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AN TÁIN BÓ CÚALGNE

DEIRDRE

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MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON' BOMBAY. CALCUTTA' MADRAS
MELBOURNB

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK ' BOSTON . CHICAGO
DALLAS ' SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO, OF CANADA, LTD,

TORONTO

DEIRDRE

BY

JAMES S1'EPHENS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
19 2 3

V"......ÇOPYRIG HT

NOV 1 8 1943

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

Do chum g16ire Dé agus on6ra na h-Eireann.

BOOK I

I

B

CHAPTER I

ONCE on a time Cònachúr mac Nessa 1 was
on a journey, and had to pass the night at
the house of F elimid mac Dall, his story-
teller. He was annoyed because his wife,
Maeve, had not come with him, but Maeve
had the knack of annoying him more than
anyone else was able to; so that when he
thought of her his mind went intriguing and
adventuring, for he was always trying to get
the better of her, and was seldom without
the feeling that she was getting or had just
got the best of him.
For this reason he was irritable and could
not look at anyone with benevolence except
Fergus mac Roy. But he could not look
otherwise than benevolently on Fergus.
Meantime, night was at hand, and one
1 Conachúr=pron. Kun-a-hoor; mac=pron. mock.
3

DF
IRDRE

EK. I

must sleep, and it is vexatious to sleep
alone.
He clapped his hands, and said to the
attendant who appeared :
" Is F elimid mac Dall married? "
" He is, master."
" Give my compliments to Felimid," said
Conachúr, " and tell him that his wife is to
sleep with me to-night."
The attendant vanished and the king was
left alone. That is, he was left to his
thoughts, for when he was among those he
was where other men might not care to
follow him. In fact, the large room wherein
he sat was almost uncomfortably filled with
men: but they kept respectfully apart, play-
ing chess, and speaking in low voices to one
another.
The attendant returned.
" A Rí U asal 1 " said he humbly.
" Well ? " said Conachúr.
"The master of the house regrets that
his wife cannot sleep with you to-night."
" Here is something new," said the king
sternly.
" His wife is at this moment in childbed,"
murmured the discreet servant.
4

CII. I

DEIRDRE

U These women are always troublesome,"
said the king with jovial anger. "She
troubles me by withdrawing herself from my
comfort, and she troubles my poor Felimid by
giving him a child he could well do without."
He looked moodily on his gentlemen.
There was Cathfa, l the famous poet, and
Conall his grandson, to be known later
as Cearnac (the victorious), but already
notable; bitter-tongued Bricriu, who was
famous or infamous according to one's
judgement; Uisneac, who had married one
of Cathfa's three daughters, and for whose
little son Naoise the queens of Ireland would
weep so long as Ireland had a memory; and
there was Fergus mac Roy.
Conachúr's eye travelled loweringly from
one to the other of these men until it rested
on Fergus, and on him it rested lovingly,
benevolently.
He looked loweringly on the others
because they did not stand in any particular
relation to him at the moment. He looked
lovingly and mildly on Fergus because he
hated Fergus and had wronged him so
bitterly that he must wrong him yet more in
1 Cathfa = prone Kaffa.
5

DEIRDRE

EK. I

justification. His wife and Fergus mac Roy
were often in his thoughts, so he looked very
lovingly on them and speculated a great deal
about their future.
But this night the young king was seri-
ously out of humour, not only because of his
wife's absence, but because of many things
that had happened. Three comet
in succes-
sion had flashed across the sky as they drove
to the Story - teller's house. His leading
chariot-horse had trod in a rabbit-hole and
its leg was cracked at the fetlock; and one
of his attendants had been taken with mortal
vomitings, and it did not seem that he would
finish until he had emptied his body of his
soul.
Conachúr called to his father :
" You are a poet, and should be able to
tell us the meaning of these various omens."
" It is not hard to tell, " said the calm
magIcIan.
" Then tell it," quoth the king testily.
As he spoke a thin wail came from some-
where in the building, and the men present
turned an ear to that little sound, and then
a questioning or humorous eye on each
other.

6

ClI. I

DEIRDRE

u You hear," said the poet. "A child
has just been born in this house. She will
bring evil to Ireland, and she will work
destruction in Ulster as a ferret works de-
struction in a rabbit's burrow."
Cathfa then returned to his chess, leaving
the company staring.
" You have the gift of comfortable
prophecy, " said the king.
" Put an end to the prophecy by putting
an end to the child," Bricriu advised, U and
then let us see how the gods manage their
affairs. "
U Bricriu, my soul," said the king, "you
like troubling the waters, but to-night you
seem to be afflicted with sense. Bring the
creature to'me."
They carried the little morsel to him and
she was laid across his knees.
U So you are to destroy my kingdom and
bring evil to mighty Ireland? "
The babe reached with a tiny claw and
gripped one finger of the king.
" See," he laughed, "she places herself
under my protection," and he moved his
finger to and fro, but the child held fast
to it.

7

DEIRDRE

EK.l

h Ulster is under your protection,"
growled Bricriu.
The king, who did not like other men's
advice, looked at him.
" It is not soldierly, nor the act of a
prince to evade fate," said he who was to be
known afterwards as the wide-eyed, majestic
monarch. "Therefore, all that can happen
will happen, and we shall bear all that is to
be borne."
Then he gave the child back to its
trembling nurse.
Cathfa looked up from the chess-board.
U She is to be called the 'Troubler,'"
said he.
And from that day U Deirdre" was her
name.

8

CHAPTER II

WHEN Echaid Yellow-Heel was King of
Ulster, he had a daughter called Assa. She
was educated apart from her father's resid-
ence by twelve tutors, and none of these had
ever trained a pupil who was so docile, so
teachable, or so affectionate. She loved know-
ledge, and so she loved learned men and
would be always in their company.
One day she went on a visit to her father's
court, and when she returned to her lessons
she found that her twelve tutors had been
murdered, and there was nothing to tell who
had killed them.
From that moment her nature changed.
She put on the dress of a female warrior,
gathered a company about her, and went
marauding and plundering in every direction.
She was no longer called Assa (the Gentle),
9

DEIRDRE

EK.I

but Nessa, or the Ungentle, was her name
then ceforth.
Cathfa, the son of Ross, was then a young,
powerful, and ambitious man, learning magic,
or pr"actising what he had learned, and it
was he had slain the tutors, but Nessa did
not know this. I t may be that Cathfa had
visited the tutors during her absence, and,
for young magicians do not love argument,
he may have killed them after a dispute.
Once, on one of her marauding expedi-
tions, she went questing in a wilderness. At
a distance there was a spring of clear water,
and, while her people were preparing food,
Nessa went to this spring to bathe. She was
in the water when Cathfa passed, for he also
was in that wilderness, and when he saw the
girl's body he loved her, for she was young
and lovely. He approached, and placed
himself between the girl and her dress and
weapons, and he held a sword over her head.
" Spare me," she pleaded.
U If you will be my wife I will spare you,"
said Cathfa.
She agreed to that, for no other course
was open to her, and they rej oined her party.
They were married, and Nessa's father
10

CII. II ,
.f
gave them a bride-gift of land, called after-
wards Rath Cathfa, in the country of the
'. Picts in Crí Ross. In time a son was born
to those two, namely, Ccmachúr mac Nessa,
for it was by his mother's name he was
known, and it was for him that Cathfa
made the poem beginning:

DEIRDRE

Welcome to the stranger that has come here.

There are some who say, however, that
Fachtna the Mighty had been the leman of
Nessa, and that it was he was the father
of Conachúr instead of Cathfa. If so, as
Fachtna was the son of Maga, who was
daughter of Anger mac an Og of the Brugh,
then Conachúr had the blood of a god in
his veins as well as the blood of a mortal,
and much of his great success and of his
terrible failure can be accounted for; for
the gods are unlucky in love, so, too, the son
of a wise mother is unlucky in love, as is
also the man who is fortunate in war.
After some time Nessa left her husband,
taking her son with her. It may be that she
had discovered he was the murderer of her
tutors. It may have been that she did not
love him; it may even be that she did not
II

DEIRDRE

EK.I

like being wife to a magician, or he may
have grown tired of her. But she never
returned to him again.
But when Conachúr was a youth Nessa
was still the most beautiful woman of Ulster.
The then King of Ulster, Fachtna the
Mighty, died, and his young half-brother,
Fergus, the son of Roy, wife of Ross the
Red, son of Rury, came to the throne.
Fergus was then eighteen years of age and
Conachúr was sixteen, and, like Conachúr,
Fergus also was known by his mother's
name instead of his father's.
Nessa came to the Ulster court with her
son, and while there Fergus fell madly in
love with her, and she could in no way
avoid the importunities of that monstrous
youth, for Fergus was gigantic in bulk and
stature.
" I shall marry you on one condition," said
Nessa.
" I agree to it beforehand," said Fergus.
u You know the great love I bear my son,
Conach úr ? "
U I also love him," said Fergus.
U His descent is kingly," she said, " and
I desire that he should be a king if it were
12

CH.II

DEIRDRE

only for a year. If you resign the crown to
\ him during our first year of marriage I will
" "
'\ marry you.
U I will do that," said Fergus.
That was done, and for a year Fergus and
Nessa lived happily together.
But Nessa was not entirely absorbed in
love. She was still thinking of her son.
During that year she arranged a marriage
for Conachúr with Clothru, the daughter of
the High King of Ireland, and she spent a
vast treasure in working among the nobles
and important people of Ulster, so that they
became of her son's party as against the
party of her husband.
Indeed, her young husband had no party,
for he was the least suspicious man living in
the world, and, except in matters of honour
or war, he would make no plans and take no
trouble. Nor was Conachúr idle during his
year of kingship. His ability was marvel-
lous, and his energy as wonderful. Feuds
that seemed to be endless were settled by
him. Foreign affairs that threatened or
hung offered him no trouble. But it was
from the Judgement Seat that his fame
spread most quickly.
13

DEIRDRE

EK.l

" A r 1 " . d h b cc .
100 , sal t e prover, can give
judgement, but who will give us justice? "
No question was so tangled but that swift
mind could pierce it; no matter was too
ponderous to be weighed by him, or too
light to escape his attention. He knew all,
he attended to all; everything he touched
was bettered, and men said that until that
year Ulster had never known prosperity, or
peace, or justice, but only the imitation of
these. Conachúr was every man's friend,
and in a short time every man was his.
Fergus returned to a court that had for-
gotten him, or that was so blinded by the
new prodigy that they saw nothing when
they looked elsewhere. It was held that
Fergus had actually resigned the kingship,
or that he had given it as a dowry to his
wife; and, although the young lord may
have been dismayed, the representation of
the nobles, and, in particular, the wit and
cajolery of his wife, arranged that matter,
so that he made no effort to regain his
kingdom, and in a short time he was
the most devoted admirer of Conachúr in
the realm.
It is possible that Nessa left him then, or
14

CH.II

DEIRDRE

that she died, but we do not hear of her
again.
Conachúr's married life may have been
happy, but it was short. At the end of
about eight months Clothru returned to
Connacht on a visit to the High King, her
father. We do not know what happened,
but a dispute arose between Clothru and her
youngest sister, Maeve.! Maeve struck a
blow that killed Clothru , and Conachúr's first
,\
child was born in its mother's death agonies.
When this news came to Ulster Conachúr
set out to demand reparation or vengeance,
but when he beheld Maeve his ideas under-
went a horrible change. He had never seen
anything like this queenly creature. He
had not imagined that there could be in the
world a girl so wonderful as she, for she
was brave and able and of a marvellous
loveliness. Conachúr's hard mind would
not flinch when once his lusts were aroused.
His vengeance and his desire made common
cause. He married Maeve against her wish,
and without her consent, and he bore her

1 It was this Maeve, anciently spelled "Madb," who
became afterwards "Mab" the Queen of the Fairies of
Spenser and Shakespeare.

