"At last the Pope gave his permission, and Patrick set out for Ireland, landing on the north coast, in what is now County Down. Dicho, the chief of the district, thought that Patrick and his companions were pirates, and went to meet them and drive them out of the country; but when he saw their calm and peaceful ways he saluted them and invited them to his castle. "Here Patrick told the chief his story and explained his belief in God, and Dicho and his whole family became Christians and were baptized." "He was a wonderful preacher," repeated Grandmother Barry, with a nod of her head. "Father Burke says that no missionary, since the time of the apostles, ever preached the gospel with more success than St. Patrick," said Danny. "That was because he cared nothing for riches and honor," said the peddler. "He loved the people of Ireland and longed to make them all good Christians. "After living with Dicho for some time and converting all the people roundabout, he bade good-bye to his friends and sailed down to the mouth of the river Boyne. From there he walked to the Hill of Tara, where the high-king of all Ireland lived in a great palace. "He arrived at the palace on Easter morning, and presented himself before the king and his court. Patrick was robed in white, as were also his companions, and he wore his mitre and carried his crosier in his hand. He converted many of the king's followers, and preached to the people throughout all the king's dominions. "'Twas so all over Ireland,—wherever Patrick went he turned pagans to Christians and built churches. "He died in the very place where he first preached to Dicho, on the seventeenth day of March, about the year 465." "Is that why we call the seventeenth of March St. Patrick's Day?" asked Mary Ellen. "Yes," replied her father, "it is the day that he died. We don't rightly know just what day he was born." "How do you know so many things about St. Patrick, then, if he lived so many hundred years ago?" asked Kathleen. "The old books tell us," her father said. "Patrick, himself, wrote about his wanderings, and the monks copied these books and many others, painting pictures on the pages to illustrate them. It is from these ancient Gaelic books that we learn much about the life and customs of the people." "There were books of laws for the kings and the people, too," said the peddler. "Did the kings have to obey laws?" asked Kathleen, who supposed kings did just as they chose. "That they did," replied the peddler. "There was a law that no man could rule at Tara who was not perfect in his looks; so when Cormac mac Art lost an eye he had to give up being king." "'Twas a shame, too, for he was a good king," said the father. "It was also against the law for the sun to rise while the king was lying in bed at Tara," said the peddler. The children laughed merrily, and Danny asked, "How could they keep the sun from rising till the king was out of his bed?"