I
only pray that you, with your breath of the outer world--warfare
and wreck, victory and vengeance--may not leave us unsettled."
He sighed, and turned back to the way once more with bent head. He
seemed a young man to be in this desolate place of his own free
will, for his black beard and hair were hardly grizzled with the
passing years yet.
There was a low wall round the gathering of huts, the gate being
closed with a wattled hurdle, lest the pigs should wander. Here the
hermit stopped, and before he opened the gate lifted his voice and
cried loudly in the tongue which I did not know.
There was a stir then in the peaceful enclosure. Out of the huts
came in all haste men clad like our guide, speaking to one another
fast, with eager faces and gestures. At that time I counted nine
huts, and thought that we need turn out none of these strange hosts
of ours.
P Again our hermit cried out, for the rest did not come to meet us.
I saw Dalfin smiling, and asked what it all meant in a low voice.
"I have more than half forgotten the little Latin they taught me at
Monasterboice long ago," he answered; "but he is telling them that
here we have not a lady merely, but a queen. It is the first
trouble again."
Now the brethren consulted, still standing in the hut doors, and at
last, being thereto exhorted once more by our friend, they came
toward us slowly, as if wishing to show that they had no longing
for things outside their island cares.
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