I could see he didn't really believe I would get to the cashel; but I set off happily along the road, between high hedges; and presently I passed a village, and turned to the right, as he had told me; and then two barefooted children caught up with me, on their way home from school. They knew the way to the cashel very well, though they had never been there either; and presently they left me and struck off across the fields; and then I came to a place where the road forked, and stopped to ask a man who was wheeling manure from a big stable which way to go. He too was astonished that any one should start off so carelessly on such an expedition; but he directed me up a narrow by-way, which soon began to climb steeply; and then the valley beneath me opened more and more, and finally I saw to my right the summit I was aiming for, and struck boldly toward it along a boggy path.
The path led me to the rear of a thatched cottage, where two men were stacking hay. They assured me that I was on the right road, and I pushed on again for the summit, past another little house, from which a man suddenly emerged and hailed me.
"Where be you going?" he demanded.
"To the fort," I said. "It's up this way, isn't it?"
"It might be."
"Am I trespassing?" I asked, for there seemed to be an unfriendly air about him.
"You are so," he answered.
"I'm sorry," I stammered; "if there's another way—"
"There is no other way."
"Well, then, I'll have to go this way," I said. "I'll not do any harm."