"You'll not touch it till it's ready," replied Captain Conn. "Run away, every one of you, and stay until I call you." "Come to the tower," called Columba, and all the children followed him as he clambered through one of the windows and climbed the ancient stone steps that led to the top of the square tower. As they looked out over the beautiful, smiling country, with its green fields and peaceful river, Kathleen drew a long breath. "It makes me think of Donegal, it's so different," she said. "Up there it is cold and bleak and bare, and down here it is all so quiet and happy." "It wasn't always quiet and happy here," said Deena. "This old Abbey has seen days of fighting and bloodshed." "Tell us about it," said Hannah, who liked stories of battles. "Yes, do," added Anna, who tried to like them. "Well, you see," began Deena, "this old ruin was once a magnificent church. It was built over seven hundred years ago, at the time when the English lords came over to live in Ireland and set the fashion of building grand churches and monasteries all over the country. This was one of the finest of them all, and would be to this day, perhaps, but for Cromwell's army." "Yes, go on," said Hannah, as Deena stopped to look off toward the distant hills. "Was it a big battle?" "It was no battle at all," replied her brother. "When Cromwell's army came marching through the country the monks shut themselves up in this tower; but the soldiers went by without even stopping to look for them." "What made the ruins, then?" asked Columba. "I thought you said it was Cromwell's army." "So it was," replied Deena; "for when they had gone only two miles away the monks climbed up here to the top of the tower and rang the bells for joy. The soldiers heard the bells, and were so angry that they came back and destroyed the monastery and the Abbey." "Did they kill the monks?" asked Hannah. "I don't know, but I suppose they did," replied her brother. "They destroyed many fine buildings and did many cruel deeds here in Ireland." "They didn't destroy the Round Tower in Kilkenny," said Columba. "Those round towers must have been good hiding-places for the monks." "That they were," replied Deena. "The old stones would tell many wonderful tales if they could speak." "Are there many round towers in Ireland?" asked Kathleen. "There are eighty still standing," Deena told her, "and twenty of them are perfect; but the others are more or less in ruins." "What were they like?" asked little Tommy Butler. "I never saw one of them." "They were round, stone towers, from sixty to one hundred and fifty feet tall," Deena replied. "Some of the tallest had six or seven stories, each story lighted by one window, and at the top there were four windows, facing north, south, east and west. There was only one small door, ten feet or more from the ground, which was reached by a ladder, and there were ladders inside to climb from one floor to the next."