rs, running on errants, driving carts, doing such odd jobs as
came his way, and all because he wanted to gaze upon the daughter of the
Keeper of the Key. In the evening he would go by the mansion singing
out, "How up! how up! how up!" as if he were driving flocks past. And in
the window he would see the wave of a white hand. He would go home,
then, to his little back room in the lodging-house, and there stay up
very late at night, writing, in the candle-light, verses to the damsel.
One Song of the Shepherd Boy to his Lady has survived:

_Farewell to the sweet reed I tuned on the hill,
My grief for the rough slopes of Sunnach so still,
The wind in the fir tree and bleat of the ewe
Are lost in the wild cry my heart makes for you.
The brown floors I danced on, the sheds where I lay,
Are gone from my mind like a wing in the bay:
Dear lady, I'd herd the wild swans in the skies
If they knew of lake water as blue as your eyes!_

Well, it was not very long, as you can imagine, until the Keeper of the
Key observed the shepherd boy loitering about the mansion. When he heard
him calling past the house to imaginary flocks a scowl came upon his
face. "Ah-ha!" he said, "another conspiracy! Last time it was a
hunchback tailor. This time they come from the country. They signal by
the cries of shepherds. Well, I shall do the driving for them!" There
and then he had the shepherd boy apprehended, bound, and put in a cell.
In due course he was accused and sentenced, like the famous goldsmiths,
to banishment from Eirinn. When the daughter of the Keeper heard what
had come to pass she was filled with grief. She appeared before her
father for the first time with tears in her eyes and woe in her face. He
was greatly moved, and seated the girl by his side. She knelt by his
knee and confessed to the whole affair with the shepherd boy. The Keeper
of the Key was a little relieved to learn that his suspicions of a fresh
conspiracy were unfounded, but filled with indignation that such a
person as a shepherd should not alone aspire to but win the heart of his
daughter. "What have we come to," he said, "when a wild thing from the
hills of Sunnach comes down and dares to lay his hand on the all but
perfect water nymphs on the golden knob of my door! Justice shall be
done. The order of banishment is set aside. Let this wild hare of the
hills, this mountain rover, be taken and seven times publicly dipped in
the well. I guarantee that wi