The Crucifixion Of The Outcast

A MAN, with thin brown hair and a pale
face, half ran, half walked, along the road
that wound from the south to the Town
of the Shelly River. Many called him Cum-
Hal, the son of Cormac, and many called
him the Swift, Wild Horse; and he was
a glee man, and he wore a short parti-
coloured doublet, and had pointed shoes,
and a bulging wallet. Also he was of the
blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place
was the ~ield of Gold; but his eating and
sleeping places were the four provinces of
Eri, and his abiding place was not upon
the ridge of the earth. His eyes strayed
from the Abbey tower of the White Friars
and the town battlements to a row of
crosses which stood out against the sky
upon a hill a little to the eastward of the
town, and he clenched his fist, and shook
it at the crosses. He knew they were
not empty, for the birds were fluttering
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about them; and he thought how, as like
as not, just such another vagabond as
himself was hanged on one of them; and
he muttered; ' If it were hanging or bow-
stringing, or stoning or beheading, it would
be bad enough. But to have the birds
pecking your eyes and the wolves eating
your feet ! I would that the red wind
of the Druids had withered in his cradle
the soldier of Dathi, who brought the
tree of death out of barbarous lands, or
that the lightning, when it smote Dathi
at the foot of the mountain, had smitten
him also, or that his grave had been dug
by the green-haired and green-toothed
merrows deep at the roots of the deep
sea.'
While he spoke, he shivered from head
to foot, and the sweat came out upon
his face, and he knew not why, for
he had looked upon many crosses. He
passed over two hills and under the battle-
ment Ed gate, and then round by a left-

27
was studded with great nails, and whenhe knocked at it, he roused the lay brother
who was the porter, and of him he asked
a place in the guest-house. Then the lay
brother took a glowing turf on a shovel,
and led the way to a big and naked out-
house strewn with very dirty rushes; and
t lighted a rush-candle fixed between two
of the stones of the wall, and set the glow-
ing turf upon the hearth and gave him
two unlighted sods and a wisp of straw,
and showed him a blanket hanging from a
nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and
a jug of water, and a tub in a far
corner. Then the lay brother left him
and went back to his place by the door.

And Cumhal the son of Cormac began
to blow upon the glowing turf, that he
might light the two sods and the wisp
of straw; but his blowing profited him
nothing, for the sods and the straw were
damp. So he took off his