CHAPTER XI.
HOW EUSTACE LEIGH MET THE POPE'S LEGATE "Misguided, rash, intruding fool, farewell! Thou see'st to be too busy is some danger." Hamlet.
It is the spring of 1582-3.

The gray March skies are curdling hard and high above black mountain peaks.

The keen March wind is sweeping harsh and dry across a dreary sheet of bog, still red and yellow with the stains of winter frost.

One brown knoll alone breaks the waste, and on it a few leafless wind-clipt oaks stretch their moss-grown arms, like giant hairy spiders, above a desolate pool which crisps and shivers in the biting breeze, while from beside its brink rises a mournful cry, and sweeps down, faint and fitful, amid the howling of the wind.
Along the brink of the bog, picking their road among crumbling rocks and green spongy springs, a company of English soldiers are pushing fast, clad cap-a-pie in helmet and quilted jerkin, with arquebus on shoulder, and pikes trailing behind them; stern steadfast men, who, two years since, were working the guns at Smerwick fort, and have since then seen many a bloody fray, and shall see more before they die.

Two captains ride before them on shaggy ponies, the taller in armor, stained and rusted with many a storm and fray, the other in brilliant inlaid cuirass and helmet, gaudy sash and plume, and sword hilt glittering with gold, a quaint contrast enough to the meager garron which carries him and his finery.