“It was here that the old O’Donnell chiefs were inaugurated,” O’Neill said. “They were the rulers of Tyrconnell, which is now north-west Ulster: the old name is still used in a good deal of Irish poetry. All the clan used to gather when a new leader was to be installed, the people clustering down in the plain below, and the chieftain and his principal men up here on the Rock. It must have been worth seeing.” Jim drew a long breath. “I should just think so,” he said, “Tell us more, O’Neill: I want to reconstruct it. This old Rock must have looked just the same as it does to-day. It’s something to have seen even that!” “Just the same,” said Sir John, his eyes kindling at the boy’s enthusiasm. “The Inauguration Stone may have been in better preservation, but a few dozen centuries can’t do much to the Rock. Well—you can picture the people down below, thousands of them. All the country would be a great unfenced plain—no banks and hedges such as you see to-day, and very likely no roads worth calling roads. There would be forests, most probably, and, in them, animals that became extinct long ago, like the wild boar and wolf. The ground below would be a great camp—every one making merry and dressed in their best.” “I should think that even in those days it wouldn’t take much to make an Irish crowd merry,” Wally said. “They would have plenty of entertainment: jugglers, fortune-tellers, buffoons in painted masks, and champions, showing feats with weapons and strength—probably ‘spoiling for a fight.’ Music there would be in abundance: pipes, tube-players, harps, and bands of chorus-singers. There would be any amount of fun in the crowd. But, of course, the Rock would be the centre of everyone’s thoughts.” “It’s all coming quite distinctly,” said Norah, who was sitting on the grass, gazing out over the plain. “If you look hard you can see them all, in saffron kilts and flowing cloaks like you told us, Sir John. Now tell us who is up here on the Rock.” “The new chief is where Wally is, sitting on the great stone,” said O’Neill, smiling at her. “Do you want to know what he’s wearing?” “Oh, please!”