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said.
    â€œCursed thing!” he cried. “I might have watched. I might have known.”
    The sky was dark now and he could see the bus below, white with a red stripe. The guide was there. The driver had come out. Two of the passengers, too, who would smoke. But it was not a stop for such. The guide, the driver, waved for him to come back.
    There was smoke and fire behind him, from the hill fort, from the house of his father.
    He had sprung from her side, from the softness of her, and the smell, and the dampness of the touching.
    â€œI will tell him his name,” she called after him.
    There had been a great four-legged beast, a horse. He had heard of these things. At the pommel of the saddle, tied there by the hair, he had seen his father’s head.
    For one instant the eyes had looked at him.
    The luck of the house he had seized, and, with others, was seen.
    It was then he, and others, had run.
    â€œCome back,” they called to him, from below, from the highway, leading to the city.
    He could see the men following, descending from the hill fort. He had seen the horseman.
    On the top of he hill, he had put it.
    The men were coming, the horseman, the others on foot.
    They came upon him at the top of the hill. He saw the horse clamber to the top, slipping, the rider lurching in the saddle
    â€œDie, whelp,” he heard, “last of the kin!”
    How he, youngest of the kin of the clan Lachlin, so many, the last?
    The hill fort was aflame.
    â€œWhere is it, where is the luck of Lachlin!” cried the horseman.
    He had turned to flee and had heard the horse, hoofs striking hard in the dirt, behind him.
    Then what he felt seemed no more than a sudden, sharp, cold wind at the back of his neck.
    â€œI will tell him his name,” she had called after him.
    He had not even heard the man dismount, or the others, afoot, coming up, to stand beside him.
    The tour guide, and some others, were following him, slowly, up the hill.
    He fell to his knees in a given place, and, with his bare hands, began to tear at the ground.
    â€œWhat is it?” they asked.
    He tore at the earth.
    â€œCome back to the bus,” said the tour guide.
    His fingers were bleeding.
    Then he touched it, his fingers just touching the pommel, the knob, at the head of the hilt, and then the hilt, the blade wrapped in cloth, muddy, rotted, and torn, and he drew from the earth that great blade, with the long hilt, that blade to be wielded with two hands by a strong man.
    â€œAii, that cloth,” said the guide, seeing the muddy, tattered shreds, “that is the banner of the Lachlins.”
    â€œThe clan Lachlin disappeared more than four hundred years ago,” said the driver.
    â€œThe blade,” said the guide, “surely that is the luck of the Lachlins.”
    â€œHow did you know where to find this?” asked the guide.
    â€œI put it here,” he heard himself say. “But it was long ago.”

The Hairbrush
    (An essay in paleocosmetology)
    One hears a great deal these days about child abuse.
    Indeed, one gathers that frustrating a child, for example, prohibiting him from playing with matches in a haystack, may have serious consequences later on, as his maturation may have been jeopardized. On the other hand, a parent’s concern, or, at least, the possible concern of many parents, with the welfare of his offspring, may militate against permitting him to frolic unattended in the midst of flammable substances. The problem then is how to permit the child to grow, to enjoy, and profit from, a remarkable learning experience, to proceed to express himself as a miniature individual, and, at the same time, to keep him alive.
    If the child is, say, seventeen or eighteen, one may reason with him, pointing out the personal hazards involved, and the attendant social hazards, how much he means to his parents, for example, and how his siblings, and cousins, and friends, and the community, and so on, would