Page:Heroes of the dawn.djvu/217

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COMING OF THE CARLE
179

ing them as they crawled in and out of the hooded flowers, and observed how their little legs were heavy with balls of the golden honey-dust. Then he picked a huge heap of blackberries, warm with the sun, and sat down on a grassy bank to eat them. He was still eating when Cael came along and said to him:

"That mud-covered coat of yours is tailless now, Carle. Twenty or thirty miles back I noticed one piece tangled in a bush, and some miles beyond that again I saw another piece hanging from an oak-branch."

"Is it my coat-tails gone?" the Carle inquired, jumping up and examining his coat. "Now surely I must go back to find them; it would not be decent for me to enter Fionn's presence with only half a coat on. The proper and just thing for you to do in this case will be to wait here for me until I return with them. You will still find a few blackberries left, I believe."

"You must think me very foolish indeed if you imagine I will do anything of the kind," Cael replied, with the utmost scorn. "Let me tell you, Carle, that it wasn't in the last