THE CASTLE IN THE LOUGH
A LEGEND OF DONEGAL
ather," little Dermot would say, "tell me something more about the castle in the lough."
Dermot M'Swyne was a little lad, with blue soft eyes and bright fair hair. He was the only son of Brian, the chief of the M'Swynes, and people used sometimes to say scornfully that he was a poor puny son to come of such a father, for he was not big and burly, as a M'Swyne ought to be, but slim and fair, and like a girl. However, Brian M'Swyne loved his fair-haired boy, and would have given up
most other pleasures in the world for the pleasure of having the little fellow by his side and listening to his prattling voice. He was like his mother, those said who remembered the blue-eyed stranger whom Brian M'Swyne had brought home ten years before as his wife to Doe Castle, in Donegal, and who had pined there for a few years and then died; and perhaps it was for her sake that the child was so dear to the rough old chief. He was never tired of having the little lad beside him, and many a time he would carry him about and cradle him in his arms, and pass his big fingers through the boy's golden curls, and let the little hands play with his beard.
Sitting together in the firelight on winter nights, while the peat fire was burning on the floor, and the wind, sweeping across Lough Eske, went wailing round the castle walls and sighing in the leafless trees, the boy would often get his father to tell him stories of the country-side. There were many strange legends treasured up in the memories of all