approximately the date of the story therefore. The long warfare
waged by Dane and Norseman against the Irishman at that time, and
the incidental troubles of the numerous island hermits on the Irish
coast, are written in the Irish annals, and perhaps most fully in
"the wars of the Gaedhil and the Gaill."

Chas. W. Whistler.

Stockland, 1906.



Chapter 1: The Old Chief And The Young.


The black smoke eddied and wavered as it rose over my father's
burning hall, and then the little sea breeze took it and swept it
inland over the heath-clad Caithness hills which I loved. Save for
that black cloud, the June sky was bright and blue overhead, and in
the sunshine one could not see the red tongues of flame that were
licking up the last timbers of the house where I was born. Round
the walls, beyond reach of smoke and heat, stood the foemen who had
wrought the harm, and nearer the great door lay those of our men
who had fallen at the first. There were foemen there also, for it
had been a good fight.

At last the roof fell in with a mighty crash and uprush of smoke
and sparks, while out of the smother reeled and staggered half a
dozen men who had in some way escaped the falling timbers. I think
they had been those who still guarded the doorway, being unwounded.