IS

DEIRDRE

EK.I

back with him to Ulster, a queen, a captive,
and, notwithstanding her crime, a deeply
wronged woman.
Fergus mac Roy and Maeve, these were
his victims, and from them there was to
arise a story which would seem to the king
as unending as time itself. Those two, and
Deirdre 1

16

CHAPTER III

DEIRDRE grew up in a place apart at Emania.
She saw no people of any kind, except Lavar-
cham, the king's "conversation - woman,"
and her women servants; for always about
the castle where she lived there was a guard
of the oldest and ugliest swordsmen that
were in Ulster. Their duty was to let
nobody pass in or out of the castle grounds;
for it was the king's intention to outwit fate
as he had outwitted all else that had moved
in his path.
Thus she grew in gentleness and peace,
hearing no voice less sweet than the voice of
the birds that sang in the sunshine, or the
friendly calling of the wind she played with;
seeing nothing more uncomely than the
gracious outline of far hills, the many-
coloured sky that fled and was never gone,
17 c

DEIRDRE

EK. I

the creatures that lived unmolested in the
trees about the castle, and the wild deer
that grew tame in nearby brakes. All that
she knew was friendly to her and naught
was rough. All that she drew nigh to
stood for her approach. Naught fled from
her, and she did. not flee from anything.
Watching her, as she stood or sat or went,
the wise Lavarcham used to lose her senses,
for all that was beautiful was here gathered
into one form, as in one true ray of the sun
I is all that is lovely of the sun. The running
wind, and the wild creatures of the wood;
the folk from the Shí, the Bochanachs and
Bananocks, and the aerial beings that are
not seen, might have stayed to look at
Deirdre, but had they stayed they could not
have gone again, for they would have become
eyes only, and they would have perished in
beauty, gazing on it.
Lavarcham was a wise woman. She
could not have occupied and continued to
hold her position in Conachúr's household
had she not been wise. She was known
as the king's U conversation-woman," and
she could indicate an unpleasant truth as
delicately as a poet can express the dimple
18

CH.lII

DEIRDRE

in a lady's chin. But her real occupation,
masked by the courteous word, was that of
household spy. She went to and fro in the
vast palaces at Emania, and nothing passed
there, whether among the nobles or the
servants, that she was not privy to, or which
the king was not thereafter acquainted with.
She could adapt herself to any situation and
to every society; and if her chatter with the
kitchen-maids was jovial and in key, her
conversation with a young princess or an old
bard was not less balanced and elucidatory.
She had many things to teach a young
girl, and she withheld no knowledge that
could benefit the little one whom her heart
had soon adopted as its own babe. The
virtues as well as the arts were part of her
experience, so that Deirdre grew in the love
of chastity, of industry, and of joyfulness.
In this way and in these teachings the
years went by, unnoticed as years. Day
followed night, and night came after day in
a timeless succession, each adding its un-
noticeable little to her stature, its unseen
tender curve to her limbs, its imperceptible
deposit of memory to her mind.
But among the arts of which the tireless
19

DEIRDRE

BK. I

Lavarcham spoke there was one she taught
and retaught to Deirdre, and that art was
Conachúr.
Although she had never seen the king, yet
the young girl knew him as a mother knows
her baby. She could have recited his baby-
hood, his adolescence, and now his maturity.
She knew, as only Lavarcham did, why he
did such a certain thing, and by what pro-
gressions this stated consummation, mar-
vened at by others, had been arrived at. It
was of infinite interest to Deirdre, but its
inevitable effect was to stamp the unseen
king with a seal of time, so that, although
Lavarcham insisted he was only thirty-five
years of age, the young girl's mind regarded
him as one who could have been father and
grandfather to a hill.
She reported to Conachúr at proper inter-
vals as to her ward, and he, if he had wished,
might have checked the passing years by his
memory of the stories Lavarcham told him
of Deirdre learning to walk, and walking;
of Deirdre learning to talk, and talking:
her teeth were counted to him as she cut
them, and when she bruised her knee slip-
ping down a bank, or when she wept for the
20

CH.III

DEIRDRE

cold fledgling she found on the path, or
when she refused to weep in a thunder-
storm, he was acquainted with the facts, and
nodded at them gravely as they were told.
She had been a round thing, all surprise
and fluff, like a young duck: she became a
lank anatomy, all leg and hair and stare,
like a young colt: then she became a wild
thing, all spring and peep and run, like a
young fawn; and now she was what Lavar-
cham continued to report and dilate on.
But the king could not believe one half
of the tale that I.avarcham told, for it seemed
to him that such beauty as she reported was
not credible, and he knew that women sp
ak
foolishly when they talk of beauty. He
was, moreover, well satisfied with the queen
who was with him then, Maeve, the lovely
daughter of the High King.

21

CHAPTER IV

I T happened at last that Maeve came to the
decision which for a long time had been
forming in her mind. She decided that
she would not remain with the King of
Ulster any longer, and, having so decided
and faced all its implications, she was not
long in finding an opportunity to get away
from him. It is not right to say that she
" found" an opportunity, for she was of
those \vho create chance, and who do at all
times everything that is in their minds.
There were many reasons why she might
have been discontented as the wife of
Conachílr. The similarity of their char-
acters, their equally imperious tempera-
ments, their equally untiring and almost
identical habits of mind, rendered each an
object of suspicion and endless cogitation
22

CH. IV

DEIRDRE

to the other. They could not rest together
or apart, for each knew what, in certain
circumstances, he or she would do, and un-
erringly credited the other with the per-
formance of these surmised deeds. Thus
leisure, which might have been profitably
spent by either, was wasted by both
in courteous ambuscades and counter or
parallel schemes, so that the private habit
of one was a perpetual cancelling of the
private desires of the other, and a state of
exasperation existed between them which,
as it could not come to the surface and be
faced or downfaced, ended by being a very
poison to life.
In settling out these terms it is more
proper to refer them to Maeve than to the
king, for in the large conduct of his affairs
he could escape from his household and
forget in the Council Hall or the Judgement
Seat that which his wife was given only the
greater leisure to remember in her Sunny
Chamber or among her servants and syco-
phants.
But matrimony had been poisoned for
them at the very fountain, and a dear,
detestable memory for Maeve was that her
23

DEIRDRE

BK. I

husband had outraged her before he married
her, and that he had taken her then and
thereafter in her own despite.
If it had been a question of morality she
might have forgiven Conachúr almost before
forgiveness could be prayed for, but it was
not a moral violence she raged against. She
was a lady to whom nothing in the world
was so dear and instant as she was herself,
and that any man should lay an uninvited
hand upon her outraged her sense of pro-
priety as no general idea could have done.
But she was as courageous as she was
beautiful and as unblushing as either. The
world might have heard her statement of the
virtues she demanded in a husband, and if
the world was alarmed the young queen
permitted it to be as it pleased, on con-
dition that it did not interfere with her, nor
question her wish.
" My husband," she said, " must be free
from cowardice, and free from avarice, and
free from jealousy; for I am brave in battles
and combats, and it would be a discredit to
my husband if I were braver than he. I
am generous and a great giver of gifts, and
it would be a disgrace to my husband if he
24

CR. IV

DEIRDRE

were less generous than I am. And," she
continued, "it would not suit me at all if
he were jealous, for I have never denied
myself the man I took a fancy to, and I
never shall whatever husband I have now
or may have hereafter."
It is possible that her husband did not
fulfil these conditions as completely as
Maeve desired. Of his courage there
could be no doubt. He had proved that
on many an opponent, and although there
were better soldiers there were few who
breasted danger with such gay violence. As
to his generosity, that might be questioned
by one so whole- hearted as Maeve, for
although he would give often and largely
there might be more of calculation than of
spontaneity in the gift. But it is in the third
of her stipulations that Conachúr would
probably be found wanting; for, given his
temperament, his furious passions, his habit
of command, and his endless cleverness, he
should have been a very madman for
jealousy. All clever men are jealous: it
is one of the forms of egoism.
He must have tracked the discontented
lady with the persistence of a bloodhound
25

DEIRDRE

HK. I

and all the casual anonymity of a husband.
He would have been always just there in
the place where she least desired to see him;
and it is possible that gentlemen on whom
her eyes rested approvingly would disappear
before her eyes had adequately rested on
them. It may have seemed to Maeve that
some one like Conachúr was standing at
every corner in Emain Macha,l and that
at the few corners where he was not his
conversation - woman was, or some other
withered crone was there blaring hideously
on her yellow tusk and making a noise that
would annoy a young woman, but which
might absolutely terrify a young man.
She reviewed the situation and all the
subsidiary situations. She thought of what
her father, the High King, would say, and
knew how he should be answered and by
what arts he might be made an ally. She
thought of what her two sisters would urge,
but she thought of them negligently, con-
sidering that they would be more anxious to
avoid than to meet her. And she thought
of her third sister, about whom she need
speculate no more; and Maeve's hand that
1 Emain Macha = pronounced Evan Maha.
26

CR. IV

DEIRDRE

struck the blow had been as steady as was
her mind that contemplated its memory.
Conachúr had come to demand vengeance
and had exacted marriage. That was his
vengeance, and she thought of the cold-
minded, furious-blooded king in every alter-
nation from astonishment to rage, and in
every mood except that of fear, for she was
not afraid of him, or of anything that lived.

27

CHAPTER V

HER -immediate intention was to get away
from Ulster and so to order her conduct in
the meantime that the king, who suspected
everything and foresaw all, would have no
suspicion of this: therefore, if she cogitated
her plans she kept them in her own mind.
She would have no confidant until the action
was decided and the hour for it had struck.
And in this matter she had much to think
of. But she patiently resolved these com-
plexities, so that each went at last into its
place in her plan, and she had the leisure
to review and revise it until she could be
certain that nothing was forgotten and that
a perfect piece of machinery had been
created. The machine was not visible, but
it would appear as at a wave of her hand, and
it would begin to move at the hour of its
28

CII.V

DEIRDRE

birth. I t was not by chance that this lady
was called by a masculine name, l for she had
patience and tenacity and a clear, cool head.
Had it been merely a question of getting
comfortably away there would have been
nothing in the prospect to exercise the queen.
She would have mounted her chariot, and,
whether her husband was looking or not
looking, she would have driven wherever she
\. wished to go: she would have driven over
him if he had stood in her way, and through
his army if that had been unavoidable. The
difficulty was that she did not intend to
leave with Conachúr the possessions she had
brought to Ulster and those that she had since
acquired, for the High King had endowed
his daughter in a manner befitting his con-
dition and the rank she was to occupy; and, as
a wife's possessions were secured to her by the
law of the land, she did not intend to leave
Conachúr richer than he had a right to be.
It was the transport of this vast baggage
which exercised the queen.
She owned flocks of sheep, herds of cattle,
droves of horses and pigs. These naturally
had multiplied during her residence at
1 The word Maeve or Mab seems to mean " Intoxication."

