"I was alone," said Tuan. "I was so alone that my own shadow
frightened me. I was so alone that the sound of a bird in flight,
or the creaking of a dew-drenched bough, whipped me to cover as a
rabbit is scared to his burrow.

"The creatures of the forest scented me and knew I was alone.
They stole with silken pad behind my back and snarled when I
faced them; the long, grey wolves with hanging tongues and
staring eyes chased me to my cleft rock; there was no creature so
weak but it might hunt me, there was no creature so timid but it
might outface me. And so I lived for two tens of years and two
years, until I knew all that a beast surmises and had forgotten
all that a man had known.

"I could pad as gently as any; I could run as tirelessly. I could
be invisible and patient as a wild cat crouching among leaves; I
could smell danger in my sleep and leap at it with wakeful claws;
I could bark and growl and clash with my teeth and tear with
them."

"Tell on, my beloved," said Finnian, "you shall rest in God, dear
heart."

"At the end of that time," said Tuan, "Nemed the son of Agnoman
came to Ireland with a fleet of thirty-four barques, and in each
barque there were thirty couples of people."

"I have heard it," said Finnian.