fist, and shook it at the crosses. He knew they were not empty, for
the birds were fluttering about them; and he thought how, as like as
not, just such another vagabond as himself was hanged on one of them;
and he muttered: 'If it were hanging or bowstringing, or stoning or
beheading, it would be bad enough. But to have the birds pecking your
eyes and the wolves eating your feet! I would that the red wind of
the Druids had withered in his cradle the soldier of Dathi, who
brought the tree of death out of barbarous lands, or that the
lightning, when it smote Dathi at the foot of the mountain, had
smitten him also, or that his grave had been dug by the green-haired
and green-toothed merrows deep at the roots of the deep sea.'

While he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came out
upon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon many
crosses. He passed over two hills and under the battlemented gate,
and then round by a left-hand way to the door of the Abbey. It was
studded with great nails, and when he knocked at it, he roused the
lay brother who was the porter, and of him he asked a place in the
guest-house. Then the lay brother took a glowing turf on a shovel,
and led the way to a big and naked outhouse strewn with very dirty
rushes; and lighted a rush-candle fixed between two of the stones of
the wall, and set the glowing turf upon the hearth and gave him two
unlighted sods and a wisp of straw, and showed him a blanket hanging
from a nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, and
a tub in a far corner. Then the lay brother left him and went back to
his place by the door. And Cumhal the son of Cormac began to blow
upon the glowing turf that he might light the two sods and the wisp
of straw; but the sods and the straw would not light, for they were
damp. So he took off his pointed shoes, and drew the tub out of the
corner with the thought of washing the dust of the highway from his