to him and bow down before him; for at last, after long seeking, he
has found the nothing that is God; and bid him lead us in the pathway
he has trodden.'

They passed in their white habits along the beaten path in the wood,
the acolytes swinging their censers before them, and the abbot, with
his crozier studded with precious stones, in the midst of the
incense; and came before the quern-house and knelt down and began to
pray, awaiting the moment when the child would wake, and the Saint
cease from his watch and come to look at the sun going down into the
unknown darkness, as his way was.




OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT, AND OF THE
BITTER TONGUE.


Costello had come up from the fields and lay upon the ground before
the door of his square tower, resting his head upon his hands and
looking at the sunset, and considering the chances of the weather.
Though the customs of Elizabeth and James, now going out of fashion
in England, had begun to prevail among the gentry, he still wore the
great cloak of the native Irish; and the sensitive outlines of his
face and the greatness of his indolent body had a commingling of
pride and strength which belonged to a simpler age. His eyes wandered
from the sunset to where the long white road lost itself over the
south-western horizon and to a horseman who toiled slowly up the
hill. A few more minutes and the horseman was near enough for his