Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/208

194 life, and my grandfather, and I don't know how many fathers before them."

"I am inclined to think that you have decided wisely, Dermot," said the priest.

A week later there was great noise in the little town. The King's soldiers came, with the Captain at their head, all on horseback, each man wearing a silken cloak, each man's sword hanging down by the flank of his horse, and a fine long spear standing up high in his hand, while the men and women and children of the town crowded and crushed each other, striving to get a view of them.

Sive was with them, and Cormac, driven in a fine coach, with a pair of the King's horses drawing the coach. Sive wore a red cloak, redder far, and finer, than the cloak she had on, that day of the fair. I suppose she had packed up the black cloak that she was wearing the morning that Poll saw her going away. She had a golden chain on her neck, and it was as thick and as heavy, you would think, as the ridge-band of a cart. There were big gold rings on her fingers and buckles of gold on her shoes. It was not a hood that was on the cloak, but a cape; and all round the edge of the cape, and falling down her shoulders, there was a fringe of golden drops, each drop an inch and a half