out of marsh clay from the pool of Haranton.

This figure he was continually reshaping and realtering. The figure
stood upon the margin of the pool; and near by were two stones overgrown
with moss, and supporting a cross of old worm-eaten wood, which
commemorated what had been done there.

One day, toward autumn, as Manuel was sitting in this place, and looking
into the deep still water, a stranger came, and he wore a fierce long
sword that interfered deplorably with his walking.

"Now I wonder what it is you find in that dark pool to keep you staring
so?" the stranger asked, first of all.

"I do not very certainly know," replied Manuel "but mistily I seem to
see drowned there the loves and the desires and the adventures I had
when I wore another body than this. For the water of Haranton, I must
tell you, is not like the water of other fountains, and curious dreams
engender in this pool."

"I speak no ill against oneirologya, although broad noon is hardly the
best time for its practise," declared the snub-nosed stranger. "But what
is that thing?" he asked, pointing.

"It is the figure of a man, which I have modeled and re-modeled, sir,
but cannot seem to get exactly to my liking. So it is necessary that I
keep laboring at it until the figure is to my thinking and my desire."

"But, Manuel, what need is there for you to model it at all?"

"Because my mother, sir, was always very anxious for me to make a figure
in the world, and when she lay a-dying I promised her that I would do
so, and then she put a geas upon me to do it."

"Ah, to be sure! but are you certain it was this kind of figure she
meant?"

"Yes, for I have often heard her say that, when I grew up, she wanted me
to make myself a splendid and admirable young man in every respect. So
it is necessary that I make the figure of a young man, for my mother was
not of these parts, but a woman of Ath Cliath, and so she put a geas
upon me--"

"Yes, yes, you had mentioned this geas, and I am wondering what sort of
a something is this geas."

"It is what you might call a bond or an obligation, sir, only it is of
the particularly strong and unreasonable and affirmative and secret sort
which the Virbolg use."

The stranger now looked from the figure to Manuel, and the stranger
deliberated the question (which later was to puzzle so many people) if
any human being could be as simple as Manuel appeared. Manuel at twenty
was not yet the burly giant he became. Bu