THE SECRET ROSE:

BY

W. B. YEATS

THE SECRET ROSE:

 DEDICATION TO A. E. TO THE SECRET ROSE THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST OUT OF THE ROSE THE WISDOM OF THE KING THE HEART OF THE SPRING THE CURSE OF THE FIRES AND OF THE SHADOWS THE OLD MEN OF THE TWILIGHT WHERE THERE IS NOTHING, THERE IS GOD OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT, AND OF THE BITTER TONGUE

As for living, our servants will do that for us. --_Villiers de L'Isle Adam. _

Helen, when she looked in her mirror, seeing the withered wrinklesmade in her face by old age, wept, and wondered why she had twicebeen carried away. --_Leonardo da Vinci_. 

_My dear A. E. --I dedicate this book to you because, whether youthink it well or ill written, you will sympathize with the sorrowsand the ecstasies of its personages, perhaps even more than I domyself. Although I wrote these stories at different times and indifferent manners, and without any definite plan, they have but onesubject, the war of spiritual with natural order; and how can Idedicate such a book to anyone but to you, the one poet of modernIreland who has moulded a spiritual ecstasy into verse? My friends inIreland sometimes ask me when I am going to write a really nationalpoem or romance, and by a national poem or romance I understand themto mean a poem or romance founded upon some famous moment of Irishhistory, and built up out of the thoughts and feelings which move thegreater number of patriotic Irishmen. I on the other hand believethat poetry and romance cannot be made by the most conscientiousstudy of famous moments and of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that little, infinite, faltering, eternalflame that we call ourselves. If a writer wishes to interest acertain people among whom he has grown up, or fancies he has a dutytowards them, he may choose for the symbols of his art their legends, their history, their beliefs, their opinions, because he has a rightto choose among things less than himself, but he cannot choose amongthe substances of art. So far, however, as this book is visionary itis Irish for Ireland, which is still predominantly Celtic, haspreserved with some less excellent things a gift of vision, which hasdied out among more hurried and more successful nations: no shiningcandelabra have prevented us from looking into the darkness, and whenone looks into the darkness there is always something there. 

W. B. YEATS. _

TO THE SECRET ROSE

 Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those Who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre, Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep Among pale eyelids heavy with the sleep Men have named beauty. Your great leaves enfold The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of Elder rise In druid vapour and make the torches dim; Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him Who met Fand walking among flaming dew, By a grey shore where the wind never blew, And lost the world and Emir for a kiss; And him who drove the gods out of their liss And till a hundred morns had flowered red Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead; And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods; And him who sold tillage and house and goods, And sought through lands and islands numberless years Until he found with laughter and with tears A woman of so shining loveliness That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, A little stolen tress. I too await The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. When shall the stars be blown about the sky, Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST. 

A man, with thin brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked, along the road that wound from the south to the town of Sligo. Manycalled him Cumhal, the son of Cormac, and many called him the Swift, Wild Horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti-coloureddoublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. Also he was ofthe blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place was the Field of Gold;but his eating and sleeping places where the four provinces of Eri, and his abiding place was not upon the ridge of the earth. His eyesstrayed from the Abbey tower of the White Friars and the townbattlements to a row of crosses which stood out against the sky upona hill a little to the eastward of the town, and he clenched hisfist, and shook it at the crosses. He knew they were not empty, forthe birds were fluttering about them; and he thought how, as like asnot, just such another vagabond as himself was hanged on one of them;and he muttered: 'If it were hanging or bowstringing, or stoning orbeheading, it would be bad enough. But to have the birds pecking youreyes and the wolves eating your feet! I would that the red wind ofthe Druids had withered in his cradle the soldier of Dathi, whobrought the tree of death out of barbarous lands, or that thelightning, when it smote Dathi at the foot of the mountain, hadsmitten him also, or that his grave had been dug by the green-hairedand green-toothed merrows deep at the roots of the deep sea. '

While he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came outupon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon manycrosses. He passed over two hills and under the battlemented gate, and then round by a left-hand way to the door of the Abbey. It wasstudded with great nails, and when he knocked at it, he roused thelay brother who was the porter, and of him he asked a place in theguest-house. Then the lay brother took a glowing turf on a shovel, and led the way to a big and naked outhouse strewn with very dirtyrushes; and lighted a rush-candle fixed between two of the stones ofthe wall, and set the glowing turf upon the hearth and gave him twounlighted sods and a wisp of straw, and showed him a blanket hangingfrom a nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, anda tub in a far corner. Then the lay brother left him and went back tohis place by the door. And Cumhal the son of Cormac began to blowupon the glowing turf that he might light the two sods and the wispof straw; but the sods and the straw would not light, for they weredamp. So he took off his pointed shoes, and drew the tub out of thecorner with the thought of washing the dust of the highway from hisfeet; but the water was so dirty that he could not see the bottom. Hewas very hungry, for he had not eaten all that day; so he did notwaste much anger upon the tub, but took up the black loaf, and bitinto it, and then spat out the bite, for the bread was hard andmouldy. Still he did not give way to his anger, for he had notdrunken these many hours; having a hope of heath beer or wine at hisday's end, he had left the brooks untasted, to make his supper themore delightful. Now he put the jug to his lips, but he flung it fromhim straightway, for the water was bitter and ill-smelling. Then hegave the jug a kick, so that it broke against the opposite wall, andhe took down the blanket to wrap it about him for the night. But nosooner did he touch it than it was alive with skipping fleas. Atthis, beside himself with anger, he rushed to the door of the guest-house, but the lay brother, being well accustomed to such outcries, had locked it on the outside; so he emptied the tub and began to beatthe door with it, till the lay brother came to the door and askedwhat ailed him, and why he woke him out of sleep. 'What ails me!'shouted Cumhal, 'are not the sods as wet as the sands of the ThreeRosses? and are not the fleas in the blanket as many as the waves ofthe sea and as lively? and is not the bread as hard as the heart of alay brother who has forgotten God? and is not the water in the jug asbitter and as ill-smelling as his soul? and is not the foot-water thecolour that shall be upon him when he has been charred in the UndyingFires?' The lay brother saw that the lock was fast, and went back tohis niche, for he was too sleepy to talk with comfort. And Cumhalwent on beating at the door, and presently he heard the lay brother'sfoot once more, and cried out at him, 'O cowardly and tyrannous raceof friars, persecutors of the bard and the gleeman, haters of lifeand joy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the truth! Orace that melts the bones of the people with cowardice and withdeceit!'

'Gleeman, ' said the lay brother, 'I also make rhymes; I make manywhile I sit in my niche by the door, and I sorrow to hear the bardsrailing upon the friars. Brother, I would sleep, and therefore I makeknown to you that it is the head of the monastery, our graciousabbot, who orders all things concerning the lodging of travellers. '

'You may sleep, ' said Cumhal, 'I will sing a bard's curse on theabbot. 'And he set the tub upside down under the window, and stoodupon it, and began to sing in a very loud voice. The singing awokethe abbot, so that he sat up in bed and blew a silver whistle untilthe lay brother came to him. 'I cannot get a wink of sleep with thatnoise, ' said the abbot. 'What is happening?'

'It is a gleeman, ' said the lay brother, 'who complains of the sods, of the bread, of the water in the jug, of the foot-water, and of theblanket. And now he is singing a bard's curse upon you, O brotherabbot, and upon your father and your mother, and your grandfather andyour grandmother, and upon all your relations. '

'Is he cursing in rhyme?'

'He is cursing in rhyme, and with two assonances in every line of hiscurse. '

The abbot pulled his night-cap off and crumpled it in his hands, andthe circular brown patch of hair in the middle of his bald headlooked like an island in the midst of a pond, for in Connaught theyhad not yet abandoned the ancient tonsure for the style then cominginto use. 'If we do not somewhat, ' he said, 'he will teach his cursesto the children in the street, and the girls spinning at the doors, and to the robbers upon Ben Bulben. '

'Shall I go, then, ' said the other, 'and give him dry sods, a freshloaf, clean water in a jug, clean foot-water, and a new blanket, andmake him swear by the blessed Saint Benignus, and by the sun andmoon, that no bond be lacking, not to tell his rhymes to the childrenin the street, and the girls spinning at the doors, and the robbersupon Ben Bulben?'

'Neither our Blessed Patron nor the sun and moon would avail at all, 'said the abbot; 'for to-morrow or the next day the mood to cursewould come upon him, or a pride in those rhymes would move him, andhe would teach his lines to the children, and the girls, and therobbers. Or else he would tell another of his craft how he fared inthe guest-house, and he in his turn would begin to curse, and my namewould wither. For learn there is no steadfastness of purpose upon theroads, but only under roofs and between four walls. Therefore I bidyou go and awaken Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf, Brother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and BrotherPeter. And they shall take the man, and bind him with ropes, and diphim in the river that he shall cease to sing. And in the morning, lest this but make him curse the louder, we will crucify him. '

'The crosses are all full, ' said the lay brother. 

'Then we must make another cross. If we do not make an end of himanother will, for who can eat and sleep in peace while men like himare going about the world? Ill should we stand before blessed SaintBenignus, and sour would be his face when he comes to judge us at theLast Day, were we to spare an enemy of his when we had him under ourthumb! Brother, the bards and the gleemen are an evil race, evercursing and ever stirring up the people, and immoral and immoderatein all things, and heathen in their hearts, always longing after theSon of Lir, and Aengus, and Bridget, and the Dagda, and Dana theMother, and all the false gods of the old days; always making poemsin praise of those kings and queens of the demons, Finvaragh, whosehome is under Cruachmaa, and Red Aodh of Cnocna-Sidhe, and Cleena ofthe Wave, and Aoibhell of the Grey Rock, and him they call Donn ofthe Vats of the Sea; and railing against God and Christ and theblessed Saints. ' While he was speaking he crossed himself, and whenhe had finished he drew the nightcap over his ears, to shut out thenoise, and closed his eyes, and composed himself to sleep. 

The lay brother found Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother LittleWolf, Brother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James andBrother Peter sitting up in bed, and he made them get up. Then theybound Cumhal, and they dragged him to the river, and they dipped himin it at the place which was afterwards called Buckley's Ford. 

'Gleeman, ' said the lay brother, as they led him back to the guest-house, 'why do you ever use the wit which God has given you to makeblasphemous and immoral tales and verses? For such is the way of yourcraft. I have, indeed, many such tales and verses well nigh by rote, and so I know that I speak true! And why do you praise with rhymethose demons, Finvaragh, Red Aodh, Cleena, Aoibhell and Donn? I, too, am a man of great wit and learning, but I ever glorify our graciousabbot, and Benignus our Patron, and the princes of the province. Mysoul is decent and orderly, but yours is like the wind among thesalley gardens. I said what I could for you, being also a man of manythoughts, but who could help such a one as you?'

'Friend, ' answered the gleeman, 'my soul is indeed like the wind, andit blows me to and fro, and up and down, and puts many things into mymind and out of my mind, and therefore am I called the Swift, WildHorse. ' And he spoke no more that night, for his teeth werechattering with the cold. 

