long; who but his wife called the hounds, and set
them on him. The hare fled, the dogs followed. Round the field ran a
high wall, so that run as he might, he couldn't get out, and mightily
diverted were beggar and lady to see him twist and double.

In vain did he take refuge with his wife, she kicked him back again to
the hounds, until at length the beggar stopped the hounds, and with a
stroke of the wand, panting and breathless, the story-teller stood
before them again.

"And how did you like the sport?" said the beggar.

"It might be sport to others," replied the story-teller looking at his
wife, "for my part I could well put up with the loss of it."

"Would it be asking too much," he went on to the beggar, "to know who
you are at all, or where you come from, or why you take a pleasure in
plaguing a poor old man like me?"

"Oh!" replied the stranger, "I'm an odd kind of good-for-little fellow,
one day poor, another day rich, but if you wish to know more about me
or my habits, come with me and perhaps I may show you more than you
would make out if you went alone."

"I'm not my own master to go or stay," said the story-teller, with a
sigh.

The stranger put one hand into his wallet and drew out of it before
their eyes a well-looking middle-aged man, to whom he spoke as follows:

"By all you heard and saw since I put you into my wallet, take charge
of this lady and of the carriage and horses, and have them ready for me
whenever I want them."

Scarcely had he said these words when all vanished, and the
story-teller found himself at the Foxes' Ford, near the castle of Red
Hugh O'Donnell. He could see all but none could see him.

O'Donnell was in his hall, and heaviness of flesh and weariness of
spirit were upon him.

"Go out," said he to his doorkeeper, "and see who or what may be
coming."

The doorkeeper went, and what he saw was a lank, grey beggarman; half
his sword bared behind his haunch, his two shoes full of cold
road-a-wayish water sousing about him, the tips of his two ears out
through his old hat, his two shoulders out through his scant tattered
cloak, and in his hand a green wand of holly.

"Save you, O'Donnell," said the lank grey beggarman.

"And you likewise," said O'Donnell. "Whence come you, and what is your
craft?"

"I come from the outmost stream of earth,
From the glens where the white swans glide,
A night in Islay, a night in Man,
A night on the cold hillside."

"It's the