flocked to these open-air Masses as
faithfully as we do now to our stately comfortable chapels. The family
had gone on before, the men walking and the women and children riding;
and Fergus set out to walk alone.

[Footnote 6: A fort is the same as a rath (see p. 70); a few are
fenced in with unmortared stone walls instead of clay ditches.]

Just as he approached the Demons' Rock he was greatly surprised to
hear the eager yelping of dogs, and in a moment a great deer bounded
from the covert beside the rock, with three hounds after her in full
chase. No man in the whole country round loved a good chase better
than Fergus, or had a swifter foot to follow, and without a moment's
hesitation he started in pursuit. But in a few minutes he stopped up
short; for he bethought him of the Mass, and he knew there was little
time for delay. While he stood wavering, the deer seemed to slacken
her pace, and the hounds gained on her, and in a moment Fergus dashed
off at full speed, forgetting Mass and everything else in his
eagerness for the sport. But it turned out a long and weary chase.
Sometimes they slackened, and he was almost at the hounds' tails, but
the next moment both deer and hounds started forward and left him far
behind. Sometimes they were in full view, and again they were out of
sight in thickets and deep glens, so that he could guide himself only
by the cry of the hounds. In this way he was decoyed across hills and
glens, but instead of gaining ground he found himself rather falling
behind.

Mass was all over and the people dispersed to their homes, and all
wondered that they did not see Fergus; for no one could remember that
he was ever absent before. His wife returned, expecting to find him at
home; but when she arrived there was trouble in her heart, for there
were no tidings of him, and no one had seen him since he had set out
for Mass in the morning.

Meantime Fergus followed up the chase till he was wearied out; and at
last, just on the edge of a wild moor, both deer and hounds
disappeared behind a shoulder of rock, and he lost them altogether. At
the same moment the cry of the hounds became changed to frightful
shrieks and laughter, such as he had heard more than once from the
Demons' Rock. And now, sitting down on a bank to rest, he had full
time to reflect on what he had done, and he was overwhelmed with
remorse and shame. Moreover, his heart sank within him, thinking of
the last sounds he had heard; for