played upon it in the haggard. Was not the finest song ever made called
_Cailin deas crúidhte na mbo_? Music! Do you think that the water in the
holy well will not improve in its sparkle to have such a can as this
dipped into it? It will be welcome everywhere for its clearness and its
cleanness. Heavenly Father, look at the manner in which I rounded the
edge of that can with the clippers! Cut clean and clever, soldered at
the dawn of day, the dew falling upon the hands that moulded it, the
parings scattered about my feet like jewels. And now you would bargain
over it. I will not sell it to you at all. I will put it in a holy
shrine."

Festus Clasby turned the can over in his hands, a little bewildered. "It
looks an ordinary can enough," he said.

"It is the Can with the Diamond Notch," declared Mac-an-Ward.

"Would it be worth a shilling now?"

"He puts a price upon it! It is blasphemy. The man has no religion; he
will lose his soul. The devils will have him by the heels. They will
tear his red soul through the roof. Give me the can; don't hold it in
those hands any longer. They are coarse; the hair is standing about the
purple knuckles like stubbles in an ill-cut meadow. That can was made
for the hands of a delicate woman or for the angels that carry water to
the Court of Heaven. I saw it in a vision the night before I made it; it
was on the head of a maiden with golden hair. Her feet were bare and
like shells. She walked across a field where daisies rose out of young
grass; she had the can resting on her head like one coming from the
milking. So I rose up then and said, 'Now, I will make a can fit for
this maiden's head.' And I made it out of the rising sun and the