29

It

DEIRDRE

BK. I

Emain. She had vessels of gold and silver,
of findriny and bronze. She had rings and
bracelets; shoulder torques as big as plates,
and breast brooches that were twice as big.
She had pleasure chariots and war chariots;
she had rich fabrics of linen embroidered
with gold and silver thread; many-coloured,
silken shawls with deep fringes of gold or
with tassels and bobberies of silver. She
had head-dresses of every material and metal.
Bronze spears, each with an hundred loose
rings of gold that clashed musically up and
down the handle, and on each of the rings
there chimed a little silver bell. She had
shields and breastplates of solid silver and
gold, and they were set out with patterns of
dainty gems. There were quilts of silk and
fur, cushions that delighted the head or the
eye that rested on them. She had bird-
cages of ivory and crystal. Beds that had
been chipped out of monster blocks of
amethyst. Cups of carved ivory, each with
a different gem set inside at the bottom so
that it twinkled at you while you drank.
hess-boards of precious metals, and each
man on the board had occupied the cunning
. artificer a long year of his age to fashion it.
30

CH.V

DEIRDRE

She had her own machinery for brewing and
baking. What had she not got? Her
dresses alone would pack a house and burst
out through the roof and tumble down the
glass of her Sunny Chamber like an untimely
sunset for colour, and like a billow of the
sea for exuberance.
She did not intend that as much as one
thread of her threads should remain behind
her in Emain Macha.
" No other queen shall waggle her toes
in my draperies, nor enjoy what is proper for
my enjoyment alone," thought Maeve.
Conachúr was preparing to go on a visit
to Cairbre Niafar, King of Leinster, for he
thought an alliance could be formed from
which good might possibly come to Ulster.
The neighbouring kingdom of Connacht
had grown strong and stronger, and he
knew that the people of that kingdom \vould
be glad to think that Leinster and he
remained at arm's-length.
He would travel in state, and such a
journey had to be organized carefully.
Houses for rest and entertainment on the
way must be arranged for. I-Ieralds and
messengers sent days in advance and dis-
31

DEIRDRE

BK. I

positions made so that their reports might
be received on his journey. Several thou-
sand men would be in his company, and
the shelter, feeding, and entertainment of
these had to be thought of. So for a little
time he was busy. But he was not too busy
to remark anything that might chance to be
remarkable.

Lavarcham sat with him in his retired
room at the centre of the Royal Branch.
From this room the great circular mass of
his palace radiated in all directions to its
ten-acre circumference, and in this deep-
placed, well-secured centre the king sat, as a
spider might sit in the middle of his gigantic
web. The room he occupied was sufficiently
large. The ceiling was an intricate medley
and very encrustation of carved wood, and
pushing out of that chaotic centre came a
great shoulder and a grotesque head which
held in its mouth a bronze chain with a
crystal ball swinging from it, and that ball
was so round and pure it seemed to be
one great drop of clear water. Sometimes
Cathfa came here, and would read matters
in the crysta] to the king. The walls of
3 2

CH.V

DEIRDRE

the room were panelled in polished red oak,
and between each oaken panel was a panel
of ruddy bronze, with a silver rail above it,
and a golden bird was perched at the end of
each rail; so that the light from the torches
gleamed gently again from the walls and
multiplied itself in faint winks and reflec-
tions about the room. There was one large
chair there, and a small stool.
Lavarcham was seated on the stool. She
was pernlitted to rest in her master's pre-
sence, for she usually had much to say to
him and he always found her interesting.
U Good my soul," said the king. " I
am glad that you are a woman."
"I am not badly contented about that
myself," she smiled.
" For," he continued, " if you had been a
man I should have been afraid of you."
" How so, master?"
U Because you could have taken my king-
dom whenever you wanted it."
"Indeed, master, I would not accept a
kingdom if I got one as a present. There
is too much responsibility and there is too
much to do."
" It is no lie," he conceded.
33 D

DEIRDRE

BK. I

" I like," she continued, " to do my work,
and then I like to forget my work; but if I
had the bad luck to be a king, or a queen,
I should never again know what a rest
meant, as you, my dear master, do not know
what it is to rest yourself."
" Still," said the king smilingly, "the
queen does get an occasional rest."
" A king wants rest but cannot get it; a
queen, however, may not feel the need to
rest, and may not wish for it."
" How do you intend that, my friend?"
" I mean that a woman gives herself up
more than a man does, and when she so
gives herself to love or power or hate she
gives all that she has, where a man may
keep back something."
" But the queen, Lavarcham, as you have
spoken of her, what do you think of her? "
" How would I dare to think about the
"'I"
queen, master!'
" Do you like her?" he insisted.
" She is very lovely."
"I perceive that you do not love the
queen," said he; and then, after a moment,
but severely- U Do you love me, Lavar-
cham? "

34

CH.V

DEIRDRE

U I do love you indeed," she answered
gravely.
U But," he insisted, "do you love any-
body else as well as me?"
U I love nobody else except my babe."
"Ah, that fabulous babe 1 Is she still
getting new teeth, or what is it she is getting
now? "
" She is getting to be a beautiful young
girl, master."
" Ah, yes, you told me that."
" She is thirteen years of age."
"But tell me now, my heart, why did
you draw the talk a moment ago to queens
and their hate and restlessness?"
" Indeed, master, I did not draw the talk
round in that way."
" Perhaps," he mused, "the queen has
not treated you courteously."
" You are wrong indeed, " she said
happily, " for this whole week past the queen
has been most kind to me."
" Ah 1 "
" And to-day she called me ' her Dear Branch,
. Lavarcham,' and spoke with me for an hour."
"Ah 1" said Conachúr. "Have you been
among her women? "
35

DEIRDRE

EK. I

" I have, master."
" And her men?"
" They too."
" What have you found?"
" Nothing, master. N at a word, not a
wink, not a stare, not a hesitation, not an
eagerness, not a question; I found nothing."
" And in the queen what did you notice? "
" Affection for me, master."
U I wish I were not going away," said the
king. He stood from his chair and strode
weightily in the room.
" I too wish it," his companion agreed.
He halted and regarded her gravely.
"Be very friendly with the queen," he
counselled.
But Lavarcham smiled pityingly at him.
U Why should I waste my time?" said
she.
He nodded at that also, and became
deeply and unhappily thoughtful.

3 6

CHAPTER VI

MAEVE had her own bodyguard of soldiers,
close on one thousand men, who had come
with her from Connacht, and from whom
she refused to be parted. She was herself
their captain, and each man of them was
devoted to her. They were mostly her
own countrymen, and she drilled and exer-
cised and was good to them with untiring
patience and skill. She was the mother of
the force, but a wag called her the wife of
the regiment. These thousand men were in
Conachúr's mind as he arranged his visit to
Leinster. He had often thought he must
disband this force and replace it by his own
men, or that he must win its allegiance and
destroy it, so he also had been especially
kind to the strange soldiers.
Now, on the eve of his journey, he thought
37

DEIRDRE

BK. I

it would be a good thing to bring them
with him to Leinster; thus, as he eXplained
to Maeve, giving them entertainment and
exercise, while at the same time doing honour
to his queen and her native province. But
the proposition raised such a dreadful ire in
the queen, she trod the chamber in such
dudgeon and was so free in her speech, that
Conachúr hastily and good-humouredly with-
drew the suggestion; and bade her bear the
soldiers' discontent when they learned who
stood between them and one of the pleasantest
marches that a soldier could have.
Indeed, an argument with Maeve was not
to be lightly undertaken. I t was likely to
last a long time, in the first place; and in
the second, she had so precipitate a manner
of speech and so copious a command of
words that the listener's mind quickly began
to feel as if it were in a whirlpool, his head
would fly round and round, and he must run
away lest his brains burst out from his ears
and he die giddily.
No one but Conachúr could hearken to
Maeve's speech on such occasions, and he
only did it when he particularly wanted to.
For, at times, that which would drive
3 8

CR. VI

DEIRDRE

another man mad had a strangely soothing
effect on him) and he could sit under that
shrill tornado as peacefully as a daisy sits
in the sunshine. At times) as one forces a
restive horse much farther than it desires
to go, he would impel into the brief tail-
end of her sentence a philosophic and peace-
ful interjection which acted on her as the
spur on the horse, so that he would drive
her beyond the very bounds of utterance)
and she would at last) from sheer tongue-
weariness) topple from the peaks of speech
into a silence so profound that nothing, it
seemed, could ever draw her thence again;
and then Conachúr would talk to her sooth-
ingly, reasonably, unforgivably, and it was
Maeve would run.
But this time Conachúr fled: he was in
no mood and had not the time for argu-
ment; he knew she would not yield, and
he was so angry and hurried that he could
not be the patient, humorous, and watchful
comrade he had intended to be.
When he spoke of this matter to Lavar-
cham he did not speak with good humour,
but he did not empty his mind even to the
conversation-woman. I t was not necessary.
39

DEIRDRE

BK. I

" When I return from Leinster . 1"
said he.
But the wise woman nodded only a half-
hearted agreement, for she thought that,
although it might only take two days to
bury a thousand men, it would take a long
time to bury those who would march to
avenge them.
The rage and agitation into which his
suggestion had thrown the queen was so
great that she fell ill, and could not accom-
pany her husband to Leinster. So that, as
on a previous occasion, he had to travel
without her, the understanding being that
she would take the road after him, and,
travelling more lightly, could perhaps catch
on his company before they reached Naas,
the court and capital of the King of Leinster.
With his force, but unknown to it, there
went a youth-a long-striding, active, bull-
like young man with a freckled face and red
hair, and than whom there was no more
jovial person in all Ireland, for if a man was
striking at him with a spear he could make
that man laugh so much that he would not
be able to hit straight. His name was mac
Roth. He was Maeve's personal servant,
4 0

CH. VI

DEIRDRE

her herald. But just as the word "con-
versation-woman " cloaked another occupa-
tion for Lavarcham, so the word " herald"
f hid the same usefulness in mac Roth. He
was Maeve's personal spy, but he also was
her herald, and in after days, because of his
knowledge, address, and courage, he was to
be the chief herald of all Ireland.
He accompanied Conachúr's force, but
he was not with it. He was a mile in
advance, or a perch behind, or he was to
the right of it just at a small distance, or he
was looking from a hill on the left as the gay
cavalcade and silver-shining chariots went by
in the valley.
He accompanied them in that manner
unseen for two days, and then, murmuring
a blessing on them and on their encamp-
ment, he left them in the night, taking from
them the loan of an unwatched horse, and
he rode back by short cuts to Emain.
When he reached the palace he was able
to report that the king had gone so far he
could not easily turn back; and at that
news Maeve's illness departed from her as
suddenly as it had come.
In the morning she called for twenty of
4 1

DEIRDRE

BK. I

the chief men of her b
dyguar? and gave
them careful, separate InstructIon. Then
she informed the domestics that her quarters
must be thoroughly cleaned while the king
was away, and that everything she owned
must be put out on the sunny lawn for
airing and counting. ·
The palace chamberlain came in great
haste, but that suave man was soothed by
Maeve and sent away with his dignity un-
hurt, but his mind exercised. He com-
municated his news to Lavarcham, who had
retired to the company of her " babe" out-
side Emania. Within the hour Lavarcham
despatched a flying messenger to Conachúr,
but just outside the city mac Roth, who was
waiting for him in a hedge, buzzed a spear
through that man's back as he went thunder-
ing past. But in the night Lavarcham, who
left little to chance, sent other messengers,
so that if some miscarried others would not.
But Maeve's plan was at work, the men
she had chosen for a particular part were
acting in that part, and inside of ten hours
her company was deployed behind her
baggage, her march to Connacht had begun,
and Conachúr was a bachelor again.
42