The abbot and the friars came to him in the morning, and bade him getready to be crucified, and led him out of the guest-house. And whilehe still stood upon the step a flock of great grass-barnacles passedhigh above him with clanking cries. He lifted his arms to them andsaid, 'O great grass-barnacles, tarry a little, and mayhap my soulwill travel with you to the waste places of the shore and to theungovernable sea!' At the gate a crowd of beggars gathered aboutthem, being come there to beg from any traveller or pilgrim who mighthave spent the night in the guest-house. The abbot and the friars ledthe gleeman to a place in the woods at some distance, where manystraight young trees were growing, and they made him cut one down andfashion it to the right length, while the beggars stood round them ina ring, talking and gesticulating. The abbot then bade him cut offanother and shorter piece of wood, and nail it upon the first. Sothere was his cross for him; and they put it upon his shoulder, forhis crucifixion was to be on the top of the hill where the otherswere. A half-mile on the way he asked them to stop and see him jugglefor them; for he knew, he said, all the tricks of Aengus the Subtle-hearted. The old friars were for pressing on, but the young friarswould see him: so he did many wonders for them, even to the drawingof live frogs out of his ears. But after a while they turned on him, and said his tricks were dull and a shade unholy, and set the crosson his shoulders again. Another half-mile on the way, and he askedthem to stop and hear him jest for them, for he knew, he said, allthe jests of Conan the Bald, upon whose back a sheep's wool grew. Andthe young friars, when they had heard his merry tales, again bade himtake up his cross, for it ill became them to listen to such follies. Another half-mile on the way, he asked them to stop and hear him singthe story of White-breasted Deirdre, and how she endured manysorrows, and how the sons of Usna died to serve her. And the youngfriars were mad to hear him, but when he had ended they grew angry, and beat him for waking forgotten longings in their hearts. So theyset the cross upon his back and hurried him to the hill. 

When he was come to the top, they took the cross from him, and beganto dig a hole to stand it in, while the beggars gathered round, andtalked among themselves. 'I ask a favour before I die, ' says Cumhal. 

'We will grant you no more delays, ' says the abbot. 

'I ask no more delays, for I have drawn the sword, and told thetruth, and lived my vision, and am content. '

'Would you, then, confess?'

' By sun and moon, not I; I ask but to be let eat the food I carry inmy wallet. I carry food in my wallet whenever I go upon a journey, but I do not taste of it unless I am well-nigh starved. I have noteaten now these two days. '

'You may eat, then, ' says the abbot, and he turned to help the friarsdig the hole. 

The gleeman took a loaf and some strips of cold fried bacon out ofhis wallet and laid them upon the ground. 'I will give a tithe to thepoor, ' says he, and he cut a tenth part from the loaf and the bacon. 'Who among you is the poorest?' And thereupon was a great clamour, for the beggars began the history of their sorrows and their poverty, and their yellow faces swayed like Gara Lough when the floods havefilled it with water from the bogs. 

He listened for a little, and, says he, 'I am myself the poorest, forI have travelled the bare road, and by the edges of the sea; and thetattered doublet of particoloured cloth upon my back and the tornpointed shoes upon my feet have ever irked me, because of the toweredcity full of noble raiment which was in my heart. And I have been themore alone upon the roads and by the sea because I heard in my heartthe rustling of the rose-bordered dress of her who is more subtlethan Aengus, the Subtle-hearted, and more full of the beauty oflaughter than Conan the Bald, and more full of the wisdom of tearsthan White-breasted Deirdre, and more lovely than a bursting dawn tothem that are lost in the darkness. Therefore, I award the tithe tomyself; but yet, because I am done with all things, I give it untoyou. '

So he flung the bread and the strips of bacon among the beggars, andthey fought with many cries until the last scrap was eaten. Butmeanwhile the friars nailed the gleeman to his cross, and set itupright in the hole, and shovelled the earth in at the foot, andtrampled it level and hard. So then they went away, but the beggarsstared on, sitting round the cross. But when the sun was sinking, they also got up to go, for the air was getting chilly. And as soonas they had gone a little way, the wolves, who had been showingthemselves on the edge of a neighbouring coppice, came nearer, andthe birds wheeled closer and closer. 'Stay, outcasts, yet a littlewhile, ' the crucified one called in a weak voice to the beggars, 'andkeep the beasts and the birds from me. ' But the beggars were angrybecause he had called them outcasts, so they threw stones and mud athim, and went their way. Then the wolves gathered at the foot of thecross, and the birds flew lower and lower. And presently the birdslighted all at once upon his head and arms and shoulders, and beganto peck at him, and the wolves began to eat his feet. 'Outcasts, ' hemoaned, 'have you also turned against the outcast?'

OUT OF THE ROSE. 

One winter evening an old knight in rusted chain-armour rode slowlyalong the woody southern slope of Ben Bulben, watching the sun godown in crimson clouds over the sea. His horse was tired, as after along journey, and he had upon his helmet the crest of no neighbouringlord or king, but a small rose made of rubies that glimmered everymoment to a deeper crimson. His white hair fell in thin curls uponhis shoulders, and its disorder added to the melancholy of his face, which was the face of one of those who have come but seldom into theworld, and always for its trouble, the dreamers who must do what theydream, the doers who must dream what they do. 

After gazing a while towards the sun, he let the reins fall upon theneck of his horse, and, stretching out both arms towards the west, hesaid, 'O Divine Rose of Intellectual Flame, let the gates of thypeace be opened to me at last!' And suddenly a loud squealing beganin the woods some hundreds of yards further up the mountain side. Hestopped his horse to listen, and heard behind him a sound of feet andof voices. 'They are beating them to make them go into the narrowpath by the gorge, ' said someone, and in another moment a dozenpeasants armed with short spears had come up with the knight, andstood a little apart from him, their blue caps in their hands. Wheredo you go with the spears?' he asked; and one who seemed the leaderanswered: 'A troop of wood-thieves came down from the hills a whileago and carried off the pigs belonging to an old man who lives byGlen Car Lough, and we turned out to go after them. Now that we knowthey are four times more than we are, we follow to find the way theyhave taken; and will presently tell our story to De Courcey, and ifhe will not help us, to Fitzgerald; for De Courcey and Fitzgeraldhave lately made a peace, and we do not know to whom we belong. '

'But by that time, ' said the knight, 'the pigs will have been eaten. '

'A dozen men cannot do more, and it was not reasonable that the wholevalley should turn out and risk their lives for two, or for two dozenpigs. '

'Can you tell me, ' said the knight, 'if the old man to whom the pigsbelong is pious and true of heart?'

'He is as true as another and more pious than any, for he says aprayer to a saint every morning before his breakfast. '

'Then it were well to fight in his cause, ' said the knight, 'and ifyou will fight against the wood-thieves I will take the main brunt ofthe battle, and you know well that a man in armour is worth many likethese wood-thieves, clad in wool and leather. '

And the leader turned to his fellows and asked if they would take thechance; but they seemed anxious to get back to their cabins. 

'Are the wood-thieves treacherous and impious?'

'They are treacherous in all their dealings, ' said a peasant, 'and noman has known them to pray. '

'Then, ' said the knight, 'I will give five crowns for the head ofevery wood-thief killed by us in the fighting'; and he bid the leadershow the way, and they all went on together. After a time they cameto where a beaten track wound into the woods, and, taking this, theydoubled back upon their previous course, and began to ascend thewooded slope of the mountains. In a little while the path grew verystraight and steep, and the knight was forced to dismount and leavehis horse tied to a tree-stem. They knew they were on the righttrack: for they could see the marks of pointed shoes in the soft clayand mingled with them the cloven footprints of the pigs. Presentlythe path became still more abrupt, and they knew by the ending of thecloven foot-prints that the thieves were carrying the pigs. Now andthen a long mark in the clay showed that a pig had slipped down, andbeen dragged along for a little way. They had journeyed thus forabout twenty minutes, when a confused sound of voices told them thatthey were coming up with the thieves. And then the voices ceased, andthey understood that they had been overheard in their turn. Theypressed on rapidly and cautiously, and in about five minutes one ofthem caught sight of a leather jerkin half hidden by a hazel-bush. Anarrow struck the knight's chain-armour, but glanced off harmlessly, and then a flight of arrows swept by them with the buzzing sound ofgreat bees. They ran and climbed, and climbed and ran towards thethieves, who were now all visible standing up among the bushes withtheir still quivering bows in their hands: for they had only theirspears and they must at once come hand to hand. The knight was in thefront and smote down first one and then another of the wood-thieves. The peasants shouted, and, pressing on, drove the wood-thieves beforethem until they came out on the flat top of the mountain, and therethey saw the two pigs quietly grubbing in the short grass, so theyran about them in a circle, and began to move back again towards thenarrow path: the old knight coming now the last of all, and strikingdown thief after thief. The peasants had got no very serious hurtsamong them, for he had drawn the brunt of the battle upon himself, ascould well be seen from the bloody rents in his armour; and when theycame to the entrance of the narrow path he bade them drive the pigsdown into the valley, while he stood there to guard the way behindthem. So in a moment he was alone, and, being weak with loss ofblood, might have been ended there and then by the wood-thieves hehad beaten off, had fear not made them begone out of sight in a greathurry. 

An hour passed, and they did not return; and now the knight couldstand on guard no longer, but had to lie down upon the grass. A half-hour more went by, and then a young lad with what appeared to be anumber of cock's feathers stuck round his hat, came out of the pathbehind him, and began to move about among the dead thieves, cuttingtheir heads off, Then he laid the heads in a heap before the knight, and said: 'O great knight, I have been bid come and ask you for thecrowns you promised for the heads: five crowns a head. They bid metell you that they have prayed to God and His Mother to give you along life, but that they are poor peasants, and that they would havethe money before you die. They told me this over and over for fear Imight forget it, and promised to beat me if I did. '

The knight raised himself upon his elbow, and opening a bag that hungto his belt, counted out the five crowns for each head. There werethirty heads in all. 

'O great knight, ' said the lad, 'they have also bid me take all careof you, and light a fire, and put this ointment upon your wounds. 'And he gathered sticks and leaves together, and, flashing his flintand steel under a mass of dry leaves, had made a very good blaze. Then, drawing of the coat of mail, he began to anoint the wounds: buthe did it clumsily, like one who does by rote what he had been told. The knight motioned him to stop, and said: 'You seem a good lad. '

'I would ask something of you for myself. '

'There are still a few crowns, ' said the knight; 'shall I give themto you?'

'O no, ' said the lad. 'They would be no good to me. There is only onething that I care about doing, and I have no need of money to do it. I go from village to village and from hill to hill, and whenever Icome across a good cock I steal him and take him into the woods, andI keep him there under a basket until I get another good cock, andthen I set them to fight. The people say I am an innocent, and do notdo me any harm, and never ask me to do any work but go a message nowand then. It is because I am an innocent that they send me to get thecrowns: anyone else would steal them; and they dare not come backthemselves, for now that you are not with them they are afraid of thewood-thieves. Did you ever hear how, when the wood-thieves arechristened, the wolves are made their god-fathers, and their rightarms are not christened at all?'

'If you will not take these crowns, my good lad, I have nothing foryou, I fear, unless you would have that old coat of mail which Ishall soon need no more. '

'There was something I wanted: yes, I remember now, ' said the lad. 'Iwant you to tell me why you fought like the champions and giants inthe stories and for so little a thing. Are you indeed a man like us?Are you not rather an old wizard who lives among these hills, andwill not a wind arise presently and crumble you into dust?'

'I will tell you of myself, ' replied the knight, 'for now that I amthe last of the fellowship, 'I may tell all and witness for God. Lookat the Rose of Rubies on my helmet, and see the symbol of my life andof my hope. ' And then he told the lad this story, but with alwaysmore frequent pauses; and, while he told it, the Rose shone a deepblood-colour in the firelight, and the lad stuck the cock'sfeathers in the earth in front of him, and moved them about as thoughhe made them actors in the play. 

