When they had sat there awhile one of Finn’s men came running quickly towards him and said—­

“A stranger is approaching us from the westward, O Finn, and I much mislike his aspect.”

With that all the Fians looked up and beheld upon the hillside a huge man, looking like some Fomorian marauder, black-visaged and ugly, with a sour countenance and ungainly limbs.  On his back hung a dingy black shield, on his misshapen left thigh he wore a sharp broad-bladed sword; projecting over his shoulder were two long lances with broad rusty heads.  He wore garments that looked as if they had been buried in a cinder heap, and a loose ragged mantle.  Behind him there shambled a sulky, ill-shapen mare with a bony carcase and bowed knees, and on her neck a clumsy iron halter.  With a rope her master hauled her along, with violent jerks that seemed as if they would wrench her head from her scraggy neck, and ever and anon the mare would stand and jib, when the man laid on her ribs such blows from a strong ironshod cudgel that they sounded like the surges of the sea beating on a rocky coast.  Short as was the distance from where the man and his horse were first perceived to where Finn was standing, it was long ere they traversed it.  At last, however, he came into the presence of Finn and louted before him, doing obeisance.  Finn lifted his hand over him and bade him speak, and declare his business and his name and rank.  “I know not,” said the fellow, “of what blood I am, gentle or simple, but only this, that I am a wight from oversea looking for service and wages.  And as I have heard of thee, O Finn, that thou art not wont to refuse any man, I came to take service with thee if thou wilt have me.”

“Neither shall I refuse thee,” said Finn; “but what brings thee here with a horse and no horseboy?”

“Good enough reason,” said the stranger.  “I have much ado to get meat for my own belly, seeing that I eat for a hundred men; and I will not have any horseboy meddling with my ration.”

“And what name dost thou bear?”

“I am called the Gilla Dacar (the Hard Gillie),” replied he.

“Why was that name given thee?” asked Finn.

“Good enough reason for that also,” spake the stranger, “for of all the lads in the world there is none harder than I am for a lord to get any service and obedience from.”  Then turning to Conan the Bald he said, “Whether among the Fianna is a horseman’s pay or a footman’s the highest?”

“A horseman’s surely,” said Conan, “seeing that he gets twice the pay of a footman.”

“Then I am a horseman in thy service, Finn,” said the gillie.  “I call thee to observe that I have here a horse, and moreover that as a horseman I came among the Fianna.  Have I thy authority,” he went on, “to turn out my steed among thine?”

“Turn her out,” quoth Finn.

Then the big man flung his mare the rope and immediately she galloped off to where the Fian horses were grazing.  Here she fell to biting and kicking them, knocking out the eye of one and snapping off another’s ear and breaking the leg of another with a kick.