CHAPTER VII

I T was as well that the king was in Leinster
at the time of Maeve's flight. Had he
been nearer home he would have been
obliged to do something, and, in such a
situation, to do anything is to be ridiculous.
He knew Maeve too well to imagine that
she would return for a threat, yet he made
the threats which seemed politic, for that
was a matter of course.
But the messengers who bore these rigor-
ous intimations to her father bore others to
Maeve, and in these the son of Ness was
humble as no one could imagine possible,
and as his counsellors might not have deemed
advisable.
There was no arrangement which she
might have suggested that he would not
have agreed to, but the difference between
43

DEIRDRE

BK. I

them was too radical to be spanned by
arrangements.
Maeve was proud; she was vain to boot,
and could not consent to be second to any
one. Living with Conachúr she had to be
second, whatever he or she might desire.
Indeed, living with him anywhere she would
have to take second place, for the first place
came to him so naturally, with such ease
and finality, it could not be questioned or
revoked, or contrived in any way.
More, and worse, she detested him for
he had always dared her and succeeded.
She, it is true, had dared him, and on this
occasion had succeeded. But she could not
live with him and dare him competently,
which is just what he could do with her.
Even if he abdicated the throne to her he
would keep the sceptre, and she could no
more take it from him than she could have
abstracted the speed from the lightning.
If she came back to Emania she would come
back dead, or, should it happen that she
did come back alive, the king would at last
have to kill her or she would kill the king.
Conachúr knew it, and at last renounced
his vain em bassies and hopes.
44

CH.VII

DEIRDRE

If we should wonder why he sent them, or
why he should hope, the answer lay in his
character. That clever, energetic man could
not exist with a tame mate. A mere bodily
satisfaction he, sated in such satisfactions,
would have exhausted in a week, and there-
after he would be without a refreshment
which is as much of the mind as of the body,
and which, to one of his temperament, has
always most of the mind even when it seems
fleshy to beastliness. She satisfied cravings
of his nature which he himself but dimly
understood; and if, with her, the mistress
was more apparent than the wife, therein
lies the desire and doom of a clever man.
For he was diabolically clever, and, so,
not wise, and, so, not great. Only the great
escape slavery, and he was the slave to his
ego and would be whipped. A great man
would not, because he could not, take mean
advantages. But the manner in which
Conachúr ousted Fergus from his throne
will command the admiration of his peers
only, and obtain from them the justification
which success requires. And yet he could
retain the love of his victim, the trust of
his people. He was so near to greatness;
45

DEIRDRE

BK. I

there were such sterling qualities running
with the egotism; he could be so mild in
difficulties, so clear-sighted in counsel; he
could be so staunch a friend; he could for-
give with such royal liberality; he could
spend himself so endlessly for his realm.
Cúchulain did not think of him as a bad
man, nor did Fergus; and as to the latter,
he loved and honoured Conachúr above the
men of Ireland. Was that a defect or a
merit in Fergus? Was he too great or too
simple? But it was not for clever tricks he
admired Conachúr, nor was it for tricks that
his people referred to him as the "wide-
eyed, majestic king."
However he bore the flight in public,
he mourned for and craved for Maeve in
private, and the illness which comes to a
baulked will fell on him, corroding his mind
and his temper, so that even Lavarcham
left him as much alone as her duties per-
mitted.
Again and again by an effort of the will
he would arouse from that sour brooding to
throw himself into work and into the grave
joviality which had once been his note; but,
as instantly, he would relapse visibly to any
4 6

CH.VII

DEIRDRE

eye, and might stare so sardonically and un-
comprehendingly on a suppliant that the
latter would be glad to go away with his
tale unlistened to.
Matters were thus when a new plan began
to brood in Lavarcham's mind, so that when
she looked on her babe again it began to
seem that she looked on a queen, for she
intended to marry Deirdre to Conachúr.
All Ulster wished the king to marry
again, for a celibate prince is a scandal to
the people.
I t was the constant effort of those re-
sponsible in the State to marry off a young
prince almost as soon as he came to the age
of puberty . For such youngsters are great
rovers, with appetites as gluttonous as dogs,
and so care-free that they are surprised
and indignant if others question the action
which they do not themselves weigh. It is
certainly a hardship and a tyranny if a
neighbour should constrain a neigh bour' s
wife to his own domestic uses, but it is only
a hardshi p because the affair occurs between
equals, among whom friendly observances
are due, and between whom equal respect
is grounded. Among equals anything that
47

DEIRDRE

BK. I

implies inequality is a punishable wrong:
but there is no hardship when the superior
takes what he carelessly desires. It is com-
munity of interests which makes equals,
and the disturbance of this which makes
enemies; but there is no community of
interests between the prince and the subject,
and no man is aggrieved by an action which
can only affect his honour by increasing it.
Nevertheless, so illogical is the mind of
man, and so uncompromising is the sense
of property, that men could be found who
would interrupt with a spear the careless
pleasure of a prince; and there were some,
blacksmiths mostly and cobblers, who would
take a cudgel to the king's majesty itself
and beat it out of a warm bed.
So, when Lavarcham thought that she
might conduct her ward between the lax
arms of her sovereign, she but harboured an
idea which every male person in the realm
who had a wife, a sister, or a daughter,
hoped for with fervour.
Nor did the idea occur only to her.
Within a month of Maeve's disappearance
more young ladies began to a ppear in
Emania than had been noticed there previ-
4 8

CR. VII

DEIRDRE

ously, so that Conachúr, had he been in a
condition to observe such things, might have
noticed that Ulster had begun to blossom
like the rose.
But plottings such as these were of small
use in the case of a man like Conachúr,
and it is likely that the first person to know
what should be done and what was expected
from the head of the State was the king
himself. His duty as a king would point
him the way: the necessity to repair what
had been damaged would claim his mind;
and the desire to forget by replacing would
be even more insistent; for if a hair of the
dog that bit you is the specific against
drunkenness, it is a medicine against love
also, and is, alas! the only one we know
of.
Therefore the king did for a while take
a fevered interest in the ladies of his court,
. but he found, so jaundiced was his eye,
that they were neither worth looking at nor
worth talking to, and he did not grudge
their companionship to any man.

To Lavarcham, at last, he opened his
mind.

49

1::

DEIRDRE

BK. I

" I must marry, Lavarcham, my soul."
" There is plenty of time for that, master,"
said the wily woman.
"While I have no wife," Conachúr
replied, "the people will talk of the wife
I had, and the only way to stop that is to
give them something else to talk of."
" It is true, indeed," said Lavarcham.
" I foresee," he continued, " that I shall
be compelled to marry some one I do not
care for."
" In that case, master, you will be saved
the trouble of choosing, for you may take
the first that comes."
"They seem to resemble one another
like peas in a pod. Are women all alike,
my friend?"
" They are much of a pattern, master."
" And yet " said the king, brooding
deeply on one that had fled.
" Our little ward," Lavarcham continued
thoughtfully, " is rather unusual."
" What age is she now?" said the dull
king.
" Sixteen years and a few months."
"So much. We must think of marry-
ing her to some friend. Perhaps one of our
50

CH.VII

DEIRDRE

kinsmen of Scotland. I must be reminded
again of it."
"Come and see her, master, and then
you will be able to decide how she should
be disposed of."
" I shaH go to see her some day."

51

,

CHAPTER VIII

DEIRDRE'S education in the art of the king
continued, but it proceeded now somewhat
obliquely to its former trend.
What woman in Lavarcham's place could
avoid treating her master's later affairs with-
out something of sentimentality creeping
into the terms? And what young girl
could regard Maeve otherwise than as a
heroine for having dared so shocking a
scandal, and such a round of perils? As
Lavarcham detailed Maeve, Deirdre inter-
preted her, and at the close of the statement
the judgement of each was so different, so
opposed, that a third person might have
marvelled at the tricks the understanding
can play; for what was black to the one
was not only white to the other, but it was
crimson and purple and gold; and what
52

CH.VIII

DEIRDRE

was treachery to Lavarcham gleamed on
Deirdre like a candid sunrise.
We assimilate knowledge less through our
intellects than through our temperaments;
and a young person can by no effort look
through the eyes of an older. There are
other ways by which a mutual perception
can be so deflected that the same thing is
not similarly viewed, and so Lavarcham's
appreciation of l\1aeve's conduct would
differ from Conachúr's, as his would be
unlike Cathfa's or Bricriu's or Fergus
mac Roy's, and as these would be obscure
to one another. The element of self-
interest in each would act as a prism, and
each would understand as much of the tale
as he desired to understand, but no more,
and would forgive or condemn on these
arrested findings.
To Lavarcham Maeve's flight was treach-
ery and deserved punishment; but it was
< not, in her thought, a misfortune for which
,even Conachúr need weep. She had thor-
'oughly disliked Maeve, for though she
could impose on everyone she could not
im press that im perious lady, and she had
never dared tell one half of Maeve's doings
53

DEIRDRE

EK. I

lest the violent queen should suspect, and
loose a slash that would cut her in two
halves in the very presence of the king.
The departure of Maeve meant also the
departure of mac Roth, and to be free from
that jovial, crafty eye was so great a relief
that Lavarcham could have wept in thank-
fulness; for to be a spy is a simple thing,
an occupation like any other, but to be spied
upon when one is a spy is a monstrous inver-
sion of what is proper, and might easily give
one palpitations of the heart.
Mac Roth had her frightened, and could
have cowed her any time he wished. In
her own craft he was her master, for, after
all, she was only a household spy, but he was
a-spy. She could glean from the kitchen
or the Sunny Chamber everything that was
there; but she must have walls about her and
work behind those; while mac Roth did not
mind whether he was in a room or in a forest;
he would spy in a beehive; he would spy
on the horned end of the moon; he would
spy in the middle of the sea, and would know
which wave it was that drowned him, and
which was the wave that urged it on.
Lavarcham was not only glad that Maeve
54

CH.VIlI

DEIRDRE

was gone, she was jubilant; and, moreover,
it gave her an opportunity that she could
scarcely have hoped for to advance her babe
in life without parting from her, and to
strengthen all her own grips on fortune.
Hitherto, when she had spoken of Cona-
chúr to Deirdre she spoke of the king's
majesty, but now, insensibly, she began to
talk of a great man bowed under misfortune
and a proper subject for female pity. But
she could not wipe out the king's majesty
with that sponge nor alter one lineament of
the portrait she had taken ten years to limn.
The king persisted for Deirdre, stern
and aloof and almost incredibly ancient,
looming out from and overshadowing her
infancy like a fairy tale; and was he not
contemporary with Lavarcham, herself old
enough to be remembered but not thought
of? Deirdre was interested in the king as
'she was interested in the people of the Shí,l
\ without expectation, and with a little fear.
But to her reasonings and objections
Lavarcham had one answer:
cc My soul and dear treasure, you cannot
speak about men, for you have not seen any."
1 The Shí = Fairyland.
5S

