you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision.
Fionn's mind learned to jump in a bumpier field than that in which he
had chased rabbits. And when he had asked his question, and given his
own answer to it, Finegas would take the matter up and make clear to him
where the query was badly formed or at what point the answer had begun
to go astray, so that Fionn came to understand by what successions a
good question grows at last to a good answer.

One day, not long after the conversation told of, Finegas came to the
place where Fionn was. The poet had a shallow osier basket on his arm,
and on his face there was a look that was at once triumphant and gloomy.
He was excited certainly, but he was sad also, and as he stood gazing on
Fionn his eyes were so kind that the boy was touched, and they were yet
so melancholy that it almost made Fionn weep. "What is it, my master?"
said the alarmed boy.

The poet placed his osier basket on the grass.

"Look in the basket, dear son," he said. Fionn looked.

"There is a salmon in the basket."

"It is The Salmon," said Finegas with a great sigh. Fionn leaped for
delight.

"I am glad for you, master," he cried. "Indeed I am glad for you."

"And I am glad, my dear soul," the master rejoined.

But, having said it, he bent his brow to his hand and for a long time he
was silent and gathered into himself.

"What should be done now?" Fionn demanded, as he stared on the beautiful
fish.

Finegas rose from where he sat by the osier basket.

"I will be back in a short time," he said heavily. "While I am away you
may roast the salmon, so that it will be ready against my return."

"I will roast it indeed," said Fionn.

The poet gazed long and earnestly on him.

"You will not eat any of my salmon while I am away?" he asked.

"I will not eat the littlest piece," said Fionn.

"I am sure you will not," the other murmured, as he turned and walked
slowly across the grass and behind the sheltering bushes on the ridge.

Fionn cooked the salmon. It was beautiful and tempting and savoury as
it smoked on a wooden platter among cool green leaves; and it looked all
these to Finegas when he came from behind the fringing bushes and sat
in the grass outside his door. He gazed on the fish with more than his
eyes. He looked on it with his heart, with his soul in his eyes, and
when he turned to look on Fionn the boy did not know whether the love
that was in his eyes was for the