orse for their
transformation!" exclaimed Saint Andrew.

"Ah! you do not know, then, what happened after you left the country, my
cousin of Scotland!" cried Saint Patrick. "Ha! ha! ha! They all set
off to follow you, unknown to their father. I met them in a wood with
their six maidens, wandering alone, and had the satisfaction of rescuing
them from the power of some unpleasant enemies, among whom they had
fallen. I thought they would have found you out before now."

"No, indeed, I have escaped them hitherto," answered Saint Andrew,
rubbing his hands. "One of them might have persuaded me to marry her,
and that would not at all have suited me. I intend to remain a bachelor
for many a year to come."

"I wonder you did not offer to marry one of them, at least, my brave
Irish friend," observed Saint Anthony; "it would have been but in
accordance with the acknowledged gallantry of your countrymen. I, too,
should have been glad to have hailed you as a brother-in-law."

"Faith! so I would have married one or all of them, if it hadn't been
from the difficulty of making a selection, and hurting the feelings of
the rest; for a more amiable collection of young ladies I never set eyes
on; so I gave them a little chariot I had got, drawn by a few alligators
and hippopotami, and advised them to go quietly back to their father's
court, instead of gadding about the world as they were then doing.
Whether or not they took my advice I cannot say, for when they went
north I turned my horse's head, and, with my faithful Squire, rode away
south."

Many other similar adventures to these were told by the old comrades, of
which there is no space to tell.

But if the Knights were merry, much more so were their Squires.
Joyfully they discovered each other, and agreed to meet together in the
tent of the faithful De Fistycuff. Right jovial was the meeting, and
huge the amount of the viands they consumed, and innumerable the beakers
of Samian and Falernian wine they quaffed. Merry the stories they told
of their numberless adventures, and facetious the songs they sang. Each
Squire boasted loudly of the deeds of his master, and of the country to
which he belonged; but no one boasted louder than did the faithful Owen
ap Rice, of Saint David especially, and of his own loved country, Wales.
Terence O'Grady was not much behind him in that respect; while Murdoch
McAlpine declared that Saint Andrew was one of the best of masters, and
that if