'I live in a land far from this, and was one of the Knights of St. John, ' said the old man; 'but I was one of those in the Order whoalways longed for more arduous labours in the service of the MostHigh. At last there came to us a knight of Palestine, to whom thetruth of truths had been revealed by God Himself. He had seen a greatRose of Fire, and a Voice out of the Rose had told him how men wouldturn from the light of their own hearts, and bow down before outerorder and outer fixity, and that then the light would cease, and noneescape the curse except the foolish good man who could not, and thepassionate wicked man who would not, think. Already, the Voice toldhim, the wayward light of the heart was shining out upon the world tokeep it alive, with a less clear lustre, and that, as it paled, astrange infection was touching the stars and the hills and the grassand the trees with corruption, and that none of those who had seenclearly the truth and the ancient way could enter into the Kingdom ofGod, which is in the Heart of the Rose, if they stayed on willinglyin the corrupted world; and so they must prove their anger againstthe Powers of Corruption by dying in the service of the Rose of God. While the Knight of Palestine was telling us these things we seemedto see in a vision a crimson Rose spreading itself about him, so thathe seemed to speak out of its heart, and the air was filled withfragrance. By this we knew that it was the very Voice of God whichspoke to us by the knight, and we gathered about him and bade himdirect us in all things, and teach us how to obey the Voice. So hebound us with an oath, and gave us signs and words whereby we mightknow each other even after many years, and he appointed places ofmeeting, and he sent us out in troops into the world to seek goodcauses, and die in doing battle for them. At first we thought to diemore readily by fasting to death in honour of some saint; but this hetold us was evil, for we did it for the sake of death, and thus tookout of the hands of God the choice of the time and manner of ourdeath, and by so doing made His power the less. We must choose ourservice for its excellence, and for this alone, and leave it to Godto reward us at His own time and in His own manner. And after this hecompelled us to eat always two at a table to watch each other lest wefasted unduly, for some among us said that if one fasted for a loveof the holiness of saints and then died, the death would beacceptable. And the years passed, and one by one my fellows died inthe Holy Land, or in warring upon the evil princes of the earth, orin clearing the roads of robbers; and among them died the knight ofPalestine, and at last I was alone. I fought in every cause where thefew contended against the many, and my hair grew white, and aterrible fear lest I had fallen under the displeasure of God cameupon me. But, hearing at last how this western isle was fuller ofwars and rapine than any other land, I came hither, and I have foundthe thing I sought, and, behold! I am filled with a great joy. '

Thereat he began to sing in Latin, and, while he sang, his voice grewfainter and fainter. Then his eyes closed, and his lips fell apart, and the lad knew he was dead. 'He has told me a good tale, ' he said, 'for there was fighting in it, but I did not understand much of it, and it is hard to remember so long a story. '

And, taking the knight's sword, he began to dig a grave in the softclay. He dug hard, and a faint light of dawn had touched his hair andhe had almost done his work when a cock crowed in the valley below. 'Ah, ' he said, 'I must have that bird'; and he ran down the narrowpath to the valley. 

THE WISDOM OF THE KING. 

The High-Queen of the Island of Woods had died in childbirth, and herchild was put to nurse with a woman who lived in a hut of mud andwicker, within the border of the wood. One night the woman satrocking the cradle, and pondering over the beauty of the child, andpraying that the gods might grant him wisdom equal to his beauty. There came a knock at the door, and she got up, not a littlewondering, for the nearest neighbours were in the dun of the High-King a mile away; and the night was now late. 'Who is knocking?' shecried, and a thin voice answered, 'Open! for I am a crone of the greyhawk, and I come from the darkness of the great wood. ' In terror shedrew back the bolt, and a grey-clad woman, of a great age, and of aheight more than human, came in and stood by the head of the cradle. The nurse shrank back against the wall, unable to take her eyes fromthe woman, for she saw by the gleaming of the firelight that thefeathers of the grey hawk were upon her head instead of hair. But thechild slept, and the fire danced, for the one was too ignorant andthe other too full of gaiety to know what a dreadful being stoodthere. 'Open!' cried another voice, 'for I am a crone of the greyhawk, and I watch over his nest in the darkness of the great wood. 'The nurse opened the door again, though her fingers could scarce holdthe bolts for trembling, and another grey woman, not less old thanthe other, and with like feathers instead of hair, came in and stoodby the first. In a little, came a third grey woman, and after her afourth, and then another and another and another, until the hut wasfull of their immense bodies. They stood a long time in perfectsilence and stillness, for they were of those whom the dropping ofthe sand has never troubled, but at last one muttered in a low thinvoice: 'Sisters, I knew him far away by the redness of his heartunder his silver skin'; and then another spoke: 'Sisters, I knew himbecause his heart fluttered like a bird under a net of silver cords'; and then another took up the word: 'Sisters, I knew him becausehis heart sang like a bird that is happy in a silver cage. ' And afterthat they sang together, those who were nearest rocking the cradlewith long wrinkled fingers; and their voices were now tender andcaressing, now like the wind blowing in the great wood, and this wastheir song:

 Out of sight is out of mind: Long have man and woman-kind, Heavy of will and light of mood, Taken away our wheaten food, Taken away our Altar stone; Hail and rain and thunder alone, And red hearts we turn to grey, Are true till Time gutter away. 

When the song had died out, the crone who had first spoken, said: 'Wehave nothing more to do but to mix a drop of our blood into hisblood. ' And she scratched her arm with the sharp point of a spindle, which she had made the nurse bring to her, and let a drop of blood, grey as the mist, fall upon the lips of the child; and passed outinto the darkness. Then the others passed out in silence one by one;and all the while the child had not opened his pink eyelids or thefire ceased to dance, for the one was too ignorant and the other toofull of gaiety to know what great beings had bent over the cradle. 

When the crones were gone, the nurse came to her courage again, andhurried to the dun of the High-King, and cried out in the midst ofthe assembly hall that the Sidhe, whether for good or evil she knewnot, had bent over the child that night; and the king and his poetsand men of law, and his huntsmen, and his cooks, and his chiefwarriors went with her to the hut and gathered about the cradle, andwere as noisy as magpies, and the child sat up and looked at them. 

Two years passed over, and the king died fighting against the FerBolg; and the poets and the men of law ruled in the name of thechild, but looked to see him become the master himself before long, for no one had seen so wise a child, and tales of his endlessquestions about the household of the gods and the making of the worldwent hither and thither among the wicker houses of the poor. Everything had been well but for a miracle that began to trouble allmen; and all women, who, indeed, talked of it without ceasing. Thefeathers of the grey hawk had begun to grow in the child's hair, andthough, his nurse cut them continually, in but a little while theywould be more numerous than ever. This had not been a matter of greatmoment, for miracles were a little thing in those days, but for anancient law of Eri that none who had any blemish of body could situpon the throne; and as a grey hawk was a wild thing of the air whichhad never sat at the board, or listened to the songs of the poets inthe light of the fire, it was not possible to think of one in whosehair its feathers grew as other than marred and blasted; nor couldthe people separate from their admiration of the wisdom that grew inhim a horror as at one of unhuman blood. Yet all were resolved thathe should reign, for they had suffered much from foolish kings andtheir own disorders, and moreover they desired to watch out thespectacle of his days; and no one had any other fear but that hisgreat wisdom might bid him obey the law, and call some other, who hadbut a common mind, to reign in his stead. 

When the child was seven years old the poets and the men of law werecalled together by the chief poet, and all these matters weighed andconsidered. The child had already seen that those about him had haironly, and, though they had told him that they too had had feathersbut had lost them because of a sin committed by their forefathers, they knew that he would learn the truth when he began to wander intothe country round about. After much consideration they decreed a newlaw commanding every one upon pain of death to mingle artificiallythe feathers of the grey hawk into his hair; and they sent men withnets and slings and bows into the countries round about to gather asufficiency of feathers. They decreed also that any who told thetruth to the child should be flung from a cliff into the sea. 

The years passed, and the child grew from childhood into boyhood andfrom boyhood into manhood, and from being curious about all things hebecame busy with strange and subtle thoughts which came to him indreams, and with distinctions between things long held the same andwith the resemblance of things long held different. Multitudes camefrom other lands to see him and to ask his counsel, but there wereguards set at the frontiers, who compelled all that came to wear thefeathers of the grey hawk in their hair. While they listened to himhis words seemed to make all darkness light and filled their heartslike music; but, alas, when they returned to their own lands hiswords seemed far off, and what they could remember too strange andsubtle to help them to live out their hasty days. A number indeed didlive differently afterwards, but their new life was less excellentthan the old: some among them had long served a good cause, but whenthey heard him praise it and their labour, they returned to their ownlands to find what they had loved less lovable and their arm lighterin the battle, for he had taught them how little a hair divides thefalse and true; others, again, who had served no cause, but wroughtin peace the welfare of their own households, when he had expoundedthe meaning of their purpose, found their bones softer and their willless ready for toil, for he had shown them greater purposes; andnumbers of the young, when they had heard him upon all these things, remembered certain words that became like a fire in their hearts, andmade all kindly joys and traffic between man and man as nothing, andwent different ways, but all into vague regret. 

When any asked him concerning the common things of life; disputesabout the mear of a territory, or about the straying of cattle, orabout the penalty of blood; he would turn to those nearest him foradvice; but this was held to be from courtesy, for none knew thatthese matters were hidden from him by thoughts and dreams that filledhis mind like the marching and counter-marching of armies. Far lesscould any know that his heart wandered lost amid throngs ofovercoming thoughts and dreams, shuddering at its own consumingsolitude. 

Among those who came to look at him and to listen to him was thedaughter of a little king who lived a great way off; and when he sawher he loved, for she was beautiful, with a strange and pale beautyunlike the women of his land; but Dana, the great mother, had decreedher a heart that was but as the heart of others, and when sheconsidered the mystery of the hawk feathers she was troubled with agreat horror. He called her to him when the assembly was over andtold her of her beauty, and praised her simply and frankly as thoughshe were a fable of the bards; and he asked her humbly to give himher love, for he was only subtle in his dreams. Overwhelmed with hisgreatness, she half consented, and yet half refused, for she longedto marry some warrior who could carry her over a mountain in hisarms. Day by day the king gave her gifts; cups with ears of gold andfindrinny wrought by the craftsmen of distant lands; cloth from oversea, which, though woven with curious figures, seemed to her lessbeautiful than the bright cloth of her own country; and still she wasever between a smile and a frown; between yielding and withholding. He laid down his wisdom at her feet, and told how the heroes whenthey die return to the world and begin their labour anew; how thekind and mirthful Men of Dea drove out the huge and gloomy andmisshapen People from Under the Sea; and a multitude of things thateven the Sidhe have forgotten, either because they happened so longago or because they have not time to think of them; and still shehalf refused, and still he hoped, because he could not believe that abeauty so much like wisdom could hide a common heart. 

There was a tall young man in the dun who had yellow hair, and wasskilled in wrestling and in the training of horses; and one day whenthe king walked in the orchard, which was between the foss and theforest, he heard his voice among the salley bushes which hid thewaters of the foss. 'My blossom, ' it said, 'I hate them for makingyou weave these dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and all thatthe bird of prey upon the throne may sleep easy o' nights'; and thenthe low, musical voice he loved answered: 'My hair is not beautifullike yours; and now that I have plucked the feathers out of your hairI will put my hands through it, thus, and thus, and thus; for itcasts no shadow of terror and darkness upon my heart. ' Then the kingremembered many things that he had forgotten without understandingthem, doubtful words of his poets and his men of law, doubts that hehad reasoned away, his own continual solitude; and he called to thelovers in a trembling voice. They came from among the salley bushesand threw themselves at his feet and prayed for pardon, and hestooped down and plucked the feathers out of the hair of the womanand then turned away towards the dun without a word. He strode intothe hall of assembly, and having gathered his poets and his men oflaw about him, stood upon the dais and spoke in a loud, clear voice:'Men of law, why did you make me sin against the laws of Eri? Men ofverse, why did you make me sin against the secrecy of wisdom, for lawwas made by man for the welfare of man, but wisdom the gods havemade, and no man shall live by its light, for it and the hail and therain and the thunder follow a way that is deadly to mortal things?Men of law and men of verse, live according to your kind, and callEocha of the Hasty Mind to reign over you, for I set out to find mykindred. ' He then came down among them, and drew out of the hair offirst one and then another the feathers of the grey hawk, and, havingscattered them over the rushes upon the floor, passed out, and nonedared to follow him, for his eyes gleamed like the eyes of the birdsof prey; and no man saw him again or heard his voice. Some believedthat he found his eternal abode among the demons, and some that hedwelt henceforth with the dark and dreadful goddesses, who sit allnight about the pools in the forest watching the constellationsrising and setting in those desolate mirrors. 