DEIRDRE

BK. I

And at last one day Deirdre replied:
" Indeed, mother, I have seen them, these
men you tell me of."
Lavarcham stared at her.
" And," the gleeful child continued, " I
have spoken to them."
Her foster-mother became smoother than
silk, and soft as the lap of kindness.
"Tell me about that, my one love, and
tell me how men seem to you now that you
have seen them."
" It is not hard to tell," replied Deirdre;
"men are as ugly as donkeys, and," she
continued, " they are just as nice."
"As ugly and as nice as donkeys-I"
Lavarcham quoted in a daze.
" Yes, mother, and I love them because
they are so nice and ugly and good."
"But what men are you talking of, my
star? "
"I am talking of the men outside the
walls. "
" The guards? "
" Of course."
" And when did you see them?"
Deirdre laughed.
"Why, I have seen them ever since I
56

CR. VIII

DEIRDRE

was that height," and she poised her hand
two feet above the ground.
Lavarcham laughed at her and waggled
a reproving finger.
" You have not seen them very often,
all the same."
" I have indeed," the girl replied triumph-
antly. " I have seen them every day of my
life for the last ten years."
" And you spoke to them?"
U Of course I did. I know everyone of
them as well as I know you."
" You do not, Deirdre 1 "
" I do so: I know their names, and who
they are married to, and how many children
they have. 0, I know everything about
them." .
" Sly little fairy of the hills," cried her
perplexed guardian, "you are poking fun
at Lavarcham."
" I surely am not," Deirdre replied posi-
tively. .
" Well, tell me about these men that are
ugly and nice like donkeys."
" Very well," cried Deirdre, " I shall prove
to you that I know them.
" You must know," she narrated, "that
57

DEIRDRE

BK. I

each of these men is always at the same
place outside the wall, but some of them
are on guard during the daytime and others
are on guard during the night. Every
second week they change this order and the
ones that have been on duty in the night
take up day duty, and the day men replace
them; and so they change and change
about, year in and year out, under the
charge of two captains and eight ancients.
There are an hundred of these men alto-
gether; twenty-five of them march from
point to point all around the walls during
the day, but in the night seventy-five men
march to and from smaller points. In the
day also, one captain and two ancients
march around and overlook the twenty-five
guards, but a captain and six ancients march
about the men who are on duty at night."
" Ah-ha," cried Lavarcham, "you have
been told all this by the women servants."
" They only tell me tales of the men of
Dana and of the Shí, and of how their
children were born, and of the proper way
to cure pimples."
" Wen, tell me more," sighed Lavarcham,
U until I see what it is that you do know."
58

CR. VIII

DEIRDRE

" The captain of the troop is named Daol,
but the men call him Fat-face. He has
fourteen children and is unhappily married,
for he has told me many times that if he
had a better wife he would be a better man.
One day when his wife was baking him a
cake she baked a spell into it, so that, although
he had never felt ache or pain before, he
was racked all that day with torments; and
ever since, when the moon changes and the
wind goes round, he gets pains in his bones,
and he beats his wife when he gets home
on the head of it."
" You are certainly acquainted with this
Fat-face."
" I love him. He wears a great leathern
belt with a sword hung from it, and, when
he orders the men, he thrusts his two hands
down through the belt, stretches his legs
very wide apart, and roars at them-but
how he roars! ' Troop l' he roars: 'turn
by the right hand: trot'; and all the dear
old men trot with their heads down very
thoughtfully, until he roars at them to stop
trotting, and then they all sneeze, and talk
about their feet.
" Sometimes he Jets me drill the men."
59

DEIRDRE

BK. I

U He should not," said Lavarcham.
U He had to," the girl replied, "for I
threw stones at him from the top of the wall
until he agreed to let me do it. But that
was a long time ago."
" He should have reported all this."
U Do you mean he should have told on
me," cried Deirdre indignantly. "Indeed
I should like to see Fat-face daring to tell
anything about me. Why, the men would
beat him if he told. I would get down off
the wall and beat him myself."

60

CHAPTER IX

THIS conversation greatly exercised Lavar-
cham, and she cast about for some means
whereby she might restrain her ward. It
was waste of time, as she quickly saw, for
who that has been charged with a young
person aged sixteen has not been forced at
last to renounce all real guardianship?
At that age the time has passed for pro-
hibitions, and the time has not yet come
when advice can be listened to except in the
form of flattery. The young body is eager
for experience, and will be satisfied with
nothing less actual, so the older person must
grant freedom of movement or be run to
death by that untiring energy. For a while
the youngster will drink deeply, secretly, of
her own will, and will then disengage for
" herself that which is serious and enduring
61

DEIRDRE

BK. I

from that which is merely pleasant and
unprofitable. For all people who are not
mentally lacking are sober-minded by in-
stinct, and when the eager limbs have had
their way the being looks inwardly, pining
to exercise the mind and to equip itself for
true existence.
At fourteen years of age Deirdre was not
the untameable little savage she had been at
twelve, and at the age of sixteen she had
begun to long for some one to whom she
might submit her will and from whom she
could receive the guidance and wisdom and
refreshment which she divined to be in
herself, but which she could not reach.
Her fury of activity would be broken by
equal periods of languor, wherein she would
sit as in a daze, staring at the sky and
not seeing it, or looking at the grass with
a vague wonder as to what this was upon
which her eyes were resting. Wild creatures
or tame would trot or amble before her,
but she was only conscious of a movement
without a form. A bird might light and flirt
and hop and fly, and her forsaken mind
would touch those facts without gaining
information from them, and would lose
62

CH. IX

DEIRDRE

itself behind the movement vaguely, blindly,
dizzily, until the bird mixed into the sky
and the sky rounded and receded and
disappeared, leaving her eyes nothing to
rest on and her errant mind without any
su pport.
She would look on her arms, as they hung
hel plessly in the grass, and wonder that they
were so unoccupied, and wonder that they
were so empty. And an oppression came to
her heart, gentle enough, but without end, as
though something stirred there that could
not stir, as though something sought to
weep and could not weep; so that she must
weep for it, and grieve for it, and be of a
tenderness to that unknown beyond all the
tenderness that she had sensed about her.
And these idle tears would arouse, or assuage
her, so that she wondered why she wept, and
she would leap from such nonsense and speed
away like one distraught with excess of life
and energy.
She would become affectionate then. She
mothered the cow and its lanky calf; the
peeping rabbit and her popping brood.
The shaggy mare and her dear, shy
\ foaleen, an arm about each neck, listened
63

DEIRDRE

BK. I

to a conversation they loved and seemed to
understand. When she tried to leave them
they trotted behind with gentle, persistent
feet and eyes of such pleading that she must
run passionately back, crying that she would
come again, that she would surely come
back to them on the morrow. There was
not a nest she did not know of, and the
young grey mother, snuggling among the
leaves, would look gravely out at the grey eye
that peeped within, and would hearken to a
cooing so delicious, so burthened with love,
that her broody hour would pass uncounted,
and she would forget her mate abroad, and
the wide airs of the tree-tops.
At night the moon could woo her so
passionately she must forsake her bed and
go tiptoe among dark corridors until she
came into the presence. What wild counsel
did she receive from the glowing queen!
Or was it the unmoving quietude that whis-
pered without words; intimations of-what?
Shy touches at the heart, so that she, who
feared nothing, would look about her,
startled as a young roe, who senses some-
thing on the wind, and flies without more
query.

64

CH. IX

DEIRDRE

How lovely to her was that suspense and
fear, when her every nerve thrilled to a life
more poignant than she had surmised;
when something that did not happen was
perpetually occurring; when, as it were in a
moment, she might be told-what secrets 1
or be cautioned of something imminent and
advised 1
She lost herself in the moon, wooing it,
wooed by it, until she seemed to move in
the moon, and the moon to move in her; a
sole whiteness, a sole chillness, one equal
potency-For what? for that, for it, for
something, for nothing, for everything.
She submitted her destiny to the delicate
sweet lady of the sky, and one night, beck-
oned to, drawn at, surrounded, a small
moon shining in the moon, she went on
and on, passing the grass to the turf; leaving
the turf for the stony places; from there to
the wall, and over the wall also; so lightly,
so imperceptibly, so moonily, the drowsy
guard did not see; or if he saw 'twas but a
moonbeam that rose and fell, that fluttered
and faded, that lapsed over a piece of hollow
ground and glimmered away on the slope,
merging in the silver flood and the shades
- 65 F

DEIRDRE

BK.I

of ebony, and gone while he rubbed his
eyes.
So she marched towards destiny.
She went among the darkness of trees,
and farther, where the wood grew thin,
into a dappled dancing of jet and silver;
and, beyond, to where young voices called
and called and called.
Such fresh young voices she had never
heard before, used as she was to the dry,
cli pped utterance of Lavarcham, the tooth-
less mumble of the servants, the rusty bawling
of Fat-face as of an obstinate door that told
of aches and reluctances, and the wheezing
and grunting of his stiff companions. She
stayed listening to those voices, young as
her own, and as sweet; rattling like the
waters that tumble and ride in the river;
chattering like a nestful of young birds in
spring; soaring up and falling down with
an infinite eagerness and joy; until it
seemed that a lark's song and the flight of a
swallow had come together and fused into
one streaming of sound.
Standing behind a vast black tree her
astonished heart released itself in tears, and
she wept for her cloistered youth, and
66

CR. IX

DEIRDRE

for al1 that she did not know she had
missed.
Then boldly she trod forward and sat
herself resolutely at the camp-fire of the
sons of Uisneac.

67

CHAPTER X

THEY received her with the scant show of
surprise which youth, so proud of appear-
ances, so jealous of its own dignity, extends
to the unknown, and, after the brief word
of welcome, and swift surmising glance, the
conversation which she had interrupted
renewed itself, perhaps a shade more boister-
ously because they had been surprised, a
little more hardily because they knew one
was listening who was not of their company
and might be critical.
Soon, in their own despite, something
ceremonious crept on them, overpowering
their boisterousness and making each self-
conscious, until, by the inevitable degrees,
silence hovered and threatened about the
fire, and for moments nothing moved but
the eye that flickered and wandered into
68

CH.X

DEIRDRE

woodland vistas, where delicate dark trees
stood rimmed in silver, and everything on
the ground crept and fled as the boughs
swayed and the moon spilled through them.
But the silence only endured long enough
for the look to become frank and the mutual
examination a judgement. Then the eldest
of the three boys seized the conversation to
himself and upheld it, for he saw that their
guest was so afflicted with shyness that she
could not move hand or foot, and could not
have replied if one had addressed her.
He spoke for occupation also, because,
having looked at her, he feared or was too
shy to look again; feared, too, that the others
might observe his embarrassment; and, being
one to whom action was a first habit, he
did what he could do when he found that
there was something which he could not do.
He did it well.
Listening to him Deirdre knew what was
the mid surge of the stream she had listened
to, the top singing of the song she had
heard. This was the lark sustained at the
top of flight, and the others the mazy pattern
of the swallows' wings. Listening she could
collect herself; and, in a while, daring to
69

