AN EVENING AT BELLEEK. 37 



livelihood. Could flesh and blood stand 

 that ? Work for his livelihood ! when the 

 saint had already baptized more heathens 

 than the sinner had hairs on his head ; and 

 St. Columba an Irish saint, too ! It would 

 have been quite consistent with his country 

 had he upped with his pilgrim-staff, and 

 broken the man's heretical head ; but St. 

 Columba thought that this would be unca- 

 nonical. He was always a stickler for church 

 discipline, so he pulled out his book and 

 cursed him heartily instead : he cursed him 

 by hanging and drowning, he cursed him by 

 fire and water, and (which was somewhat su- 

 perfluous) he cursed the throw for his sake ; 

 and having thus given him a cast of his cle- 

 rical office, he passed on in holy meditation. 

 " The next man who came down that rocky 

 path saw a terrible sight. The uncharitable 

 fisherman, who had hooked his fly in a tree 

 above his head, had climbed up to free it, 

 and his foot slipping, his neckhandkerchief 

 had performed the office of a hempen cravat ; 

 while, the fire he had lighted to broil his fish, 

 having consumed the foot of the tree, the 

 whole had bent forward into the stream, 

 leaving the dead body bobbing up and down 



