e Cuglas,[7] master of the hounds to the
high King of Erin, set out from Tara to the chase. As he was leaving
the palace the light mists were drifting away from the hill-tops, and
the rays of the morning sun were falling aslant on the _grinan_ or
sunny bower of the Princess Ailinn. Glancing towards it the prince
doffed his plumed and jewelled hunting-cap, and the princess answered
his salute by a wave of her little hand, that was as white as a wild
rose in the hedges in June, and leaning from her bower, she watched
the huntsman until his tossing plumes were hidden by the green waving
branches of the woods.

The Princess Ailinn was over head and ears in love with Cuglas, and
Cuglas was over head and ears in love with the Princess Ailinn, and he
believed that never was summer morning half as bright, or as sweet, or
as fair as she. The glimpse which he had just caught of her filled his
heart with delight, and almost put all thought of hunting out of his
head, when suddenly the tuneful cries of the hounds, answered by a
hundred echoes from the groves, broke upon his ear.

The dogs had started a dappled deer that bounded away through the
forest. The prince, spurring his gallant steed, pushed on in eager
pursuit.

On through the forest sped the deer, through soft, green, secret ways
and flowery dells, then out from the forest, up heathery hills, and
over long stretches of moorland, and across brown rushing streams,
sometimes in view of the hounds, sometimes lost to sight, but always
ahead of them.

All day long the chase continued, and at last, when the sun was
sinking, the dogs were close upon the panting deer, and the prince
believed he was about to secure his game, when the deer suddenly
disappeared through the mouth of a cave which opened before him. The
dogs followed at his heels, and the prince endeavoured to rein in his
steed, but the impetuous animal bore him on, and soon was clattering
over the stony floor of the cave in perfect darkness. Cuglas could
hear ahead of him the cries of the hounds growing fainter and fainter,
as they increased the distance between them and him. Then the cries
ceased altogether, and the only sound the prince heard was the noise
of his horse's hoofs sounding in the hollow cave. Once more he
endeavoured to check his career, but the reins broke in his hands, and
in that instant the prince felt the horse had taken a plunge into a
gulf, and was sinking down and down, as a stone cast from t