DEIRDRE

BK. I

hear, she dared to see, and then she heard
no more; for when the eye is filled the ear
is no more attended, and all that may be of
beaut
is there englobed, radiant, sufficient,
excessIve.
How should I paint Naoise 1 as Deirdre
saw him, or show Deirdre as she appeared
to the son of Uisneac ? For than Deirdre
there was no girl so beautiful unless it might
be Emer the daughter of Forgall, soon to
be wooed by C{lchulinn; and Naoise him-
self could not be bettered by any among
the men of his land unless it was by the
" small, dark man, comeliest of the men of
Eirè," Cúchulinn himself.
When we endeavour to tell of these
things words cannot stand the trial. It may
be done by music, or by allusion, as the
poets have always done, saying that this girl
is like the moon, or like the Sky-Woman of
the Dawn, when they would indicate a beauty
beyond what we know; and that she is like
a rose when they would tell of a gentle and
proud sweetness; that her wrist is crisp and
delicate like the delicate foam that mantles
on a sunny tide; that the wise bee nestled
1 Naoise = prone neesh-eh.
7 0
E t-:
L'S C
Û 'o(
i LIB
A:- y :
f
. ...;

"

CH.X

DEIRDRE

in her bosom, finding more of delight there
than the hive gives; that she walks as a
cloud, or as a queen-woman of the sky, seen
only in vision, so that all other sights are
but half seen thereafter and are scarcely
remembered.
In these grave ways we nlay approach
perfection, indicating distantly that which
cannot be unveiled in speech; or we may
tell of the abasement which comes on the
heart when beauty is seen; the sadness
which is sharper than every other sadness;
the despair that overshadows us when the
abashed will concedes that though it would
overbear everything it cannot master this,
and that here we renounce all claim; for
beauty is beyond the beast, and like all
else of quality it can only be apprehended
by its equal and enjoyed where it gives
itself.
Still, they were young, and with young
people impressions that come quickly go as
fast. They have so much in common;
their interest in the present is so quick;
their faith in the future so fearless; their
memory of tenderness is so recent, and their
experience of treachery so small, that friend-
7 1

DEIRDR

13I{. I

ship comes easier to them than enmity does,
and trust grows where suspicion withers;
so in a little time they were again at ease,
and when the food they had been preparing
was eaten they knew one another and were
friends.
N aoise was then almost nineteen years of
age, his brother Ainnle, seventeen, and
Ardan more than fourteen, while Deirdre
herself was almost a full sixteen years.
If she had listened before as it were to
the chattering of a brook or the outburst
of a flight of birds, she now listened to a
talk that was like a mill-race for exuberance,
and the cawing of a colony of rooks for
abundance; and yet, when she remembered
it afterwards, she could not remember much,
or she recollected that they laughed more
than they spoke. For the talk consisted
more of questions than anything else, and
the answer to each query was in nearly all
cases an outbreak of laughter and another
question.
Do you remember the day Cúchulinn
came playing hurley into Emain ?
And the way he took the troop under his
protection ?

7 2

CH.X

DEIRDRE

And the night he went out a boy and
came back a hound?
Jokes, hinted at, that had been played
on foster-fathers; grisly jokes of the first
combat of a comrade who had left his head
where his feet should be; questions that
hinted at outrageous parties in the night,
when the boys chased a wild boar and
their fathers and foster-fathers hunted them;
of punishments that had been evaded as a
fox dodges a dog, and behold, when safety
had been found, there was the punishment
awaiting them.
They were young, but they had killed;
and they rocked with glee as they told by
what marvellous strategy they had got in
the lucky blow, and how the champion had
gone down never to rise again, and they
had trotted home squealing and squawking
with joy, with a head surveying the world
from the top of a spear, and it grinning
down on them as joyously as they chattered
up at it.
Names that Deirdre was unfamiliar with,
and some that she knew from the servants'
talk, flew from mouth to mouth. Conall
the Victorious, Bricric the Prank-player,
73

DEIRDRE

BK. t

Laerí called the Triumphant, Fergus mac
Roy, these youngsters spoke of as familiarly
as she might have told of the birds in her
garden, and criticized them with all the
unsparing freedom of youth.
They did not consider that these great
men were in any way superior to themselves:
the contrary was certainly in their minds.
I t was evident that Ardan and Ainnle thought
their brother Naoise could whip any other
champion rather easily: but Naoise was
modest and would say nothing for or against
this theory.
Deirdre was as convinced as the boys were
that Naoise could beat any combination of
champions that might have the ill-luck to
move against him. She knew it from his
complexion, from his curling hair. Oh!
she knew it from a variety of proofs, and
she was inclined to be angry when he argued
with the younger boys that Cúchulinn 1
was the greatest man alive. But on that
subject the agreement was so unanimous, so
hearty, that she might doubt but could not
question it.
"What I shou]d like," said Ainnle,
1 Cúchulinn = prone Ku-hullin.
74

CH.X

DEIRDRE

"would be to see a fight and a combat
between our Cúchulinn and Fergus mac
Roy. "
"That would be a fight indeed," said
Naoise, " but we shall never see it. They
love each other." ·
" It would be a queer thing," said Ainnle,
" if a boy were to fight with his own foster-
father. "
" I heard that a boy once did, and killed
him too," said Ardan.
" V\Tho did? \\Tho did ? "
" I forget his name."
" Because you never heard it."
" Our young Ardan makes things up in
his head," said N aoise, in a fatherly voice,
while Ardan hid his blushes by attending
to the fire.
" Do you think," Ainnle inquired, " that
Cúchulinn could beat Fergus if they fought? "
Naoise regarded that query judicially.
" I don't know indeed," he replied.
" I think Cúchulinn could beat anybody,"
Ardan broke in.
Naoise continued, without regard to his
youngest brother:
"It was Fergus that taught Cúchulinn
75

DEIRDRE

BK. I

all his battle feats, and Fergus knows every-
thing that the Cú knows, but it may easily
be that our Cúcuc does not know all the
things that Fergus knows."
"Fergus," cried Ainnle indignantly,
" would not keep a thing back, for he wants
Cúchulinn to be the best champion in Eirè."
" I think that is true," replied the very
judicial Naoise, " but there are some things
a fighter knows and can't teach even if
he wants to. They are not tricks, they are
what Conachúr calls ways, and Fergus has
'ways' in combat, as if he had been born
in a fight and could go to sleep in it if he
d "
wante to.
" Do you remember," cried Ainnle, "the
champion that stopped to scratch himself
while he was fighting? "
" Ho, ho," laughed Ardan.
"And the other champion chipped his
hind end off while he was bending," gurgled
Ainnle.
" W asn' t that man a great fool?" said
Ardan solemnly.
" No," laughed Naoise, " it was just that
he thought he had time to do it. I saw
that combat. It must have been that a
7 6

CH.X

DEIRDRE

wasp or hornet slid into his leg band. He
gave a jump and a quick bend to get at his
leg, but the other man jumped after him;
then he gave another great jump and another
bend, and he got a little trip at the same
time - that is how the other champion
slashed him; but everybody was laughing
so much that his life was spared, so he kept
his head if he lost his tail."
" Ho, ho, ho 1 " roared Ardan.
And it was his laughter that made Deirdre
part with a squeal of glee which so astonished
her that she leaped to her feet and fled
among the trees, and so home.
She had not spoken to the boys beyond
the word of blessing and greeting which
could not be omitted. Ardan and Ainnle
considered that it was quite right a girl
should be silent in the presence of champions,
but Naoise thought it was a pity she did not
speak, for he was inclined to fancy that her
voice would be pleasant to listen to.

77

CHAPTER XI

IF it rested only with the boys the girls
might go unmarried, for boys have urgent
interests and have little of the leisure for
dream which girls enjoy.
They feel, moreover, at a loss in that art
w herein a girl seems instinctively wise; for
as a young bee will undertake untaught the
curious angles and subtle perfections of his
home, so a girl will adventure herself in love
without misgiving and without teaching.
The secret of the bee and of the girl
is that they give their whole minds to
their idea; and this powerful concentration,
w herein the being comes to a oneness of
desire, moves to its ends as unerringly as a
bird wings to the sole hedge he aims for
among all the hedges of a country-side.
So, although N aoise did think again of
their visitor, his thought of her was but one
78

CH.XI

DEIRDRE

among many, for he had grave businesses in
hand, and, except when he slept, his leisure
for dreaming was limited.
He had long since left the Boy Troop at
Emania. He had performed the feats by
which an apprentice rises to be a master,
and a full two years had passed since
Conachúr, in the presence of a solemn con-
course, had received him into the Red
Branch, and bestowed on him the armour
which he had won, and the shield which he
would honourably guard.
He was a gentleman by birth, but he was
now a soldier also, and must lift his hand for
those who besought protection or against
those who derided it. He would move
habitually where death urged about him at
no greater distance than the length of a
spear, and he would look upon death as being
so instant a part of life, that he must woo
the one as earnestly as he loved the other.
His thought of Deirdre was also com-
plicated by the knowledge that she was his
master's ward, and his personal loyalty to
Conachúr was such that he would not dwell
even in imagination on that which belonged
to the king.

79

DEIRDRE

EK. I

Stories of Deirdre had long ago come
abroad. The fact of her lonely keeping
lent a romantic charm to gossip, and all
that was said about her was stressed by
the singular condition of her birth and
upbringing. The old servants hinted and
blinked and nodded, indicating thus a
beauty for which there was no parallel; and
the ancient guards, partly in brag, partly in
truth, lent an aid to the spread of the Deirdre
rum our .
These things, however, were to be talked
about, but they were not to be further
looked into, for she belonged to the king,
and curiosity itself went lightly in the pre-
sence of that notable fact. Therefore, so
far as a young man could, Naoise put Deirdre
\ out of his mind, or only remembered her
as a delicious apparition, and he warned
his brothers that they must on no account
mention her escapade.
But if this was the case with the boy it
was not so with the girl. For good or ill
her imagination had been captured, and
through it her senses had awakened. Her
fancies had now a home to fly to, and while
the unrest proper to her years grew as
80

CH.XI

DEIRDRE

stealthily as her limbs, it was no longer un-
noted. She had a direction and she leaned
there as ardently and unconsciously as a
flower turns to the sun.
Now she became a creature of another
reverie; no longer staring vaguely into
space, but looking there, and seeing what
even the wise Lavarcham could not surmise.
This powerful brooding of desire is a
magical act, and the object of it does not
remain entirely unaffected ; for, even if no
coherent message is despatched, the unrest
is shared in however diffused a form, and it
may be that in sleep Naoise was no longer
the master of his dreams.
But the real scope of an action is with the
actor, and Deirdre, brooding on N aoise, was
Deirdre brooding on herself, and taking
conscious control and direction of her own
growth and culture. Lavarcham noticed
the difference; for when she spoke to the
girl she was replied to by the woman, and
she sensed in her ward something intract-
able, obedient still, and yet as removed from
her cognizance, and so from her control, as
she was herself from the cognizance of any
person about her.

8r

G

CHAPTER XII

THEREFORE, when she next spoke to the king
her mind was stirred by uneasiness, and she
had all that feeling of haste and work to be
done which comes to us when we seem void
of direction and are yet spurred on to an
intuitive urgency.
"Lavarcham, my soul," said Conachúr,
"you always get your way, for you insist
and insist, and at last whatever you wish
must be done or there is no peace in the
household or the kingdom."
"In good truth," said l,avarcham, "I
do not recognize my fault this time."
" We forget by repetition," cried the
king, "and you have so dinned our ears
these ages past about your babe that I
must consent to see her or perish from your
. .."
Importunities.

