' He then came down among them, and drew out of the hair of
first one and then another the feathers of the grey hawk, and, having
scattered them over the rushes upon the floor, passed out, and none
dared to follow him, for his eyes gleamed like the eyes of the birds
of prey; and no man saw him again or heard his voice. Some believed
that he found his eternal abode among the demons, and some that he
dwelt henceforth with the dark and dreadful goddesses, who sit all
night about the pools in the forest watching the constellations
rising and setting in those desolate mirrors.
THE HEART OF THE SPRING.
A very old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of a
bird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-
covered isle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-
faced boy of seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallows
dipping for flies in the still water. The old man was dressed in
threadbare blue velvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a blue
cap, and had about his neck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two,
and half hidden by trees, was a little monastery. It had been burned
down a long while before by sacrilegious men of the Queen's party,
but had been roofed anew with rushes by the boy, that the old man
might find shelter in his last days.
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