celebrated-it nowhere visible to me."

is

The large sail had been suffered to drop from the mast. Some of the men held their paddles already in the water, and looked inquiringly to their chief.

over his

"It will be very bad for you," Teige said, speaking downward shoulder to the little man bent upon the skins, "to be unable to find your kinsman's castle, even now while your eyesight remains to you, because when I shall have lifted the eyes out from your head, then it is still less likely that you will ever be able to come upon it in your wanderings."

The bard gave a shivering groan. "We are close upon it," he murmured hoarsely. "Bid the rowers push across to the north. It is on the other side."

Obedient to the signal, the vessel veered, and crept slowly across the gloomy face of Iovar. The low-lying greenland waxed in size as the invaders began to round it. Then its slope unfolded to their vision-a shepherd's field inset upon the crags, stretching gently forward to the strand. A narrow vertical riband of moisture on the black rocks behind caught the glimmer of the sinking sun.

"In the great heat and dryness the stream has failed," sighed the bard, in a low, husky voice.

Teige, gazing intently upon the prospect, saw now on the upper part of the slope, built in part against the rocks, a kind of small house, piled loosely of stones without any binding of lime. It was of the height of two floors, and its walls showed only slits of an arm's breadth instead of windows.

sands underneath.

The man of the O'Sullivans bent his head, and struck it despairingly upon the boat's side. Then, upon a thought, he lifted it.

"Oh, woe! woe!" he moaned. "The fierce O'Moriartys will have been at their bloody work again. In my father's father's time 'tis known that they descended upon us, and wrought great havoc in all this country. And now it is plain they have come once more, and put Inverdurrus to the sack, and levelled the noble fortress, and without doubt slain many of the people of my blood. Oh then, the valiant Hugh, the courageous and magnanimous chieftain, is he indeed no more? And Grace, the light of our eyes, the blossom of the beautiful spring upon our ancient stem, is she also gone from us? Oh, heaven's blight on those foul savages, the O'Moriartys! May the forked lightning of the black sky descend on them! May the saints' loathliest murrain devour them!"

He had raised his thin voice high in sudden imprecation, and made it shake with the fervor of his wrath; but now, at a wave of Teige's hand and a glance into his face, silence fell upon him. He dropped back on the skins and grovelled among them.

"Even the O'Moriarty is not without mercy in his bosom," said Teige, with tightened lines about his mouth. "He has left some one alive upon the rock."

The figure of an old man, meanly clad but erect, could be seen moving down the slope to the strand. He halted at a little distance from the water, and shaded his eyes with his hand, against the glare of the western sky.

The rowers pushed forward, watching him curiously. The boat's bottom crushed its way over the reeds of the

"Farther to the north there is an open channel," called out the old man. "You cannot come to dry land there.' "It is the great chieftain, Hugh O'Sullivan of Inverdurrus, that I do be seeking," cried Teige, "and if I can come to the sight of him, it is not water to the armpit that will keep us apart."

"I am of that name," shouted back the other; "but I am no chieftain, but simply a small man of the fishing and sundry sheep. It will not be worth any armed man's while to wet himself for me, much less the commander of a host. You are very welcome to come dry, and to please yourself with all I have."

The men with the paddles had pulled the boat off, and now by the old man's guiding hand they made another course, and came up at the side of a large stone.

Teige, lifting his foot over the prostrate, huddled form of the bard, leaped on to the land. Then, turning, he stooped and seized the crouching minstrel by the collar of his shirt, and by the force of his arm lifted him out of the boat. The little man, choking and abashed, hung his head upon his breast.

"You are kindly welcome," the shepherd of Inverdurrus repeated, with a courteous inclination, drawing nearer.

Teige looked upon him with surprise. Although his garments were those of a slave, he bore himself with dignity.

"I am greatly beholden to you," Teige made answer. "If it is not a rudeness in me, you have a speech and a behavior which do not fit your place."

"It is the place of my own choosing," Hugh replied, "and I have pleasure in it. No lord molests me here, and I am a free man to live my life. I am so lacking in manly qualities that bloodshed is hateful to me. It was my mischance to be born without the desire to put my foot on any man's neck, or to drive his cattle away, or to make him suffer in any fashion. Yet a stub

bornness was in my blood, so that I could not delight in calling another my master, and cringing to him and doing his bidding, whether he were prince in his fortress or abbot in his cloister. These are the misfortunes of my character. They bring me to what you behold. Yet I am not without food to offer you and your people, both white meats and flesh, and withal strong drink to uphold the stomach. Spanish wines I have none, for I am so strange and .outlandish a person that I procure no ships to be wrecked on my rocks. And so I crave that you and your company will follow me."

Teige pulled at his soft beard in meditation. "I have with me a kinsman of yours," he said thoughtfully. "It was in my mind that he had done me a mischief, but now my thoughts turn a little toward another opinion."

The bard shamefacedly lifted his head. His hands he hid under the folds of his short cloak.

"I know him and his rings of base metal very well," remarked Hugh, gravely surveying the minstrel. "It is Tiarnan Bladair (the flatterer), that you have in your train. He also is welcome here. His falsehoods and his vanities do not win him friendships as he grows in years, but they are in his nature, and I am not his judge. If he has wrought you evil, I as his kinsman will intercede for him. It will not be for the first time."

Teige's eye roved over the thin trickling line of ooze upon the cliff in the distance, and the poor house reared against the rocks. His ruddy big face flushed a deeper red under the impulse of some thought which tugged upon his tongue. From the land his gaze wandered to the sky, and he started at what he saw.

"You have a daughter?" he asked suddenly, with abrupt boldness.

The venerable man looked at him, and at the boat behind him, in turn. Then he bent a prolonged, searching gaze upon the averted face of his loose-tongued kinsman.

"How is it possible that I should deny it?" he made answer finally.

The flush still crimsoned Teige's face, but his voice was softened and low. "You could not in politeness ask of me my name, but I will offer it to you. I am Teige, son of Diarmaid, son of Conogher Fionn, of the People of the Bridge, and in my own right Lord of Ballydevlin. And if you speak the harsh word, I will go peacefully now in my boat, and take my men and return to my own place, and come near you no more. But if you have another word for me, I will stay, and I will ask you now for the gift of your daughter in marriage."

The father observed his guest narrowly, with doubt in his glance. "You have not seen the colleen," he said. "You know of her only by the report of Tiarnan here, and he is not to be believed in by any prudent man."

"Beyond doubt he is a strong liar," Teige admitted, and they both looked at the bard. "Yet I have my own belief in this matter," the young man went on. "I know that it is good for me to wish for your daughter."

As he spoke he pointed upward to the pale, vague, fleecy crescent in the ashen sky, above the glow of sunset. "When my eyes came upon that new moon, and I beholding it face to face, there was nothing in my mind but thoughts of your daughter. It is plain enough, then, that I must ask for her, and desire her above all things."

"You have the thoughts of a young man," said the father, still gravely regarding him. "Yet it may be that it is as well to be ruled by a woman as by a moon. Perhaps, indeed, it is the same thing. For Grania governs me, and draws me whither she will, even as the tide is led forward, and held, and sent away. But if I would not be choosing to part with my daughter? It would be very black and empty for me here, alone with the sheep and the shellfish and the gulls. And, moreover, if when she beheld you she laughed in your face? I cannot tell what a girl's thoughts would be, to look at you."

Teige pulled upon his beard, and smiled ruefully, and glanced upward