“And I am forty-seven. She has all her days in front of her still.”
“What days will they be, and she quaking in a burrow like a hare, or rising thin-legged from the bog like a yellow bittern?”
“It is still the King of Scotland who pursues them?” Conachúr queried.
“Yes; since he set eyes on her seven years ago he has given them no rest, and he will give none until he has killed the three brothers and taken the girl for himself. That is the welcome of a king in Scotland. It is not the welcome the same lord got when he came here in fosterage.”
“He is still a young man,” said Conachúr.
“Young or old, it is not the act of a prince.”
“The acts of a prince need a prince’s criticism,” said the king severely.
Lavarcham went silent.
“Young men go wild at times, and it is their right; but older men can be of a wildness that no young man can understand,” said the king.
He twisted sternly on Lavarcham.