Page:Irish Fairy Tales (Stephens).djvu/235

CHAP. II "All alone, Fionn!" he cried. "How does it happen that not one Fenian of the Fianna is at the side of his captain?"

At this inquiry Fionn got back his wits.

"That is too long a story and it is too intricate and pressing to be told, also I have no time to spare now."

"Yet tell it now," the monstrous man insisted.

Fionn, thus pressed, told of the coming of Cael of the Iron, of the challenge the latter had issued, and that he, Fionn, was off to Tara of the Kings to find Caelte mac Ronán.

"I know that foreigner well," the big man commented.

"Is he the champion he makes himself out to he?" Fionn inquired.

"He can do twice as much as he said he would do," the monster replied.

"He won't outrun Caelte mac Ronán," Fionn asserted.

The big man jeered.

"Say that he won't outrun a hedgehog, dear heart. This Cael will end the course by the time your Caelte begins to think of starting."

"Then," said Fionn, "I no longer know where to turn, or how to protect the honour of Ireland."

"I know how to do these things," the other man commented with a slow nod of the head.

"If you do," Fionn pleaded, "tell it to me upon your honour."

"I will do that," the man replied.

"Do not look any farther for the rusty-kneed, slow-trotting son of Ronán," he continued, "but ask me to run your race, and, by this hand, I will be first at the post."

At this the Chief began to laugh—