but no one knows what Fionn thought of him for he never
thereafter spoke of his step-father. As for Muirne she must have
loved her lord; or she may have been terrified in truth of the
sons of Morna and for Fionn; but it is so also, that if a woman
loves her second husband she can dislike all that reminds her of
the first one. Fionn went on his travels again.



CHAPTER IX

All desires save one are fleeting, but that one lasts for ever.
Fionn, with all desires, had the lasting one, for he would go
anywhere and forsake anything for wisdom; and it was in search of
this that he went to the place where Finegas lived on a bank of
the Boyne Water. But for dread of the clann-Morna he did not go
as Fionn. He called himself Deimne on that journey.

We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not
answered we get wise, for a well-packed question carries its
answer on its back as a snail carries its shell. Fionn asked
every question he could think of, and his master, who was a poet,
and so an honourable man, answered them all, not to the limit of
his patience, for it was limitless, but to the limit of his
ability.

"Why do you live on the bank of a river?" was one of these
questions. "Because a poem is a revelation, and it is by the
brink of running water that poetry is revealed to the mind."