THE HEART OF THE SPRING. 

A very old man, whose face was almost as fleshless as the foot of abird, sat meditating upon the rocky shore of the flat and hazel-covered isle which fills the widest part of the Lough Gill. A russet-faced boy of seventeen years sat by his side, watching the swallowsdipping for flies in the still water. The old man was dressed inthreadbare blue velvet, and the boy wore a frieze coat and a bluecap, and had about his neck a rosary of blue beads. Behind the two, and half hidden by trees, was a little monastery. It had been burneddown a long while before by sacrilegious men of the Queen's party, but had been roofed anew with rushes by the boy, that the old manmight find shelter in his last days. He had not set his spade, however, into the garden about it, and the lilies and the roses ofthe monks had spread out until their confused luxuriancy met andmingled with the narrowing circle of the fern. Beyond the lilies andthe roses the ferns were so deep that a child walking among themwould be hidden from sight, even though he stood upon his toes; andbeyond the fern rose many hazels and small oak trees. 

'Master, ' said the boy, 'this long fasting, and the labour ofbeckoning after nightfall with your rod of quicken wood to the beingswho dwell in the waters and among the hazels and oak-trees, is toomuch for your strength. Rest from all this labour for a little, foryour hand seemed more heavy upon my shoulder and your feet lesssteady under you to-day than I have known them. Men say that you areolder than the eagles, and yet you will not seek the rest thatbelongs to age. ' He spoke in an eager, impulsive way, as though hisheart were in the words and thoughts of the moment; and the old mananswered slowly and deliberately, as though his heart were in distantdays and distant deeds. 

'I will tell you why I have not been able to rest, ' he said. 'It isright that you should know, for you have served me faithfully thesefive years and more, and even with affection, taking away thereby alittle of the doom of loneliness which always falls upon the wise. Now, too, that the end of my labour and the triumph of my hopes is athand, it is the more needful for you to have this knowledge. '

'Master, do not think that I would question you. It is for me to keepthe fire alight, and the thatch close against the rain, and strong, lest the wind blow it among the trees; and it is for me to take theheavy books from the shelves, and to lift from its corner the greatpainted roll with the names of the Sidhe, and to possess the while anincurious and reverent heart, for right well I know that God has madeout of His abundance a separate wisdom for everything which lives, and to do these things is my wisdom. '

'You are afraid, ' said the old man, and his eyes shone with amomentary anger. 

'Sometimes at night, ' said the boy, 'when you are reading, with therod of quicken wood in your hand, I look out of the door and see, nowa great grey man driving swine among the hazels, and now many littlepeople in red caps who come out of the lake driving little white cowsbefore them. I do not fear these little people so much as the greyman; for, when they come near the house, they milk the cows, and theydrink the frothing milk, and begin to dance; and I know there is goodin the heart that loves dancing; but I fear them for all that. And Ifear the tall white-armed ladies who come out of the air, and moveslowly hither and thither, crowning themselves with the roses or withthe lilies, and shaking about their living hair, which moves, for soI have heard them tell each other, with the motion of their thoughts, now spreading out and now gathering close to their heads. They havemild, beautiful faces, but, Aengus, son of Forbis, I fear all thesebeings, I fear the people of Sidhe, and I fear the art which drawsthem about us. '

'Why, ' said the old man, 'do you fear the ancient gods who made thespears of your father's fathers to be stout in battle, and the littlepeople who came at night from the depth of the lakes and sang amongthe crickets upon their hearths? And in our evil day they still watchover the loveliness of the earth. But I must tell you why I havefasted and laboured when others would sink into the sleep of age, forwithout your help once more I shall have fasted and laboured to nogood end. When you have done for me this last thing, you may go andbuild your cottage and till your fields, and take some girl to wife, and forget the ancient gods. I have saved all the gold and silverpieces that were given to me by earls and knights and squires forkeeping them from the evil eye and from the love-weaving enchantmentsof witches, and by earls' and knights' and squires' ladies forkeeping the people of the Sidhe from making the udders of theircattle fall dry, and taking the butter from their churns. I havesaved it all for the day when my work should be at an end, and nowthat the end is at hand you shall not lack for gold and silver piecesenough to make strong the roof-tree of your cottage and to keepcellar and larder full. I have sought through all my life to find thesecret of life. I was not happy in my youth, for I knew that it wouldpass; and I was not happy in my manhood, for I knew that age wascoming; and so I gave myself, in youth and manhood and age, to thesearch for the Great Secret. I longed for a life whose abundancewould fill centuries, I scorned the life of fourscore winters. Iwould be--nay, I _will_ be!--like the Ancient Gods of the land. I read in my youth, in a Hebrew manuscript I found in a Spanishmonastery, that there is a moment after the Sun has entered the Ramand before he has passed the Lion, which trembles with the Song ofthe Immortal Powers, and that whosoever finds this moment and listensto the Song shall become like the Immortal Powers themselves; I cameback to Ireland and asked the fairy men, and the cow-doctors, if theyknew when this moment was; but though all had heard of it, there wasnone could find the moment upon the hour-glass. So I gave myself tomagic, and spent my life in fasting and in labour that I might bringthe Gods and the Fairies to my side; and now at last one of theFairies has told me that the moment is at hand. One, who wore a redcap and whose lips were white with the froth of the new milk, whispered it into my ear. Tomorrow, a little before the close of thefirst hour after dawn, I shall find the moment, and then I will goaway to a southern land and build myself a palace of white marbleamid orange trees, and gather the brave and the beautiful about me, and enter into the eternal kingdom of my youth. But, that I may hearthe whole Song, I was told by the little fellow with the froth of thenew milk on his lips, that you must bring great masses of greenboughs and pile them about the door and the window of my room; andyou must put fresh green rushes upon the floor, and cover the tableand the rushes with the roses and the lilies of the monks. You mustdo this to-night, and in the morning at the end of the first hourafter dawn, you must come and find me. '

'Will you be quite young then?' said the boy. 

'I will be as young then as you are, but now I am still old andtired, and you must help me to my chair and to my books. '

When the boy had left Aengus son of Forbis in his room, and hadlighted the lamp which, by some contrivance of the wizard's, gaveforth a sweet odour as of strange flowers, he went into the wood andbegan cutting green boughs from the hazels, and great bundles ofrushes from the western border of the isle, where the small rocksgave place to gently sloping sand and clay. It was nightfall beforehe had cut enough for his purpose, and well-nigh midnight before hehad carried the last bundle to its place, and gone back for the rosesand the lilies. It was one of those warm, beautiful nights wheneverything seems carved of precious stones. Sleuth Wood away to thesouth looked as though cut out of green beryl, and the waters thatmirrored them shone like pale opal. The roses he was gathering werelike glowing rubies, and the lilies had the dull lustre of pearl. Everything had taken upon itself the look of something imperishable, except a glow-worm, whose faint flame burnt on steadily among theshadows, moving slowly hither and thither, the only thing that seemedalive, the only thing that seemed perishable as mortal hope. The boygathered a great armful of roses and lilies, and thrusting the glow-worm among their pearl and ruby, carried them into the room, wherethe old man sat in a half-slumber. He laid armful after armful uponthe floor and above the table, and then, gently closing the door, threw himself upon his bed of rushes, to dream of a peaceful manhoodwith his chosen wife at his side, and the laughter of children in hisears. At dawn he rose, and went down to the edge of the lake, takingthe hour-glass with him. He put some bread and a flask of wine in theboat, that his master might not lack food at the outset of hisjourney, and then sat down to wait until the hour from dawn had goneby. Gradually the birds began to sing, and when the last grains ofsand were falling, everything suddenly seemed to overflow with theirmusic. It was the most beautiful and living moment of the year; onecould listen to the spring's heart beating in it. He got up and wentto find his master. The green boughs filled the door, and he had tomake a way through them. When he entered the room the sunlight wasfalling in flickering circles on floor and walls and table, andeverything was full of soft green shadows. But the old man satclasping a mass of roses and lilies in his arms, and with his headsunk upon his breast. On the table, at his left hand, was a leathernwallet full of gold and silver pieces, as for a journey, and at hisright hand was a long staff. The boy touched him and he did not move. He lifted the hands but they were quite cold, and they fell heavily. 

'It were better for him, ' said the lad, 'to have told his beads andsaid his prayers like another, and not to have spent his days inseeking amongst the Immortal Powers what he could have found in hisown deeds and days had he willed. Ah, yes, it were better to havesaid his prayers and kissed his beads!' He looked at the threadbareblue velvet, and he saw it was covered with the pollen of theflowers, and while he was looking at it a thrush, who had alightedamong the boughs that were piled against the window, began to sing. 

THE CURSE OF THE FIRES AND OF THE SHADOWS. 

One summer night, when there was peace, a score of Puritan troopersunder the pious Sir Frederick Hamilton, broke through the door of theAbbey of the White Friars which stood over the Gara Lough at Sligo. As the door fell with a crash they saw a little knot of friars, gathered about the altar, their white habits glimmering in the steadylight of the holy candles. All the monks were kneeling except theabbot, who stood upon the altar steps with a great brazen crucifix inhis hand. 'Shoot them!' cried Sir Frederick Hamilton, but nonestirred, for all were new converts, and feared the crucifix and theholy candles. The white lights from the altar threw the shadows ofthe troopers up on to roof and wall. As the troopers moved about, theshadows began a fantastic dance among the corbels and the memorialtablets. For a little while all was silent, and then five trooperswho were the body-guard of Sir Frederick Hamilton lifted theirmuskets, and shot down five of the friars. The noise and the smokedrove away the mystery of the pale altar lights, and the othertroopers took courage and began to strike. In a moment the friars layabout the altar steps, their white habits stained with blood. 'Setfire to the house!' cried Sir Frederick Hamilton, and at his word onewent out, and came in again carrying a heap of dry straw, and piledit against the western wall, and, having done this, fell back, forthe fear of the crucifix and of the holy candles was still in hisheart. Seeing this, the five troopers who were Sir FrederickHamilton's body-guard darted forward, and taking each a holy candleset the straw in a blaze. The red tongues of fire rushed up andflickered from corbel to corbel and from tablet to tablet, and creptalong the floor, setting in a blaze the seats and benches. The danceof the shadows passed away, and the dance of the fires began. Thetroopers fell back towards the door in the southern wall, and watchedthose yellow dancers springing hither and thither. 

For a time the altar stood safe and apart in the midst of its whitelight; the eyes of the troopers turned upon it. The abbot whom theyhad thought dead had risen to his feet and now stood before it withthe crucifix lifted in both hands high above his head. Suddenly hecried with a loud voice, 'Woe unto all who smite those who dwellwithin the Light of the Lord, for they shall wander among theungovernable shadows, and follow the ungovernable fires!' And havingso cried he fell on his face dead, and the brazen crucifix rolleddown the steps of the altar. The smoke had now grown very thick, sothat it drove the troopers out into the open air. Before them wereburning houses. Behind them shone the painted windows of the Abbeyfilled with saints and martyrs, awakened, as from a sacred trance, into an angry and animated life. The eyes of the troopers weredazzled, and for a while could see nothing but the flaming faces ofsaints and martyrs. Presently, however, they saw a man covered withdust who came running towards them. 'Two messengers, ' he cried, 'havebeen sent by the defeated Irish to raise against you the wholecountry about Manor Hamilton, and if you do not stop them you will beoverpowered in the woods before you reach home again! They ridenorth-east between Ben Bulben and Cashel-na-Gael. '

Sir Frederick Hamilton called to him the five troopers who had firstfired upon the monks and said, 'Mount quickly, and ride through thewoods towards the mountain, and get before these men, and kill them. '

In a moment the troopers were gone, and before many moments they hadsplashed across the river at what is now called Buckley's Ford, andplunged into the woods. They followed a beaten track that wound alongthe northern bank of the river. The boughs of the birch and quickentrees mingled above, and hid the cloudy moonlight, leaving thepathway in almost complete darkness. They rode at a rapid trot, nowchatting together, now watching some stray weasel or rabbit scuttlingaway in the darkness. Gradually, as the gloom and silence of thewoods oppressed them, they drew closer together, and began to talkrapidly; they were old comrades and knew each other's lives. One wasmarried, and told how glad his wife would be to see him return safefrom this harebrained expedition against the White Friars, and tohear how fortune had made amends for rashness. The oldest of thefive, whose wife was dead, spoke of a flagon of wine which awaitedhim upon an upper shelf; while a third, who was the youngest, had asweetheart watching for his return, and he rode a little way beforethe others, not talking at all. Suddenly the young man stopped, andthey saw that his horse was trembling. 'I saw something, ' he said, 'and yet I do not know but it may have been one of the shadows. Itlooked like a great worm with a silver crown upon his head. ' One ofthe five put his hand up to his forehead as if about to crosshimself, but remembering that he had changed his religion he put itdown, and said: 'I am certain it was but a shadow, for there are agreat many about us, and of very strange kinds. ' Then they rode on insilence. It had been raining in the earlier part of the day, and thedrops fell from the branches, wetting their hair and their shoulders. In a little they began to talk again. They had been in many battlesagainst many a rebel together, and now told each other over again thestory of their wounds, and so awakened in their hearts the strongestof all fellowships, the fellowship of the sword, and half forgot theterrible solitude of the woods. 

