g the world
itself by the nose, to haul it over tussocks and drag it into his
pen; for he was of the breed in whom mastery is born, and who are good
masters.

But reports of his prowess were getting abroad. Clann-Morna began to
stretch itself uneasily, and, one day, his guardians sent him on his
travels.

"It is best for you to leave us now," they said to the tall stripling,
"for the sons of Morna are watching again to kill you."

The woods at that may have seemed haunted. A stone might sling at one
from a tree-top; but from which tree of a thousand trees did it come? An
arrow buzzing by one's ear would slide into the ground and quiver there
silently, menacingly, hinting of the brothers it had left in the quiver
behind; to the right? to the left? how many brothers? in how many
quivers...? Fionn was a woodsman, but he had only two eyes to look with,
one set of feet to carry him in one sole direction. But when he was
looking to the front what, or how many whats, could be staring at him
from the back? He might face in this direction, away from, or towards a
smile on a hidden face and a finger on a string. A lance might slide at
him from this bush or from the one yonder.. In the night he might have
fought them; his ears against theirs; his noiseless feet against their
lurking ones; his knowledge of the wood against their legion: but during
the day he had no chance.

Fionn went to seek his fortune, to match himself against all that might
happen, and to carve a name for himself that will live while Time has an
ear and knows an Irishman.

CHAPTER VIII

Fionn went away, and now he was alone. But he was as fitted for
loneliness as the crane is that haunts the solitudes and bleak wastes
of the sea; for the man with a thought has a comrade, and Fionn's mind
worked as featly as his body did. To be alone was no trouble to him who,
however surrounded, was to be lonely his life long; for this will be
said of Fionn when all is said, that all that came to him went from him,
and that happiness was never his companion for more than a moment.

But he was not now looking for loneliness. He was seeking the
instruction of a crowd, and therefore when he met a crowd he went into
it. His eyes were skilled to observe in the moving dusk and dapple of
green woods. They were trained to pick out of shadows birds that were
themselves dun-coloured shades, and to see among trees the animals that
are coloured like the bark of trees. The hare