crouching in the fronds
was visible to him, and the fish that swayed in-visibly in the sway and
flicker of a green bank. He would see all that was to be seen, and he
would see all that is passed by the eye that is half blind from use and
wont.

At Moy Life' he came on lads swimming in a pool; and, as he looked
on them sporting in the flush tide, he thought that the tricks they
performed were not hard for him, and that he could have shown them new
ones.

Boys must know what another boy can do, and they will match themselves
against everything. They did their best under these observing eyes, and
it was not long until he was invited to compete with them and show his
mettle. Such an invitation is a challenge; it is almost, among boys, a
declaration of war. But Fionn was so far beyond them in swimming that
even the word master did not apply to that superiority.

While he was swimming one remarked: "He is fair and well shaped," and
thereafter he was called "Fionn" or the Fair One. His name came from
boys, and will, perhaps, be preserved by them.

He stayed with these lads for some time, and it may be that they
idolised him at first, for it is the way with boys to be astounded and
enraptured by feats; but in the end, and that was inevitable, they grew
jealous of the stranger. Those who had been the champions before he came
would marshal each other, and, by social pressure, would muster all the
others against him; so that in the end not a friendly eye was turned on
Fionn in that assembly. For not only did he beat them at swimming, he
beat their best at running and jumping, and when the sport degenerated
into violence, as it was bound to, the roughness of Fionn would be ten
times as rough as the roughness of the roughest rough they could put
forward. Bravery is pride when one is young, and Fionn was proud.

There must have been anger in his mind as he went away leaving that lake
behind him, and those snarling and scowling boys, but there would have
been disappointment also, for his desire at this time should have been
towards friendliness.

He went thence to Lock Le'in and took service with the King of
Finntraigh. That kingdom may have been thus called from Fionn himself
and would have been known by another name when he arrived there.

He hunted for the King of Finntraigh, and it soon grew evident that
there was no hunter in his service to equal Fionn. More, there was no
hunter of them all who even distantly approached