Suddenly the first two horses neighed, and then stood still, andwould go no further. Before them was a glint of water, and they knewby the rushing sound that it was a river. They dismounted, and aftermuch tugging and coaxing brought the horses to the river-side. In themidst of the water stood a tall old woman with grey hair flowing overa grey dress. She stood up to her knees in the water, and stoopedfrom time to time as though washing. Presently they could see thatshe was washing something that half floated. The moon cast aflickering light upon it, and they saw that it was the dead body of aman, and, while they were looking at it, an eddy of the river turnedthe face towards them, and each of the five troopers recognised atthe same moment his own face. While they stood dumb and motionlesswith horror, the woman began to speak, saying slowly and loudly: 'Didyou see my son? He has a crown of silver on his head, and there arerubies in the crown. ' Then the oldest of the troopers, he who hadbeen most often wounded, drew his sword and cried: 'I have fought forthe truth of my God, and need not fear the shadows of Satan, ' andwith that rushed into the water. In a moment he returned. The womanhad vanished, and though he had thrust his sword into air and waterhe had found nothing. 

The five troopers remounted, and set their horses at the ford, butall to no purpose. They tried again and again, and went plunginghither and thither, the horses foaming and rearing. 'Let us, ' saidthe old trooper, 'ride back a little into the wood, and strike theriver higher up. ' They rode in under the boughs, the ground-ivycrackling under the hoofs, and the branches striking against theirsteel caps. After about twenty minutes' riding they came out againupon the river, and after another ten minutes found a place where itwas possible to cross without sinking below the stirrups. The woodupon the other side was very thin, and broke the moonlight into longstreams. The wind had arisen, and had begun to drive the cloudsrapidly across the face of the moon, so that thin streams of lightseemed to be dancing a grotesque dance among the scattered bushes andsmall fir-trees. The tops of the trees began also to moan, and thesound of it was like the voice of the dead in the wind; and thetroopers remembered the belief that tells how the dead in purgatoryare spitted upon the points of the trees and upon the points of therocks. They turned a little to the south, in the hope that they mightstrike the beaten path again, but they could find no trace of it. 

Meanwhile, the moaning grew louder and louder, and the dance of thewhite moon-fires more and more rapid. Gradually they began to beaware of a sound of distant music. It was the sound of a bagpipe, andthey rode towards it with great joy. It came from the bottom of adeep, cup-like hollow. In the midst of the hollow was an old man witha red cap and withered face. He sat beside a fire of sticks, and hada burning torch thrust into the earth at his feet, and played an oldbagpipe furiously. His red hair dripped over his face like the ironrust upon a rock. 'Did you see my wife?' he cried, looking up amoment; 'she was washing! she was washing!' 'I am afraid of him, 'said the young trooper, 'I fear he is one of the Sidhe. ' 'No, ' saidthe old trooper, 'he is a man, for I can see the sun-freckles uponhis face. We will compel him to be our guide'; and at that he drewhis sword, and the others did the same. They stood in a ring roundthe piper, and pointed their swords at him, and the old trooper thentold him that they must kill two rebels, who had taken the roadbetween Ben Bulben and the great mountain spur that is called Cashel-na-Gael, and that he must get up before one of them and be theirguide, for they had lost their way. The piper turned, and pointed toa neighbouring tree, and they saw an old white horse ready bitted, bridled, and saddled. He slung the pipe across his back, and, takingthe torch in his hand, got upon the horse, and started off beforethem, as hard as he could go. 

The wood grew thinner and thinner, and the ground began to slope uptoward the mountain. The moon had already set, and the little whiteflames of the stars had come out everywhere. The ground sloped moreand more until at last they rode far above the woods upon the widetop of the mountain. The woods lay spread out mile after mile below, and away to the south shot up the red glare of the burning town. Butbefore and above them were the little white flames. The guide drewrein suddenly, and pointing upwards with the hand that did not holdthe torch, shrieked out, 'Look; look at the holy candles!' and thenplunged forward at a gallop, waving the torch hither and thither. 'Doyou hear the hoofs of the messengers?' cried the guide. 'Quick, quick! or they will be gone out of your hands!' and he laughed aswith delight of the chase. The troopers thought they could hear faroff, and as if below them, rattle of hoofs; but now the ground beganto slope more and more, and the speed grew more headlong moment bymoment. They tried to pull up, but in vain, for the horses seemed tohave gone mad. The guide had thrown the reins on to the neck of theold white horse, and was waving his arms and singing a wild Gaelicsong. Suddenly they saw the thin gleam of a river, at an immensedistance below, and knew that they were upon the brink of the abyssthat is now called Lug-na-Gael, or in English the Stranger's Leap. The six horses sprang forward, and five screams went up into the air, a moment later five men and horses fell with a dull crash upon thegreen slopes at the foot of the rocks. 

THE OLD MEN OF THE TWILIGHT. 

At the place, close to the Dead Man's Point, at the Rosses, where thedisused pilot-house looks out to sea through two round windows likeeyes, a mud cottage stood in the last century. It also was awatchhouse, for a certain old Michael Bruen, who had been a smugglerin his day, and was still the father and grandfather of smugglers, lived there, and when, after nightfall, a tall schooner crept overthe bay from Roughley, it was his business to hang a horn lanthorn inthe southern window, that the news might travel to Dorren's Island, and from thence, by another horn lanthorn, to the village of theRosses. But for this glimmering of messages, he had little communionwith mankind, for he was very old, and had no thought for anythingbut for the making of his soul, at the foot of the Spanish crucifixof carved oak that hung by his chimney, or bent double over therosary of stone beads brought to him a cargo of silks and laces outof France. One night he had watched hour after hour, because a gentleand favourable wind was blowing, and _La Mere de Misericorde_was much overdue; and he was about to lie down upon his heap ofstraw, seeing that the dawn was whitening the east, and that theschooner would not dare to round Roughley and come to an anchor afterdaybreak; when he saw a long line of herons flying slowly fromDorren's Island and towards the pools which lie, half choked withreeds, behind what is called the Second Rosses. He had never beforeseen herons flying over the sea, for they are shore-keeping birds, and partly because this had startled him out of his drowsiness, andmore because the long delay of the schooner kept his cupboard empty, he took down his rusty shot-gun, of which the barrel was tied on witha piece of string, and followed them towards the pools. 

When he came close enough to hear the sighing of the rushes in theoutermost pool, the morning was grey over the world, so that the tallrushes, the still waters, the vague clouds, the thin mists lyingamong the sand-heaps, seemed carved out of an enormous pearl. In alittle he came upon the herons, of whom there were a great number, standing with lifted legs in the shallow water; and crouching downbehind a bank of rushes, looked to the priming of his gun, and bentfor a moment over his rosary to murmur: 'Patron Patrick, let me shoota heron; made into a pie it will support me for nearly four days, forI no longer eat as in my youth. If you keep me from missing I willsay a rosary to you every night until the pie is eaten. ' Then he laydown, and, resting his gun upon a large stone, turned towards a heronwhich stood upon a bank of smooth grass over a little stream thatflowed into the pool; for he feared to take the rheumatism by wading, as he would have to do if he shot one of those which stood in thewater. But when he looked along the barrel the heron was gone, and, to his wonder and terror, a man of infinitely great age and infirmitystood in its place. He lowered the gun, and the heron stood therewith bent head and motionless feathers, as though it had slept fromthe beginning of the world. He raised the gun, and no sooner did helook along the iron than that enemy of all enchantment brought theold man again before him, only to vanish when he lowered the gun forthe second time. He laid the gun down, and crossed himself threetimes, and said a _Paternoster_ and an _Ave Maria_, andmuttered half aloud: 'Some enemy of God and of my patron is standingupon the smooth place and fishing in the blessed water, ' and thenaimed very carefully and slowly. He fired, and when the smoke hadgone saw an old man, huddled upon the grass and a long line of heronsflying with clamour towards the sea. He went round a bend of thepool, and coming to the little stream looked down on a figure wrappedin faded clothes of black and green of an ancient pattern and spottedwith blood. He shook his head at the sight of so great a wickedness. Suddenly the clothes moved and an arm was stretched upwards towardsthe rosary which hung about his neck, and long wasted fingers almosttouched the cross. He started back, crying: 'Wizard, I will let nowicked thing touch my blessed beads'; and the sense of a The Oldgreat danger just escaped made him tremble. 

'If you listen to me, ' replied a voice so faint that it was like asigh, 'you will know that I am not a wizard, and you will let me kissthe cross before I die. '

'I will listen to you, ' he answered, 'but I will not let you touch myblessed beads, ' and sitting on the grass a little way from the dyingman, he reloaded his gun and laid it across his knees and composedhimself to listen. 

'I know not how many generations ago we, who are now herons, were themen of learning of the King Leaghaire; we neither hunted, nor went tobattle, nor listened to the Druids preaching, and even love, if itcame to us at all, was but a passing fire. The Druids and the poetstold us, many and many a time, of a new Druid Patrick; and most amongthem were fierce against him, while a few thought his doctrine merelythe doctrine of the gods set out in new symbols, and were for givinghim welcome; but we yawned in the midst of their tale. At last theycame crying that he was coming to the king's house, and fell to theirdispute, but we would listen to neither party, for we were busy witha dispute about the merits of the Great and of the Little Metre; norwere we disturbed when they passed our door with sticks ofenchantment under their arms, travelling towards the forest tocontend against his coming, nor when they returned after nightfallwith torn robes and despairing cries; for the click of our kniveswriting our thoughts in Ogham filled us with peace and our disputefilled us with joy; nor even when in the morning crowds passed us tohear the strange Druid preaching the commandments of his god. Thecrowds passed, and one, who had laid down his knife to yawn andstretch himself, heard a voice speaking far off, and knew that theDruid Patrick was preaching within the king's house; but our heartswere deaf, and we carved and disputed and read, and laughed a thinlaughter together. In a little we heard many feet coming towards thehouse, and presently two tall figures stood in the door, the one inwhite, the other in a crimson robe; like a great lily and a heavypoppy; and we knew the Druid Patrick and our King Leaghaire. We laiddown the slender knives and bowed before the king, but when the blackand green robes had ceased to rustle, it was not the loud rough voiceof King Leaghaire that spoke to us, but a strange voice in whichthere was a rapture as of one speaking from behind a battlement ofDruid flame: "I preached the commandments of the Maker of the world, "it said; "within the king's house and from the centre of the earth tothe windows of Heaven there was a great silence, so that the eaglefloated with unmoving wings in the white air, and the fish withunmoving fins in the dim water, while the linnets and the wrens andthe sparrows stilled there ever-trembling tongues in the heavyboughs, and the clouds were like white marble, and the rivers becametheir motionless mirrors, and the shrimps in the far-off sea-poolswere still enduring eternity in patience, although it was hard. " Andas he named these things, it was like a king numbering his people. "But your slender knives went click, click! upon the oaken staves, and, all else being silent, the sound shook the angels with anger. O, little roots, nipped by the winter, who do not awake although thesummer pass above you with innumerable feet. O, men who have no partin love, who have no part in song, who have no part in wisdom, butdwell with the shadows of memory where the feet of angels cannottouch you as they pass over your heads, where the hair of demonscannot sweep about you as they pass under your feet, I lay upon you acurse, and change you to an example for ever and ever; you shallbecome grey herons and stand pondering in grey pools and flit overthe world in that hour when it is most full of sighs, havingforgotten the flame of the stars and not yet found the flame of thesun; and you shall preach to the other herons until they also arelike you, and are an example for ever and ever; and your deaths shallcome to you by chance and unforeseen, that no fire of certainty mayvisit your hearts. "'

The voice of the old man of learning became still, but the voteenbent over his gun with his eyes upon the ground, trying in vain tounderstand something of this tale; and he had so bent, it may be fora long time, had not a tug at his rosary made him start out of hisdream. The old man of learning had crawled along the grass, and wasnow trying to draw the cross down low enough for his lips to reachit. 

