Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/115

 and even to the smallest of the children, clinging at their mothers' skirts. And the spade-men and the horse-boys drove forward the herds and led the horses not bearing riders, and on these were fastened all the chattels and light possessions of Dunbeekin. In the centre of the armed men walked the priests, and before them proceeded eight servants, bearing upon sticks the pall of the Bishop; and all could see him lying there, under a seemly cover of black cloth, with the casket of the holy relic rising sharp-cornered above his breast.

There was no heat in the air, and they moved on over the wasted country at a good speed. As twilight gathered, they passed from the defiles of the hills into greener vales, where the streams ran eastward, and no marks of ruin met the eye. Here the beasts fed upon the harvest grass, while a heifer was slain and seethed for human eating; and here the fighting men looked a last time to their blades and spear-heads and their yew bows. Darkness fell, and they went forward again, with Goran the Quick-Eyed in front of all, calling the way, and the keening of the weary elder women rising no higher than the moan of the sea-wind they had left behind for ever.

In the night, further inland, lights began to gleam upon their course, as if on beacon hills beyond. Then a small flame, borne swiftly, crossed the path nearer at hand. The pale overcast moonlight made visible only the dim rolling shape of the slope down which they were making their way.

Goron ran back, and then, after hasty whispers of counsel, went forth again into the darkness, with his hand on Turlogh's bridle rein. They were well in advance of their train when the light they had seen and then lost flashed again suddenly in their very faces; and they, halting, beheld crowded black shadows of men straight in their path. "What