Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/102

 'Her four great-grandmothers and four great-grandsires are yet alive and I must take counsel of them.'

They turned to leave him and he threw a second dart. Menw flung it back and it pierced his breast and came out of the small of his back.

'A cursed ungentle son-in-law, truly,' growled Uspathadden. 'This iron bites like a horse-leech. Whenever I go up hill I shall pant and have a pain in my chest, and I shall often loathe my food.'

He was cursing the smith and the anvil as Kilhugh went out to meat.

On the third day he said to them as soon as they entered:

'Shoot not at me unless you desire death. Where are my attendants? Lift up my eyebrows which have fallen over my eyeballs, that I may see the fashion of my son-in-law.' Then they arose, and, as they did so, Uspathadden Penkower took the third poisoned dart and cast it at them. And Kilhugh caught it and threw it vigorously, and wounded him through the eyeball, so that the dart came out at the back of his head.

'A cursed ungentle son-in-law, truly! Now as long as I remain alive, my eyesight will be the worse. Whenever I go against the wind, my eyes will water; and peradventure my head will burn, and I shall have a giddiness every new moon. Cursed be the fire in which it was forged. Like the bite of a mad dog is the stroke of this poisoned iron.'

And they went to meat.

The next day Kilhugh said to Uspathadden:

'Shoot at us no more, unless thou art still starving with hunger for wounds and torment such as thou hast already. Give me thy daughter. If not, thou shalt die for refusing her.'