'You must not touch my blessed beads, cried the voteen, and struckthe long withered fingers with the barrel of his gun. He need nothave trembled, for the old man fell back upon the grass with a sighand was still. He bent down and began to consider the black and greenclothes, for his fear had begun to pass away when he came tounderstand that he had something the man of learning wanted andpleaded for, and now that the blessed beads were safe, his fear hadnearly all gone; and surely, he thought, if that big cloak, and thatlittle tight-fitting cloak under it, were warm and without holes, Saint Patrick would take the enchantment out of them and leave themfit for human use. But the black and green clothes fell away whereverhis fingers touched them, and while this was a new wonder, a slightwind blew over the pool and crumbled the old man of learning and allhis ancient gear into a little heap of dust, and then made the littleheap less and less until there was nothing but the smooth greengrass. 

WHERE THERE IS NOTHING, THERE IS GOD. 

The little wicker houses at Tullagh, where the Brothers wereaccustomed to pray, or bend over many handicrafts, when twilight haddriven them from the fields, were empty, for the hardness of thewinter had brought the brotherhood together in the little woodenhouse under the shadow of the wooden chapel; and Abbot Malathgeneus, Brother Dove, Brother Bald Fox, Brother Peter, Brother Patrick, Brother Bittern, Brother Fair-Brows, and many too young to have wonnames in the great battle, sat about the fire with ruddy faces, onemending lines to lay in the river for eels, one fashioning a snarefor birds, one mending the broken handle of a spade, one writing in alarge book, and one shaping a jewelled box to hold the book; andamong the rushes at their feet lay the scholars, who would one day beBrothers, and whose school-house it was, and for the succour of whosetender years the great fire was supposed to leap and flicker. One ofthese, a child of eight or nine years, called Olioll, lay upon hisback looking up through the hole in the roof, through which the smokewent, and watching the stars appearing and disappearing in the smokewith mild eyes, like the eyes of a beast of the field. He turnedpresently to the Brother who wrote in the big book, and whose dutywas to teach the children, and said, 'Brother Dove, to what are thestars fastened?' The Brother, rejoicing to see so much curiosity inthe stupidest of his scholars, laid down the pen and said, 'There arenine crystalline spheres, and on the first the Moon is fastened, onthe second the planet Mercury, on the third the planet Venus, on thefourth the Sun, on the fifth the planet Mars, on the sixth the planetJupiter, on the seventh the planet Saturn; these are the wanderingstars; and on the eighth are fastened the fixed stars; but the ninthsphere is a sphere of the substance on which the breath of God movedin the beginning. '

'What is beyond that?' said the child. 'There is nothing beyond that;there is God. '

And then the child's eyes strayed to the jewelled box, where onegreat ruby was gleaming in the light of the fire, and he said, 'Whyhas Brother Peter put a great ruby on the side of the box?'

'The ruby is a symbol of the love of God. '

'Why is the ruby a symbol of the love of God?'

'Because it is red, like fire, and fire burns up everything, andwhere there is nothing, there is God. '

The child sank into silence, but presently sat up and said, 'There issomebody outside. '

'No, ' replied the Brother. 'It is only the wolves; I have heard themmoving about in the snow for some time. They are growing very wild, now that the winter drives them from the mountains. They broke into afold last night and carried off many sheep, and if we are not carefulthey will devour everything. '

'No, it is the footstep of a man, for it is heavy; but I can hear thefootsteps of the wolves also. '

He had no sooner done speaking than somebody rapped three times, butwith no great loudness. 

'I will go and open, for he must be very cold. '

'Do not open, for it may be a man-wolf, and he may devour us all. '

But the boy had already drawn back the heavy wooden bolt, and all thefaces, most of them a little pale, turned towards the slowly-openingdoor. 

'He has beads and a cross, he cannot be a man-wolf, ' said the child, as a man with the snow heavy on his long, ragged beard, and on thematted hair, that fell over his shoulders and nearly to his waist, and dropping from the tattered cloak that but half-covered hiswithered brown body, came in and looked from face to face with mild, ecstatic eyes. Standing some way from the fire, and with eyes thathad rested at last upon the Abbot Malathgeneus, he cried out, 'Oblessed abbot, let me come to the fire and warm myself and dry thesnow from my beard and my hair and my cloak; that I may not die ofthe cold of the mountains, and anger the Lord with a wilfulmartyrdom. '

'Come to the fire, ' said the abbot, 'and warm yourself, and eat thefood the boy Olioll will bring you. It is sad indeed that any forwhom Christ has died should be as poor as you. '

The man sat over the fire, and Olioll took away his now drippingcloak and laid meat and bread and wine before him; but he would eatonly of the bread, and he put away the wine, asking for water. Whenhis beard and hair had begun to dry a little and his limbs had ceasedto shiver with the cold, he spoke again. 

'O blessed abbot, have pity on the poor, have pity on a beggar whohas trodden the bare world this many a year, and give me some labourto do, the hardest there is, for I am the poorest of God's poor. '

Then the Brothers discussed together what work they could put him to, and at first to little purpose, for there was no labour that had notfound its labourer in that busy community; but at last one rememberedthat Brother Bald Fox, whose business it was to turn the great quernin the quern-house, for he was too stupid for anything else, wasgetting old for so heavy a labour; and so the beggar was put to thequern from the morrow. 

The cold passed away, and the spring grew to summer, and the quernwas never idle, nor was it turned with grudging labour, for when anypassed the beggar was heard singing as he drove the handle round. Thelast gloom, too, had passed from that happy community, for Olioll, who had always been stupid and unteachable, grew clever, and this wasthe more miraculous because it had come of a sudden. One day he hadbeen even duller than usual, and was beaten and told to know hislesson better on the morrow or be sent into a lower class amonglittle boys who would make a joke of him. He had gone out in tears, and when he came the next day, although his stupidity, born of a mindthat would listen to every wandering sound and brood upon everywandering light, had so long been the byword of the school, he knewhis lesson so well that he passed to the head of the class, and fromthat day was the best of scholars. At first Brother Dove thought thiswas an answer to his own prayers to the Virgin, and took it for agreat proof of the love she bore him; but when many far more fervidprayers had failed to add a single wheatsheaf to the harvest, hebegan to think that the child was trafficking with bards, or druids, or witches, and resolved to follow and watch. He had told his thoughtto the abbot, who bid him come to him the moment he hit the truth;and the next day, which was a Sunday, he stood in the path when theabbot and the Brothers were coming from vespers, with their whitehabits upon them, and took the abbot by the habit and said, 'Thebeggar is of the greatest of saints and of the workers of miracle. Ifollowed Olioll but now, and by his slow steps and his bent head Isaw that the weariness of his stupidity was over him, and when hecame to the little wood by the quern-house I knew by the path brokenin the under-wood and by the footmarks in the muddy places that hehad gone that way many times. I hid behind a bush where the pathdoubled upon itself at a sloping place, and understood by the tearsin his eyes that his stupidity was too old and his wisdom too new tosave him from terror of the rod. When he was in the quern-house Iwent to the window and looked in, and the birds came down and perchedupon my head and my shoulders, for they are not timid in that holyplace; and a wolf passed by, his right side shaking my habit, hisleft the leaves of a bush. Olioll opened his book and turned to thepage I had told him to learn, and began to cry, and the beggar satbeside him and comforted him until he fell asleep. When his sleep wasof the deepest the beggar knelt down and prayed aloud, and said, "OThou Who dwellest beyond the stars, show forth Thy power as at thebeginning, and let knowledge sent from Thee awaken in his mind, wherein is nothing from the world, that the nine orders of angels mayglorify Thy name"; and then a light broke out of the air and wrappedAodh, and I smelt the breath of roses. I stirred a little in mywonder, and the beggar turned and saw me, and, bending low, said, "OBrother Dove, if I have done wrong, forgive me, and I will dopenance. It was my pity moved me"; but I was afraid and I ran away, and did not stop running until I came here. ' Then all the Brothersbegan talking together, one saying it was such and such a saint, andone that it was not he but another; and one that it was none ofthese, for they were still in their brotherhoods, but that it wassuch and such a one; and the talk was as near to quarreling as mightbe in that gentle community, for each would claim so great a saintfor his native province. At last the abbot said, 'He is none that youhave named, for at Easter I had greeting from all, and each was inhis brotherhood; but he is Aengus the Lover of God, and the first ofthose who have gone to live in the wild places and among the wildbeasts. Ten years ago he felt the burden of many labours in abrotherhood under the Hill of Patrick and went into the forest thathe might labour only with song to the Lord; but the fame of hisholiness brought many thousands to his cell, so that a little prideclung to a soul from which all else had been driven. Nine years agohe dressed himself in rags, and from that day none has seen him, unless, indeed, it be true that he has been seen living among thewolves on the mountains and eating the grass of the fields. Let us goto him and bow down before him; for at last, after long seeking, hehas found the nothing that is God; and bid him lead us in the pathwayhe has trodden. '

They passed in their white habits along the beaten path in the wood, the acolytes swinging their censers before them, and the abbot, withhis crozier studded with precious stones, in the midst of theincense; and came before the quern-house and knelt down and began topray, awaiting the moment when the child would wake, and the Saintcease from his watch and come to look at the sun going down into theunknown darkness, as his way was. 

OF COSTELLO THE PROUD, OF OONA THE DAUGHTER OF DERMOTT, AND OF THEBITTER TONGUE. 

Costello had come up from the fields and lay upon the ground beforethe door of his square tower, resting his head upon his hands andlooking at the sunset, and considering the chances of the weather. Though the customs of Elizabeth and James, now going out of fashionin England, had begun to prevail among the gentry, he still wore thegreat cloak of the native Irish; and the sensitive outlines of hisface and the greatness of his indolent body had a commingling ofpride and strength which belonged to a simpler age. His eyes wanderedfrom the sunset to where the long white road lost itself over thesouth-western horizon and to a horseman who toiled slowly up thehill. A few more minutes and the horseman was near enough for hislittle and shapeless body, his long Irish cloak, and the dilapidatedbagpipes hanging from his shoulders, and the rough-haired garronunder him, to be seen distinctly in the grey dusk. So soon as he hadcome within earshot, he began crying: 'Is it sleeping you are, TumausCostello, when better men break their hearts on the great whiteroads? Get up out of that, proud Tumaus, for I have news! Get up outof that, you great omadhaun! Shake yourself out of the earth, yougreat weed of a man!'

Costello had risen to his feet, and as the piper came up to himseized him by the neck of his jacket, and lifting him out of hissaddle threw him on to the ground. 