82

CR. XII

DEIRDRE

" That I am glad of," replied Lavarcham,
" for she is growing and needs other guid-
ance than I can give. You should find her
a husband," said the crafty woman.
"That must be done," the king mur-
mured.
He was silent for a few minutes, for the
thought of marriage reminded him of his
own adventures in that condition, and when
he spoke it was with an elaborate careless-
ness.
" Have you heard any news of the High
King? "
" I have heard, but it is only a rumour,
that his daughter, the queen Maeve, has
been married again, and that the High King
has bestowed on her the kingdom of Con-
nacht. "
" A number of our young men," said he,
with a hard smile, "have for long enough
disliked that kingdom and its people: it
may become difficult to keep them from
crossing the border."
"One of their men," said Lavarcham,
" crosses the Black Pig's Dyke often
enough. "
" And, woe on it," said Conachúr, with
83

DEIRDRE

BK.I

a cheerful laugh, " he gets back again. We
must strengthen the Connacht marches, or
that man will make our fortifications the
laughter of all Ireland. It is Cet mac
Magach you speak of."
" Conall Cearnach's uncle indeed," Lavar-
cham replied.
"But Conall crosses their borders too,"
said the king. "My memory is weaken-
ing," he continued; "what is it that Conall
boasts of? "
" He boasts that he never goes to sleep
without the head of another Connachtman
lying in the crook of his knees."
" Some day he may forget to remember
that Cet rnac Magach is his uncle, and if he
brings that head home we shall give it an
honourable welcome. But about your babe,
I shall go and look at her to-morrow. All
your over-statements will crowd on your
mind to-morrow, my poor friend, and you
will be very unhappy."
"Indeed," Lavarcham admitted, "we
look with a loving eye on the person we love,
and so may see less or more than is visible
to other people."
"In love," Conachúr replied, "we see
84

CR. XII

DEIRDRE

only what we love to see, and as that is
unreal we should not look lovingly on any-
thing, and so we may get sight of what is
really visible."
"It is true, master," said Lavarcham
humbly.
" It is with such an eye that I shall look
on your babe to-morrow."
" Alas 1 my poor Deirdre," said Lavar-
cham.
"The Troubler has not given much
trouble yet," laughed Conachúr.

8S

CHAPTER XIII

LAVARCHAM went home.
The sense of urgency and unmeditated
haste which for some time had been in her
n1Ïnd was greater than ever, as though she
were being pressed to an action, thoroughly
comprehended indeed, but for which she
had no plan and no eXplanation. There
was something to be done; she knew what
it was but could not state it: and there was
also something which prevented its accom-
plishment; and she was similarly aware and
unaware of what this latter obstruction was.
This sense of being controlled without
being consulted, of being given a key with-
out being told what door it opens, is common
to all people who plan and are not sufficiently
disengaged to observe that they are being
overridden by their own contrivance; for
86

CR. XIII

DEIRDRE

there is a point up to which we control
desire, but at the stage where other people's
interests intersect ours those alien desires
and our own meet: they cease to be many
and become one thing, and we are ridden
in community by the jinn we liberated. But
we know with a profound, unconscious
certitude all that is happening, and are
enlisted for those intuitive purposes beyond
the control of interest or prudence or reason.
Habit alone remains to guide us in these
trackless ways, and it was her habit of
verbal reticence which calmed Lavarcham.
Her first impulse had been to tell Deirdre
with a rush that the king was coming to
see her on the next day. Her second im-
pulse was cautious. If I tell this, she
thought, the child will not sleep all night,
and she will be heavy-eyed and dull before
the king.
Therefore she did not mention the matter
to Deirdre.
But she was no longer the calm lady
whom the world knew. She would sit
down and stand up, and go wandering from
room to room, and return from these ram-
blings, to begin them all over again. She
87

DEIRDRE

.BK. I

sat by Deirdre's side and took her hand,
peering long and earnestly into the face she
loved: dwelling on the set of her eyes, the
line of her cheek, the poise of her lips and
her chin: watching how her teeth shone
and disappeared as she spoke, what her
tongue looked like as it became visible for
a short red flash: looking now at her ears
and now at her hair; or standing well away
to take her in as a girl, as acorn pletion)
with all details merged and the human unit
standing full formed at the eye.
She cogitated what dress Deirdre should
wear on the morrow: what ornaments for
her neck and hair; and then she thought,
in a fever of inspiration, that she would take
no thought of these: that the girl should
be dressed even more plainly than usual:
that there should be no ornaments upon her
of any kind: that there should be nothing
to look at but the girl herself with her hair
for a cro,vn) and her eyes for all other attrac-
tion: the light eagerness of her limbs should
be their own witncss: the colour of her
cheek should be sufficient wonder for any
eye.
And again she thought that men do not
88

CH. XIII

DEIRDRE

understand these things at a glance; that
they are used to looking for that which they
have already seen; and that they spend time,
not so much in appreciating that which is
present, as in trying to account for the
absence of that which they had expected to
see. And she remembered again that it
was Conachúr himself who was coming, with
a mind which would ponder exactly what
was presented to it, and an eye that would
regard no more than could be seen.
She determined, in terror, that she would
not prepare Deirdre in any way for the visit,
and that until she was called into the presence
the child should know nothing even of an
im pending visitor.
She arranged that this should happen,
and at the accustomed hour the torches
were quenched and the folk of the house-
hold betook themselves to their beds.

89

CHAPTER XIV

BUT at the hour she considered suitable
Deirdre rose again from her bed.
She could not rest there, although she
lay with the endless patience of a cat, staring
hour after hour into the gloom and seeing
in it more of radiance than the sun could
show.
She was living at last.
The sense that all the morrows were
provided for, and that all the minutes of all
the morrows were calculated and ordained,
dropped from her for ever, for she had
become at last an identity instead of a puppet
to be pulled here and ordered there, and to
do only what was willed by other people;
for first the imagination a wakes, and then
the senses, and lastly the will, when the urge
of life is focussed.

go

CH. XIV

DEIRDRE

Thinking of these other people, of
Lavarcham and the grisly servants, of the
ramshackle, sneezing guards, all ringing
her about from freedom, a sense of rage
came into her soul, so that at moments she
was no longer a girl but a wild cat, and she
could have scratched and screeched and
died in one senseless outrage.
IIer mind, too, was overflowing with that
same sense of urgency, as though something
clamoured to be done immediately and at a
pace faster than limbs could manage. What
was it she wanted? She did not know, but
she knew definitely that she wanted it with
a whole uncontrollable mental greed that
made of her a person she did not recog-
nize and could not battle with.
But with all that tumult of mind she was
patient with the marvellous patience of
youth, for no grown person has one tithe
of the patience of a child, who, from the
hour he is born until the day when he
snatches liberty from reluctant elders, leads
a life that is one unending lesson in attend-
ing. They can wait, for they know that the
future is theirs and will come to them over
whatever obstruction. And she could wait.
9 1

DEIRDRE

BK. I

When Lavarcham trod softly in her
chamber she pretended to be asleep, and
amused herself staring behind closed lids
at the red light which the torch carried even
through that darkness. She thought her
guardian would never go away, and lifting
one scrap of an eyelash she saw I.lavarcham
brooding upon her with such a fixity of
attention, with so profound a scrutiny, as
surprised her. So curious and prolonged
was this examination that she almost opened
her eyes to demand a reason for this scrutiny
from the face of ivory and jet that was bend-
ing over hers. But she did not do so, for
young people can bear starings and examina-
tions which would madden them later in
life, and are able to consider that affairs
which actually circle upon them are yet
not their business.
Lavarcham sighed deeply, and as in a
passion of what ?-fear, hope, doubt-and
then the light began to recede, and went
farther away, and disappeared.
Deirdre knew every motion that Lavarcham
made at night. Now she did this, next she
would do that, afterwards she would do such
another thing: an unvarying sequence of
9 2

ClI. XIV

DEIRDRE

small details which she had watched or
listened to since the first hour that she was
able to watch or listen. So that when she
came from her bed she left it with the
certainty that she might do so, and that all
the habitual details had culminated in the
habitual sleep into which Lavarcham placed
herself even when it did not overcome her.

93

CHAPTER XV

THE moon was at her last quarter, a pale
thin sickle that shone and disappeared and
reappeared in a mass of hastily scudding
cloud. During that eclipse obscurity fell on
the air, and a yet vaster quietude enveloped
the earth. Then the sickle reappeared, and
with it more than the darkness lifted. Some-
thing even more mysterious than darkness
vanished intermittently; that brooding as
of an infinite presence seemed to recede,
and the normal world, beautiful and com-
prehended, came silverly to the view.
Through these glooms and visions Deirdre
fled, observing every shadow as a hare does,
who, knowing that this shade is a danger
and that one a protection, ventures a pace
or stays as his hard-won knowledge bids
him.

94

CII.XV

DEIRDRE

A cloud of such a size meant a shadow
of such a duration. This cloud will carry
one across the lawn, and when it has passed,
the trees yonder will be won and their desired
shade. From the south another cloud was
coming, bulky as a two - acre field and
buoyant as a gossamer. Folded in its
gloom the wall could be crossed and the
shel ter of trees or of long grass reached
before the moon came riding, delicately, in
a radiance that was one half silver and one
half blue.
So she fled. The lark watching from a
dew-drenched covert was not more discreet
as it turned again to the slumber that she had
broken; and when she took the wall the bat
that whirled from it made more noise than
she did.
At times, when there was neither light nor
dark, a world of grey and purple that was
thirty feet high and fifteen feet around en-
closed her in. And she stretched her ears
towards the bounds of that small universe
before she ventured another step.
Wonderful and terrifying were these dim
oases of vision; and across them, coming
from no place and dallying a moment ere
95

DEIRDRE

BK. I

they went on to nowhere, more silent than
the night itself and as incomprehensible,
grey moths were flitting; dim as ghosts
they were, and as aloof; beating a tireless
gauze on no errand, tacking back and forth,
and disappearing in one flirt of a noiseless
wing. Small creatures seemed to wait until
her foot must fall on them, and then, with a
sound that lasted for two long seconds of
panic, they were gone; they disappeared,
and the world was utterly empty of them.
At these sounds she stood, her heart beating
up at her throat and a sense of angry despair
flooding over and about her. Then she
moved again; slipping into and out of
shadows as featly as the moonbeam slipped
into and out of a cloud.
She knew where she was going, but not
what she was going to do. She would see
him again because she must, and after that,
if there was more to be done the time to do it
would bring the doing. But the one large
apprehension was as yet sufficient for her
mind-that she would see him again, and
that they would talk together. She was
sure that this time he would speak to her,
and that whatever he said would be wiser
9 6

CH.XV

DEIRDRE

and sweeter and stranger than any words she
had yet listened to; and she wondered,
without thought, what his magical utterance
would mean and how it could possibly be
replied to; knowing yet that her replies
were already formed, and that the only word
she need utter until she died was the word
" "
yes.

