"That is well. It is a brave heart that will jest in such a case as
yours, for you are ice from head to foot. Well, I had better hear
your story, if you will tell it me, in the daylight. Now get those
wet garments off you and put on this. I will get you food, and you
shall sleep."

This was surely the last place where my foes would think of looking
for me, and the snow would hide every trace of my path. So I made
no delay, but took off my byrnie and garments. There was a pool on
the floor where I stood, for it was true enough that I had been ice
covered. Then I put on a rough warm brown frock with a cord round
the waist, so that I looked like a lay brother at Glastonbury, and
all the while I waxed more and more sleepy with the comfort of the
place. But I wiped my arms carefully while the old priest was busy
with a cauldron over the fire, and we were ready at the same time.

Then I had a meal of some sort of stew that seemed the best I ever
tasted, and a long draught of good mead, while the host looked on
in grave content. And then he spread a heap of dry seaweed in a
corner near the fire, and blessed me and bid me sleep. Nor did I
need a second bidding, and I do not think that I can have stirred
from the time that I lay down to the moment when I woke with a
feeling on me that it was late in the daylight.

So it was, and I looked round for my kind host, but he was not to
be seen. Outside the wind was still strong, but not what it had
been, for the gale was sinking suddenly as it rose, and into the
one little window the sun shone brightly enough now and then as the
clouds fled across it. There was a bright fire on the hearth, and