In the marchland that now stretched before them lay a large village of wicker cabins. Through these buildings and their accompanying midden-heaps, they threaded their way till they reached the dun of the chieftain--King Aedh; a collection of cabins surrounded by a double wall with a ditch between the two walls. These cabins, although considerably larger, were built after the same pattern as the other bee-hive shaped dwellings of the village--by interweaving wattles on either side of a clay wall and thatching the conical roofs with rushes. A rude church in the group had hewn oak mingled with the wattled walls. Just upon the rampart--to escape the shadow thrown by other buildings, the sun-chamber or Grianan of the chieftain’s wife, was always placed; formed of white wattles--often polished and sweet scented. CHAPTER X. BARDS OF HIBERNIA. Cormac wished to present himself to King Aedh at once; but this he found impossible as the great chieftain lay sleeping in his hall; wearied out with a skirmish of the previous day upon a neighbouring king who had refused to pay him tribute. The whole of Ireland was in a state of ferment over the boroim, or cow-tribute, which King Aedh insisted on exacting from his tributary kings. Cormac knew that in Leinster Saint Kevin had inveighed against it, and that the great Saint, Columba, was at present on a visit to Aedh endeavouring to arrange matters peaceably between him and his fellow-kings. And Cormac knew also, with a sense of pride, that Columba had another matter at heart--the welfare of the bards. It pleased the youth to think that the great man was so deeply interested in the men whom he hoped to make his followers. King Aedh had proposed to banish them, looking upon them as a set of swaggering idlers; but Columba was doing his utmost to prevent such a sentence being carried out. As Cormac looked about him he saw he was in time to take part in the convocation which Columba had assembled in Druimceta to discuss these troublesome matters--for all around the country was littered with tents and hastily built wattled huts; the grass was bruised and broken by the feet of many herds, and scorched and charred by camp-fires lately quenched by the rain. In the distance he could hear the shout and din of a multitude. With the greatest difficulty he found a shelter for the night for himself and his followers. He and his foster-sister were forced to enter an over-crowded house. There was scarcely room to move; the air was foul; the wattled walls black with smoke and filth, in place of being polished and sweet-smelling; on the stale straw beneath the hounds were eating the refuse of past days.