'Let me alone, let me alone, ' said the other, but Costello stillshook him. 

'I have news from Dermott's daughter, Winny, ' The great fingers wereloosened, and the piper rose gasping. 

'Why did you not tell me, ' said Costello, that you came from her? Youmight have railed your fill. '

'I have come from her, but I will not speak unless I am paid for myshaking. '

Costello fumbled at the bag in which he carried his money, and it wassome time before it would open, for the hand that had overcome manymen shook with fear and hope. 'Here is all the money in my bag, ' hesaid, dropping a stream of French and Spanish money into the hand ofthe piper, who bit the coins before he would answer. 

'That is right, that is a fair price, but I will not speak till Ihave good protection, for if the Dermotts lay their hands upon me inany boreen after sundown, or in Cool-a-vin by day, I will be left torot among the nettles of a ditch, or hung on the great sycamore, where they hung the horse-thieves last Beltaine four years. ' Andwhile he spoke he tied the reins of his garron to a bar of rusty ironthat was mortared into the wall. 

'I will make you my piper and my bodyservant, ' said Costello, 'and noman dare lay hands upon the man, or the goat, or the horse, or thedog that is Tumaus Costello's. '

'And I will only tell my message, ' said the other, flinging thesaddle on the ground, 'in the corner of the chimney with a noggin inmy hand, and a jug of the Brew of the Little Pot beside me, forthough I am ragged and empty, my forbears were well clothed and fulluntil their house was burnt and their cattle harried seven centuriesago by the Dillons, whom I shall yet see on the hob of hell, and theyscreeching'; and while he spoke the little eyes gleamed and the thinhands clenched. 

Costello led him into the great rush-strewn hall, where were none ofthe comforts which had begun to grow common among the gentry, but afeudal gauntness and bareness, and pointed to the bench in the greatchimney; and when he had sat down, filled up a horn noggin and set iton the bench beside him, and set a great black jack of leather besidethe noggin, and lit a torch that slanted out from a ring in the wall, his hands trembling the while; and then turned towards him and said:'Will Dermott's daughter come to me, Duallach, son of Daly?'

'Dermott's daughter will not come to you, for her father has setwomen to watch her, but she bid me tell you that this day sennightwill be the eve of St. John and the night of her betrothal to Namaraof the Lake, and she would have you there that, when they bid herdrink to him she loves best, as the way is, she may drink to you, Tumaus Costello, and let all know where her heart is, and how littleof gladness is in her marriage; and I myself bid you go with good menabout you, for I saw the horse-thieves with my own eyes, and theydancing the "Blue Pigeon" in the air. ' And then he held the now emptynoggin towards Costello, his hand closing round it like the claw of abird, and cried: 'Fill my noggin again, for I would the day had comewhen all the water in the world is to shrink into a periwinkle-shell, that I might drink nothing but Poteen. '

Finding that Costello made no reply, but sat in a dream, he burstout: 'Fill my noggin, I tell you, for no Costello is so great in theworld that he should not wait upon a Daly, even though the Dalytravel the road with his pipes and the Costello have a bare hill, anempty house, a horse, a herd of goats, and a handful of cows. ''Praise the Dalys if you will, ' said Costello as he filled thenoggin, 'for you have brought me a kind word from my love. '

For the next few days Duallach went hither and thither trying toraise a bodyguard, and every man he met had some story of Costello, how he killed the wrestler when but a boy by so straining at the beltthat went about them both that he broke the big wrestler's back; howwhen somewhat older he dragged fierce horses through a ford in theUnchion for a wager; how when he came to manhood he broke the steelhorseshoe in Mayo; how he drove many men before him through RushyMeadow at Drum-an-air because of a malevolent song they had about hispoverty; and of many another deed of his strength and pride; but hecould find none who would trust themselves with any so passionate andpoor in a quarrel with careful and wealthy persons like Dermott ofthe Sheep and Namara of the Lake. 

Then Costello went out himself, and after listening to many excusesand in many places, brought in a big half-witted fellow, who followedhim like a dog, a farm-labourer who worshipped him for his strength, a fat farmer whose forefathers had served his family, and a couple oflads who looked after his goats and cows; and marshalled them beforethe fire in the empty hall. They had brought with them their stoutcudgels, and Costello gave them an old pistol apiece, and kept themall night drinking Spanish ale and shooting at a white turnip whichhe pinned against the wall with a skewer. Duallach of the pipes saton the bench in the chimney playing 'The Green Bunch of Rushes', 'TheUnchion Stream, ' and 'The Princes of Breffeny' on his old pipes, andrailing now at the appearance of the shooters, now at their clumsyshooting, and now at Costello because he had no better servants. Thelabourer, the half-witted fellow, the farmer and the lads were allwell accustomed to Duallach's railing, for it was as inseparable fromwake or wedding as the squealing of his pipes, but they wondered atthe forbearance of Costello, who seldom came either to wake orwedding, and if he had would scarce have been patient with a scoldingpiper. 

On the next evening they set out for Cool-a-vin, Costello riding atolerable horse and carrying a sword, the others upon rough-hairedgarrons, and with their stout cudgels under their arms. As they rodeover the bogs and in the boreens among the hills they could see fireanswering fire from hill to hill, from horizon to horizon, andeverywhere groups who danced in the red light on the turf, celebrating the bridal of life and fire. When they came to Dermott'shouse they saw before the door an unusually large group of the verypoor, dancing about a fire, in the midst of which was a blazingcartwheel, that circular dance which is so ancient that the gods, long dwindled to be but fairies, dance no other in their secretplaces. From the door and through the long loop-holes on either sidecame the pale light of candles and the sound of many feet dancing adance of Elizabeth and James. 

They tied their horses to bushes, for the number so tied alreadyshowed that the stables were full, and shoved their way through acrowd of peasants who stood about the door, and went into the greathall where the dance was. The labourer, the half-witted fellow, thefarmer and the two lads mixed with a group of servants who werelooking on from an alcove, and Duallach sat with the pipers on theirbench, but Costello made his way through the dancers to where Dermottof the Sheep stood with Namara of the Lake pouring Poteen out of aporcelain jug into horn noggins with silver rims. 

'Tumaus Costello, ' said the old man, 'you have done a good deed toforget what has been, and to fling away enmity and come to thebetrothal of my daughter to Namara of the Lake. '

'I come, ' answered Costello, 'because when in the time of Costello DeAngalo my forbears overcame your forbears and afterwards made peace, a compact was made that a Costello might go with his body-servantsand his piper to every feast given by a Dermott for ever, and aDermott with his body-servants and his piper to every feast given bya Costello for ever. '

'If you come with evil thoughts and armed men, ' said the son ofDermott flushing, ' no matter how strong your hands to wrestle and toswing the sword, it shall go badly with you, for some of my wife'sclan have come out of Mayo, and my three brothers and their servantshave come down from the Ox Mountains'; and while he spoke he kept hishand inside his coat as though upon the handle of a weapon. 

'No, ' answered Costello, 'I but come to dance a farewell dance withyour daughter. '

Dermott drew his hand out of his coat and went over to a tall palegirl who was now standing but a little way off with her mild eyesfixed upon the ground. 

'Costello has come to dance a farewell dance, for he knows that youwill never see one another again. '

The girl lifted her eyes and gazed at Costello, and in her gaze wasthat trust of the humble in the proud, the gentle in the violent, which has been the tragedy of woman from the beginning. Costello ledher among the dancers, and they were soon drawn into the rhythm ofthe Pavane, that stately dance which, with the Saraband, the Gallead, and the Morrice dances, had driven out, among all but the most Irishof the gentry, the quicker rhythms of the verse-interwoven, pantomimic dances of earlier days; and while they danced there cameover them the unutterable melancholy, the weariness with the world, the poignant and bitter pity for one another, the vague anger againstcommon hopes and fears, which is the exultation of love. And when adance ended and the pipers laid down their pipes and lifted theirhorn noggins, they stood a little from the others waiting pensivelyand silently for the dance to begin again and the fire in theirhearts to leap up and to wrap them anew; and so they danced anddanced Pavane and Saraband and Gallead and Morrice through the nightlong, and many stood still to watch them, and the peasants came aboutthe door and peered in, as though they understood that they wouldgather their children's children about them long hence, and tell howthey had seen Costello dance with Dermott's daughter Oona, and becomeby the telling themselves a portion of ancient romance; but throughall the dancing and piping Namara of the Lake went hither and thithertalking loudly and making foolish jokes that all might seem well withhim, and old Dermott of the Sheep grew redder and redder, and lookedoftener and oftener at the doorway to see if the candles there grewyellow in the dawn. 

At last he saw that the moment to end had come, and, in a pause aftera dance, cried out from where the horn noggins stood that hisdaughter would now drink the cup of betrothal; then Oona came over towhere he was, and the guests stood round in a half-circle, Costelloclose to the wall to the right, and the piper, the labourer, thefarmer, the half-witted man and the two farm lads close behind him. The old man took out of a niche in the wall the silver cup from whichher mother and her mother's mother had drunk the toasts of theirbetrothals, and poured Poteen out of a porcelain jug and handed thecup to his daughter with the customary words, 'Drink to him whom youlove the best. '

She held the cup to her lips for a moment, and then said in a clearsoft voice: 'I drink to my true love, Tumaus Costello. '

And then the cup rolled over and over on the ground, ringing like abell, for the old man had struck her in the face and the cup hadfallen, and there was a deep silence. 

There were many of Namara's people among the servants now come out ofthe alcove, and one of them, a story-teller and poet, a last remnantof the bardic order, who had a chair and a platter in Namara'skitchen, drew a French knife out of his girdle and made as though hewould strike at Costello, but in a moment a blow had hurled him tothe ground, his shoulder sending the cup rolling and ringing again. The click of steel had followed quickly, had not there come amuttering and shouting from the peasants about the door and fromthose crowding up behind them; and all knew that these were nochildren of Queen's Irish or friendly Namaras and Dermotts, but ofthe wild Irish about Lough Gara and Lough Cara, who rowed their skincoracles, and had masses of hair over their eyes, and left the rightarms of their children unchristened that they might give the stouterblows, and swore only by St. Atty and sun and moon, and worshippedbeauty and strength more than St. Atty or sun and moon. 

Costello's hand had rested upon the handle of his sword and hisknuckles had grown white, but now he drew it away, and, followed bythose who were with him, strode towards the door, the dancers givingway before him, the most angrily and slowly, and with glances at themuttering and shouting peasants, but some gladly and quickly, becausethe glory of his fame was over him. He passed through the fierce andfriendly peasant faces, and came where his good horse and the rough-haired garrons were tied to bushes; and mounted and bade his ungainlybodyguard mount also and ride into the narrow boreen. When they hadgone a little way, Duallach, who rode last, turned towards the housewhere a little group of Dermotts and Namaras stood next to a morenumerous group of countrymen, and cried: 'Dermott, you deserve to beas you are this hour, a lantern without a candle, a purse without apenny, a sheep without wool, for your hand was ever niggardly topiper and fiddler and story-teller and to poor travelling people. ' Hehad not done before the three old Dermotts from the Ox Mountains hadrun towards their horses, and old Dermott himself had caught thebridle of a garron of the Namaras and was calling to the others tofollow him; and many blows and many deaths had been had not thecountrymen caught up still glowing sticks from the ashes of the firesand hurled them among the horses with loud cries, making all plungeand rear, and some break from those who held them, the whites oftheir eyes gleaming in the dawn. 

