that sheltered it in winter, and made it
dark and gloomy when you approached the house at night. Beside the
road, a little way off from the house, there was a spot that had an
evil name all over the country, a little hill covered closely with
copsewood, with a great craggy rock on top, from which, on stormy
nights, strange and fearful sounds had often been heard--shrill
voices, and screams, mingled with loud fiendish laughter; and the
people believed that it was the haunt of air-demons. In some way it
had become known that these demons had an eye on Fergus, and watched
for every opportunity to get him into their power. He had himself been
warned of this many years before, by an old monk from the neighbouring
monastery of Buttevant, who told him, moreover, that so long as he
led a blameless, upright life, he need have no fear of the demons; but
that if ever he yielded to temptation or fell into any great sin, then
would come the opportunity for which they were watching day and night.
He never forgot this warning, and he was very careful to keep himself
straight, both because he was naturally a good man, and for fear of
the air-demons.

Some time before the occurrence about to be related, one of Fergus's
children, a sweet little girl about seven years of age, fell ill and
died. The little thing gradually wasted away, but suffered no pain;
and as she grew weaker she became more loving and gentle than ever,
and talked in a wonderful way, quite beyond her years, of the bright
land she was going to. One thing she was particularly anxious about,
that when she was dying they should let her hold a blessed candle in
her hand. They thought it very strange that she should be so
continually thinking and talking of this; and over and over again she
made her father and mother promise that it should be done. And with
the blessed candle in her hand she died so calmly and sweetly that
those round her bed could not tell the exact moment.

About a year after this, on a bright Sunday morning in October, Fergus
set out for Mass. The place was about three miles away, and it was not
a chapel,[6] but a lonely old fort, called to this day Lissanaffrin,
the fort of the Mass. A rude stone altar stood at one side near the
mound of the fort, under a little shed that sheltered the priest also;
and the congregation worshipped in the open air on the green plot in
the centre. For in those days there were many places that had no
chapels; and the people