Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/12

 'We have not yet finished this game,' said the boy.

'But I cannot wait,' said Conachoor.

'Do not think of waiting,' replied the boy, 'I will follow.'

When they reached the smithy Setanta had not caught them up and Conachoor forgot him. They had begun to feast when the smith said:

'Before I forget, O King is all your company here, or are you expecting some one else?'

'No!' said the king, 'we are all here. Why do you ask?'

'Only because my watch-dog is fierce and unaccustomed to men except the taste of the flesh of night prowlers. I will now take his chain off and let him range for the night.'

Culann, therefore, took off the chain. The hound ran a little way, made a circle round the house and returned and settled down before the entrance, with his head upon his paws and his eyes half asleep and his ears awake. The feasters were safe behind such a hound; they ate and drank as if they were in the palace and not at the crossways where the palace was a traveller's tale.

Setanta was making all speed on the king's track, cheering and hastening his journey by driving a ball before him. At sight of the boy Culann's hound gave a bark and ran towards him, thinking only of the dainty meal and already with his mouth open. But Setanta sent the ball for him to eat first. He drove it into his mouth with such force that it spoiled the hound's appetite and made him wish to get rid of even the little that he had tasted. While he was thus troubled, Setanta seized him by the hind legs and solved his difficulty by swinging him against a rock two or three times as a thrush swings a snail.