ed. The
word spread through the kingdom of the mice, carried by the quickest
messenger with the shortest tail. All the mice became enemies of Croadh.
And there were many mice in Bangor in those days.

That very night when every one was asleep, out of every hole and corner
came peeping little pointed noses and quivering whiskers. And a great
procession of long-tailed tiny things formed into line and crept along,
and along, up the hill, and up the walls, and into the barns of Croadh.
A legion of mice, thousands upon thousands of them in a gray-uniformed
army, pounced upon the Prince's precious grain and ate up every kernel.

So the next morning when Croadh went to his barns he found them empty.
There was not so much as a single yellow dot of grain left anywhere. But
out of every crack and crevice peeped a pair of twinkling black eyes
which watched him saucily. Then Croadh began to bellow and roar with
anger, and the wicked old woman Luch, his mother, came hobbling in to
see what was the matter. But when the mice saw her they gave a chorus of
fierce squeaks as if crying "Mouse! Mouse! Mouse!"

Then Croadh remembered what Comgall had said, that the mouse should have
his grain after all. And he guessed what the Saint had meant, and knew
that Comgall had taken this way to punish a selfish and cruel man.

THE WONDERS OF SAINT BERACH

THE life of Saint Berach was full of wonders from the very first. For
when he was a boy at home in the house of his father, Nemnald, he had a
vision. An angel appeared to him and beckoned him to follow. So he went,
and the angel led him straight to the monastery at Glendalough where
holy Saint Coemgen lived with his friend the white doe, and taught
boys to be wise. And Berach joined the other boys to be taught all that
Saint Coemgen knew, and to learn other things beside.

Ireland was a wild country in those days, for this was only six hundred
years after Christ's birth and the little towns had hardly begun to
grow. The huts which men had made in the wilderness--calling them houses
and schools and churches--were not close together but far, far apart.
Wild beasts prowled everywhere, and there were no policemen.

Close by the monastery were the broad green meadows where the monks
pastured the herds of cows which gave them milk. From the windows of his
cell the young monk loved to watch the cows and their calves browsing
the juicy grass and wading in the brooks which ran under the rows