“Oh, foolish boy!” he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the old man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all the coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he wanted. But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found his neck. He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, saying, “Little hero, ye fence—ye fence——”
“Haste ye, son! finish the thing!” said the taibhsear, all shaking, and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud cry.
“God I God! it's the great pity about this,” said she, looking at Murdo cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. “Ken ye the man that's there dripping?”
“The man's no more,” said Rory, cool enough. “He has gone travelling, and we forgot to ask his name.”
“Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor aught about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a Diarmaid rag, and it was not for nothing.”
Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. “I am for off,” said he at last with a sudden hurry. “You can follow if you like, red young one.” And he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face!
THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND.
ONCE I saw a fairy King, and it was in the Castle up-by. The Castle took fire, and a fine blaze it made at the foot of Dunchaach. A boy, I ran with the rest to carry out the MacCailein's rich gear, and behold! I wandered and lost my way in that large place where is a window for every day in the year. Up the long stairs and through the far passages, and over the shining sounding floors went I, barefoot, with a feared eye on every hole and corner. At every door it was, “Surely now I'm with the folks at the fire”; but every door was a way into a quieter quietness, and the Castle was my own. I sat at last on a black chair that had a curious twisted back, and the tears went raining on the lap of my kilt.