For the next few weeks Costello had no lack of news of Oona, for nowa woman selling eggs or fowls, and now a man or a woman on pilgrimageto the Well of the Rocks, would tell him how his love had fallen illthe day after St. John's Eve, and how she was a little better or alittle worse, as it might be; and though he looked to his horses andhis cows and goats as usual, the common and uncomely, the dust uponthe roads, the songs of men returning from fairs and wakes, menplaying cards in the corners of fields on Sundays and Saints' Days, the rumours of battles and changes in the great world, the deliberatepurposes of those about him, troubled him with an inexplicabletrouble; and the country people still remember how when night hadfallen he would bid Duallach of the Pipes tell, to the chirping ofthe crickets, 'The Son of Apple, ' 'The Beauty of the World, ' 'TheKing of Ireland's Son, ' or some other of those traditional taleswhich were as much a piper's business as 'The Green Bunch of Rushes, ''The Unchion Stream, ' or 'The Chiefs of Breffeny'; and while theboundless and phantasmal world of the legends was a-building, wouldabandon himself to the dreams of his sorrow. 

Duallach would often pause to tell how some clan of the wild Irishhad descended from an incomparable King of the Blue Belt, or Warriorof the Ozier Wattle, or to tell with many curses how all thestrangers and most of the Queen's Irish were the seed of themisshapen and horned People from Under the Sea or of the servile andcreeping Ferbolg; but Costello cared only for the love sorrows, andno matter whither the stories wandered, whether to the Isle of theRed Lough, where the blessed are, or to the malign country of the Hagof the East, Oona alone endured their shadowy hardships; for it wasshe and no king's daughter of old who was hidden in the steel towerunder the water with the folds of the Worm of Nine Eyes round andabout her prison; and it was she who won by seven years of servicethe right to deliver from hell all she could carry, and carried awaymultitudes clinging with worn fingers to the hem of her dress; and itwas she who endured dumbness for a year because of the little thornof enchantment the fairies had thrust into her tongue; and it was alock of her hair, coiled in a little carved box, which gave so greata light that men threshed by it from sundown to sunrise, and awoke sogreat a wonder that kings spent years in wandering or fell beforeunknown armies in seeking to discover her hiding-place; for there wasno beauty in the world but hers, no tragedy in the world but hers:and when at last the voice of the piper, grown gentle with the wisdomof old romance, was silent, and his rheumatic steps had toiledupstairs and to bed, and Costello had dipped his fingers into thelittle delf font of holy water and begun to pray to Mary of the SevenSorrows, the blue eyes and star-covered dress of the painting in thechapel faded from his imagination, and the brown eyes and homespundress of Dermott's daughter Winny came in their stead; for there wasno tenderness in the passion who keep their hearts pure for love orfor hatred as other men for God, for Mary and for the Saints, andwho, when the hour of their visitation arrives, come to the DivineEssence by the bitter tumult, the Garden of Gethsemane, and thedesolate Rood ordained for immortal passions in mortal hearts. 

One day a serving-man rode up to Costello, who was helping his twolads to reap a meadow, and gave him a letter, and rode away without aword; and the letter contained these words in English: 'TumausCostello, my daughter is very ill. The wise woman from Knock-na-Sidhehas seen her, and says she will die unless you come to her. Itherefore bid you come to her whose peace you stole by treachery. -DERMOTT, THE SON OF DERMOTT. '

Costello threw down his scythe, and sent one of the lads forDuallach, who had become woven into his mind with Oona, and himselfsaddled his great horse and Duallach's garron. 

When they came to Dermott's house it was late afternoon, and LoughGara lay down below them, blue, mirror-like, and deserted; and thoughthey had seen, when at a distance, dark figures moving about thedoor, the house appeared not less deserted than the Lough. The doorstood half open, and Costello knocked upon it again and again, sothat a number of lake gulls flew up out of the grass and circledscreaming over his head, but there was no answer. 

'There is no one here, ' said Duallach, 'for Dermott of the Sheep istoo proud to welcome Costello the Proud, ' and he threw the door open, and they saw a ragged, dirty, very old woman, who sat upon the floorleaning against the wall. Costello knew that it was Bridget Delaney, a deaf and dumb beggar; and she, when she saw him, stood up and madea sign to him to follow, and led him and his companion up a stair anddown a long corridor to a closed door. She pushed the door open andwent a little way off and sat down as before; Duallach sat upon theground also, but close to the door, and Costello went and gazed uponWinny sleeping upon a bed. He sat upon a chair beside her and waited, and a long time passed and still she slept on, and then Duallachmotioned to him through the door to wake her, but he hushed his verybreath, that she might sleep on, for his heart was full of thatungovernable pity which makes the fading heart of the lover a shadowof the divine heart. Presently he turned to Duallach and said: 'It isnot right that I stay here where there are none of her kindred, forthe common people are always ready to blame the beautiful. ' And thenthey went down and stood at the door of the house and waited, but theevening wore on and no one came. 

'It was a foolish man that called you Proud Costello, ' Duallach criedat last; 'had he seen you waiting and waiting where they left nonebut a beggar to welcome you, it is Humble Costello he would havecalled you. '

Then Costello mounted and Duallach mounted, but when they had riddena little way Costello tightened the reins and made his horse standstill. Many minutes passed, and then Duallach cried: 'It is no wonderthat you fear to offend Dermott of the Sheep, for he has manybrothers and friends, and though he is old, he is a strong man andready with his hands, and he is of the Queen's Irish, and the enemiesof the Gael are upon his side. '

And Costello answered flushing and looking towards the house: 'Iswear by the Mother of God that I will never return there again ifthey do not send after me before I pass the ford in the Brown River, 'and he rode on, but so very slowly that the sun went down and thebats began to fly over the bogs. When he came to the river helingered awhile upon the bank among the flowers of the flag, butpresently rode out into the middle and stopped his horse in a foamingshallow. Duallach, however, crossed over and waited on a further bankabove a deeper place. After a good while Duallach cried out again, and this time very bitterly: 'It was a fool who begot you and a foolwho bore you, and they are fools of all fools who say you come of anold and noble stock, for you come of whey-faced beggars who travelledfrom door to door, bowing to gentles and to serving-men. 

With bent head, Costello rode through the river and stood beside him, and would have spoken had not hoofs clattered on the further bank anda horseman splashed towards them. It was a serving-man of Dermott's, and he said, speaking breathlessly like one who had ridden hard:'Tumaus Costello, I come to bid you again to Dermott's house. Whenyou had gone, his daughter Winny awoke and called your name, for youhad been in her dreams. Bridget Delaney the Dummy saw her lips moveand the trouble upon her, and came where we were hiding in the woodabove the house and took Dermott of the Sheep by the coat and broughthim to his daughter. He saw the trouble upon her, and bid me ride hisown horse to bring you the quicker. '

Then Costello turned towards the piper Duallach Daly, and taking himabout the waist lifted him out of the saddle and hurled him against agrey rock that rose up out of the river, so that he fell lifelessinto the deep place, and the waters swept over the tongue which Godhad made bitter, that there might be a story in men's ears in aftertime. Then plunging his spurs into the horse, he rode away furiouslytoward the north-west, along the edge of the river, and did not pauseuntil he came to another and smoother ford, and saw the rising moonmirrored in the water. He paused for a moment irresolute, and thenrode into the ford and on over the Ox Mountains, and down towards thesea; his eyes almost continually resting upon the moon whichglimmered in the dimness like a great white rose hung on the latticeof some boundless and phantasmal world. But now his horse, long darkwith sweat and breathing hard, for he kept spurring it to an extremespeed, fell heavily, hurling him into the grass at the roadside. Hetried to make it stand up, and failing in this, went on alone towardsthe moonlight; and came to the sea and saw a schooner lying there atanchor. Now that he could go no further because of the sea, he foundthat he was very tired and the night very cold, and went into ashebeen close to the shore and threw himself down upon a bench. Theroom was full of Spanish and Irish sailors who had just smuggled acargo of wine and ale, and were waiting a favourable wind to set outagain. A Spaniard offered him a drink in bad Gaelic. He drank itgreedily and began talking wildly and rapidly. 

For some three weeks the wind blew inshore or with too greatviolence, and the sailors stayed drinking and talking and playingcards, and Costello stayed with them, sleeping upon a bench in theshebeen, and drinking and talking and playing more than any. He soonlost what little money he had, and then his horse, which some one hadbrought from the mountain boreen, to a Spaniard, who sold it to afarmer from the mountains, and then his long cloak and his spurs andhis boots of soft leather. At last a gentle wind blew towards Spain, and the crew rowed out to their schooner, singing Gaelic and Spanishsongs, and lifted the anchor, and in a little while the white sailshad dropped under the horizon. Then Costello turned homeward, hislife gaping before him, and walked all day, coming in the earlyevening to the road that went from near Lough Gara to the southernedge of Lough Cay. Here he overtook a great crowd of peasants andfarmers, who were walking very slowly after two priests and a groupof well-dressed persons, certain of whom were carrying a coffin. Hestopped an old man and asked whose burying it was and whose peoplethey were, and the old man answered: 'It is the burying of Oona, Dermott's daughter, and we are the Namaras and the Dermotts and theirfollowing, and you are Tumaus Costello who murdered her. '

Costello went on towards the head of the procession, passing men wholooked at him with fierce eyes and only vaguely understanding what hehad heard, for now that he had lost the understanding that belongs togood health, it seemed impossible that a gentleness and a beautywhich had been so long the world's heart could pass away. Presentlyhe stopped and asked again whose burying it was, and a man answered:'We are carrying Dermott's daughter Winny whom you murdered, to beburied in the island of the Holy Trinity, ' and the man stooped andpicked up a stone and cast it at Costello, striking him on the cheekand making the blood flow out over his face. Costello went onscarcely feeling the blow, and coming to those about the coffin, shouldered his way into the midst of them, and laying his hand uponthe coffin, asked in a loud voice: 'Who is in this coffin?'

The three Old Dermotts from the Ox Mountains caught up stones and bidthose about them do the same; and he was driven from the road, covered with wounds, and but for the priests would surely have beenkilled. 

When the procession had passed on, Costello began to follow again, and saw from a distance the coffin laid upon a large boat, and thoseabout it get into other boats, and the boats move slowly over thewater to Insula Trinitatis; and after a time he saw the boats returnand their passengers mingle with the crowd upon the bank, and alldisperse by many roads and boreens. It seemed to him that Winny wassomewhere on the island smiling gently as of old, and when all hadgone he swam in the way the boats had been rowed and found the new-made grave beside the ruined Abbey of the Holy Trinity, and threwhimself upon it, calling to Oona to come to him. Above him the squareivy leaves trembled, and all about him white moths moved over whiteflowers, and sweet odours drifted through the dim air. 

He lay there all that night and through the day after, from time totime calling her to come to him, but when the third night came he hadforgotten, worn out with hunger and sorrow, that her body lay in theearth beneath; but only knew she was somewhere near and would notcome to him. 

Just before dawn, the hour when the peasants hear his ghostly voicecrying out, his pride awoke and he called loudly: 'Winny, daughter ofDermott of the Sheep, if you do not come to me I will go and neverreturn to the island of the Holy Trinity, ' and before his voice haddied away a cold and whirling wind had swept over the island and hesaw many figures rushing past, women of the Sidhe with crowns ofsilver and dim floating drapery; and then Oona, but no longer smilinggently, for she passed him swiftly and angrily, and as she passedstruck him upon the face crying: 'Then go and never return. '

He would have followed, and was calling out her name, when the wholeglimmering company rose up into the air, and, rushing together in theshape of a great silvery rose, faded into the ashen dawn. 

Costello got up from the grave, understanding nothing but that he hadmade his beloved angry and that she wished him to go, and wading outinto the lake, began to swim. He swam on and on, but his limbs weretoo weary to keep him afloat, and her anger was heavy about him, andwhen he had gone a little way he sank without a struggle, like a manpassing into sleep and dreams. 

The next day a poor fisherman found him among the reeds upon the lakeshore, lying upon the white lake sand with his arms flung out asthough he lay upon a rood, and carried him to his own house. And thevery poor lamented over him and sang the keen, and when the time hadcome, laid him in the Abbey on Insula Trinitatis with only the ruinedaltar between him and Dermott's daughter, and planted above them twoash-trees that in after days wove their branches together and mingledtheir trembling leaves.