There were two ways to school—one, an old disused road, and the other, the main thoroughfare to the town. If Finn met other children and if it were in the bright months of the year, the company went by the old road. Grass grew along the sides and nearly into the middle of the road and briars threw out long branches, a donkey grazed along it and some geese lifted wings and necks as the children passed. In a hollow tree wild bees had their nest, and the children stopped to watch them going in and out of the hole. The first bird's nest that Finn was ever shown was upon the old road. It was a robin's, and when he looked in Finn saw a brown, bright-eyed creature that hardly seemed a bird at all. High in the trees there were pigeons' and jay-thrushes' nests, and the boys often ventured to climb up to them. They never got so high; nor did they find the nests of the water-hens that swam across the stream.

Going into school the children would be searching their pockets for pieces of slate-pencil, for the first lesson was arithmetic which they worked out on slates. They stood in a half-circle round the black-board and when they had finished a sum they would hold up the slates for the teacher's inspection. After arithmetic Finn sat down to write in a headline copy book; afterwards he read out of a lesson-book, learned his catechism, practiced at arithmetic again and at reading, writing and spelling. The children had recreation for a half hour at twelve o'clock and at three they went home.

When he came from school Finn had many things to do. He had to go several times to the well, bring the goats to a place where they could forage for themselves without doing much damage, search for the donkey or watch the cows while they grazed by the side of the road. He would often go to the village of and play with the children there. His greatest trouble was in going back to the town for tea or sugar, snuff or tobacco. Coming back in the evening he would run all the way, for he had heard much of spirits and ghosts and fairies and he did not like to be far from home when darkness began to come on the empty roads and fields.

He liked to see night falling while he looked over the half-door. The cows came up the laneway mooing to themselves and went into the byre; the goats followed briskly behind the donkey and bit at the tops of the hedges before they took shelter; the hens left off scratching in the yard and one by one went to roost in the byre. Two wild-ducks that had dodged about the yard all day now stole off by themselves; they had been hatched from eggs taken out of a wild-duck's nest, and as they had been reared amongst the tame fowl they did not know themselves as wild, they had a life to themselves and were always furtive, watchful and very cautious. Then there was a guinea-hen that went about the yard looking lonely and depressed and often giving utterance to a long and sad cry. The geese would march back with the goats and the donkey and take shelter near them under the upturned cart.

Sometimes Finn would go into the stable to help unharness the horse when his grandfather and grandmother would come back from the fair. When the evenings were dark he would bring out a candle or a lantern. While he held the light he would observe all the curious things in the stable. The horse stood still while his grandfather, speaking to it now and then, undid the harness or made ready the oats for its meal, the cows lay by the manger and the hens murmured together as they roosted on the beams above.

His grandmother told him that the hens, when they murmured together like that, were telling each other where the Danes had hidden their treasures. It was the Danes, she told him, who had brought the hens to Ireland; they were beaten in battle by King Brian Boru and then they took ship and went back to their own country. But first they hid their treasures—cups of gold, swords with gold hilts, pots filled with golden coins. Every night the hens on the roost spoke of these treasures and if one knew their language one would know where the Danes had hidden them.

At night when Finn sat by the fire with the door closed and the candles burning in the window recesses the things of the house became curious. The big sods of fresh peat sank down into the heart of the fire, and in the deep white ashes round them little threads of flame ran like living things. Crickets chirruped in the ashes and between the hearth-stones and in holes up the wide chimney, and the light of the fire was on the dresser with its tins and on the big looms. It was at such a time that Finn would listen most attentively to the story told at the fire. Sometimes a stranger who had come to consult his grandfather sat there until all the others had gone to bed. And one such visitor, a woman who had travelled all the way from the County Cavan told Finn this story of the Children of Lir.