97

H

CHAPTER XVI

SHE stood again behind a tree, looking on
the camp-fire and the three figures that
stretched or moved about it. She listened,
but now without joy, to the babel of laughter
which sped between them. Back and forth
it went, endless, tireless. Youth calling and
answering to youth; catching a facile fire
from each other, and tossing it back as
carelessly. Spendthrift they were as young
gods; care-free as young animals; with
minds untroubled because they need not
work, and bodies that were at ease because
they were active; scorning the darkness in
a gaiety that was delicious because it was
thoughtless, and with a thoughtlessness
that was lovely because it was young. But,
to her, watching, listening, waiting, all that
9 8

CII. XVI

DEIRDRE

merriment was a torment. She was their
peer in youth and activity, but she was their
superior in that she was thoughtful, for
desire is thought not yet translated, and her
desire would swell about the world and
banish all else from existence so that she
could fashion the regal solitude in which
so gigantic a mystery might be contem-
plated.
Why, she thought frowningly, did these
children not go to sleep? And why, she
wondered, should older people submit to
annoyance or be forced to await any young
person's convenience?
But the night was advanced, and young
people will sleep. Soon they stretched about
the fire, and each com posed himself to the
slumber which comes as deliciously in its
season as waking does; and, for their life
favoured it, they fell into sleep as precipi-
tately as though they were falling down a
cliff.
She could scarcely wait for the five
minutes that was required. Then she
plucked a scrap of moss and tossed it on
Naoise's breast.
As he fell asleep so he sprang awake:
99

DEIRDRE

BK. I

he went dead asleep: he came wide awake,
with every faculty alert, and his limbs as
composed for movement as for rest. He
saw the scrap of moss lying on his bosom,
and, knowing that such things do not travel
of their own accord, he looked for the cause,
searching keenly among the boles that
stretched in endless gleam and gloom about
them.
She stood forward a pace.
Had she really moved, or was she impelled?
Surely a hand had taken her by the shoulder
and pushed her forward 1 But in the
moment that she moved panic seized her as
suddenly and overwhelmingly as a hawk
swoops upon a mouse. She lifted a hand
to her breast so that her heart might not be
snatched away, but the hand went on to her
Ii ps and covered them in terror lest they
should call. She turned with one swift and
flying gesture, but the foot that aimed for
flight continued its motion, and the full
circle held her again facing the terror . For
he had already risen, lithe as a cat and as
noiseless, and in three great strides he was
standing beside her, standing over her,
encompassing her about; not now to be
100

CR. XVI

DEIRDRE

retreated from or escaped from or eluded
. In any way.
And as her heart had leaped so his leaped
also, and they stood in an internal tumult,
so loud, so intimate and violent, that the
uproar and rush of a storm was quietude in
the comparison.
They could not speak. There were no
words left in the world. There were only
eyes that plunged into and fled from each
other, and a mighty hand that had gripped
her arm and would never release it again.
A hand that pushed her backwards and
backwards, away from the friendly logs that
crackled and flamed; away from the quiet
forms that might have rescued her but that lay
as though slumbering in stone. She might
have escaped with one sound, but the law of
her being was that she must not make a
sound. She might have escaped by just a
show of reluctance; one small opposition,
nay, hesitation, to the pressure of that hand.
But she would not make that infinitesimal
wraith of motion. A weariness as of piled
worlds went from his finger to her mind, and
it was forbidden her to have any longer an
initiative. A lethargy that was utter sur-
101

DEIRDRE

BK. I

render stole into her limbs. She did not
think, she did not desire: she was as void of
speculation as though she were dead; and
while his hand continued to guide she would
go, and when it ceased she would no longer
be capable of either movement or repose.
All fear of interruption had passed, and
yet they went on cautiously, noiselessly, as
though interruption was imminent or un-
escapable; putting trees and yet more trees
between them and the leaping fire; striving
to forget the fire; seeking a more involved
darkness, and finding everywhere a gloom
that yet revealed them. They could not
discover darkness. They could not get to
a place where they could cease to see each
other. Always it looked black farther on,
and always when they got there they could
each see the pale confronting face of the
other, with the darkness everywhere but in
those faces.
They stopped perforce, with that feel-
ing of tremendous discouragement wherein
passion sinks back upon i tself, where desire
ceases and nothing is instant but weariness.
His hand yet held her, but it gripped no
longer: it lay on her arm as a dead weight:
102

CR. XVI

DEIRDRE

she had only to move an inch and it would
fall away: she had but to turn and he would
not follow her even with his eyes; but the
energy which had drained from him flooded
into her in one whirling stream, and when
his hand fell away hers took up the duty it
relinquished.

103

CHAPTER XVII

IF Lavarcham had ever permitted herself
excitement she would have been excited the
next day. But there is a curious means by
which we may postpone the spending of
our emotions. There are many people
who can only do a particular thing on con-
dition that they do it in two directions.
They can repress themselves only when they
are engaged in repressing some one else;
for the thing we are doing outwardly and
to others is always the thing that we are
doing inwardly and to ourselves. If we treat
others benevolently we are assuredly being
kind to ourselves: if we mete out torment we
will receive that measure and will writhe in
it. A tyrant is ultimately one who is striv-
ing for self-mastery by the wrong method.
But in order to be good you must do good,
104

CH.XVII

DEIRDRE

or to be anything you must do that thing
concretely, for life is movement and all else
is movement too. Lavarcham by uncon-
scious processes discovered that Deirdre
needed the utmost disciplinary and repress-
ive measures that could be applied to a
human being.
"The child is running \vild," she com-
plained to the air that circulated about
Deirdre's head.
"But I have not done a thing," cried
Deirdre.
" There are a thousand things you should
have done," Lavarcham replied.
" What are they? " Deirdre demanded.
But Lavarcham did not know.
She certainly felt within herself the neces-
sity for doing a thousand things. She felt
so busy that there must realIy be a thousand
things to be done. But she knew also
that nothing remained for her to do, and,
consequently, that Deirdre was to blame.
The real thing she had to do was to master
her own excitement, and she perceived at a
glance that Deirdre was in a very excited
condition indeed.
" You must sit quietly, my treasure," she
1 0 5

DEIRDRE

BK. I

counselled. " You must not move from
one place to another, taking things up and
putting them down. You will become
fidgety yourself and will give everyone
about you the fidgets also."
" But " Deirdre expostulated.
" And you must not give back-answers.
\Vhen you are told to do a thing you must
do it cheerfully and patiently "
" But " cried Deirdre.
"For," Lavarcham continued, "lacking
this self-control and gentleness of movement
no girl can become a lady."
" But," Deirdre exploded, "I have not
done a thing."
" You know, my one treasure, that every-
thing I say is for your good, and when I
counsel you it is because I consider you
need just that counsel. You are distraught
to-day, my bud of the branch, and there is
no reason why you should not be as calm
to-day as you were yesterday or any day.
This is only to-day, but to-morrow will
come and to-day will be forgotten."
" I do not understand in the least
Deirdre began.
"There is nothing to understand, my
106

"

CH.XVII

DEIRDRE

beloved. There is not a reason in the world
why you should be troubled. Sit now at
your embroidery, and do not leave it until
I give permission."
Deirdre was indeed excited, but Lavar-
cham had not the smallest perception of
this: nor was it visible. It was a very
intimate excitement, which could be brooded
and enjoyed as well over a piece of em-
broidery as in any other way. And Lavar-
cham watched her, sensing nothing of that
deep agitation and memory and dream.
I was wise, she thought, not to tell the
news, for the child seems even more beauti-
ful to-day than she has ever seemed before.
She has slept well.
While they were thus sitting a servant
hurried into the room, with her eyes bolting
from her head, and a gabble on her lips
which Lavarcham only repressed by ferocity,
for she surmised at once that the king had
arrived, and she did not even yet \vish
Deirdre to know of the visit.
She rose and precipitated herself against
the servant.
" Is that how you enter a room, ill-bred
slave? vVas it among the cattle that you
10 7

DEIRDRE

BK. I

learned manners? Begone at once," she
cried, " and do not come into a room again
until you have asked and received permission
to enter. What is the world coming to? " she
continued angrily as she hustled the servant
through the door and down the corridor.
" It's the son of Ness " the servant
babbled.
" And if it is," said Lavarcham, "there
is the more reason for you to be attentive
and respectful and unseen. Go to your place
and stay there until I send for you."
She returned then, and, still simulating
ill-temper, she dismissed Deirdre to her
own room.
" You have not properly trimmed your
finger - nails," she scolded; "there is a
black spot under one of them. You are
not seemly. Go to your room at once, little
blossom, and when you come back come so
that your fosterer need not be ashamed of
her charge."
Saying so, she marched Deirdre to her
room and thrust her in. Then she returned,
and, seating herself at the embroidery from
which she had driven her ward, she pre-
pared to receive the king.
108

CHAPTER XVIII

, , WELL, my heart, " said the king, as he
strode through the door of the Sunny
Chamber.
With a keen glance he took in all that
was to be seen. The woodwork of the walls
and floors that were polished and polished
again until they shone like crystal. The
great carved chairs, each placed at the same
prim distance from the other and from the
wall; and the skins and furs that formed
geometrical patterns and gradations of colour
on the floor.
Conachúr shook his head as he regarded.
" Methodical," he said, as he sat down.
" Orderly, master," she corrected gently.
"It is a woman's room," he insisted.
" No man could live in it."
" No man does," said the humble dame.
109

DEIRDRE

BK. I

" And by merely entering I have ruined it
already," the king continued in a grievous
tone; "I have kicked three rugs out of
alignment," he said ruefully.
" It is a small matter," said Lavarcham.
"I am certain that your heart is ill at
ease, and although your hands are folded
they are twitching to restore these rugs;
rearrange them if you must, my good
friend. "
" If the king permits me," she cried joy-
fully, and with a few deft touches she re-
placed the rugs.
" You may sit down," said the king.
" And now, where is this baby you deafen
the world about?"
Lavarcham clapped her hands, and, to
the servant who appeared in the doorway-
" Tell your mistress, Deirdre, that she is
required immediately-and do not tell her
that a visitor is with me, or woe betide you."
The servant disappeared.
Conachúr looked at her quizzically.
"The girl does not know that I was
coming? "
Lavarcham pursed her lips.
" I have not mentioned it to her."
110

CR. XVIII

DEIRDRE

The king, with his elbow on his knee,
continued to regard her mockingly.
" Is it that you are careful or careless, my
friend? "
" I am careful, master. I am always care-
ful," she replied.
" But," he continued gently, "she will
not be apparelled so as to be looked on by a
visitor. "
" She will be seen as she would be seen
any hour of any day, and thus it will be
known, master, that Lavarcham does her
duty."
" Y ou are the wonder of Emania," said
Conachúr. "I hear a step," he continued,
and, removing his elbow from his knee, he
stretched out a great leg and turned towards
the door.
Deirdre entered like a whirlwind of legs
and laughter, and, seeing a huge man staring
at her, she halted as if she had been stopped
by a wall, whirled about and would have
vanished again but that Lavarcham's voice
restrained her.
"The king has come to visit us, my
pulse," said the suave Lavarcham.
The blood pounded into Deirdre's heart
III

DEIRDRE

EK. I

and into her temples; for an instant her
body seemed to be filled with noise and
blindness, and in the next instant the lady,
trained for every emergency and in every
etiquette, was mistress again. Deirdre ad-
vanced, made a great reverence, and knelt at
the king's knee.
He gave her his hand to kiss.
" You may rise) my fawn," said the
nlonarch.
She arose and stood with downcast eyes.
She did not dare to look at him. All that
came within her vision was a mighty leg
dra ped in green silk, from which long
tassels of gold swung gently. The king
stared narrowly at her, and Lavarcham
stared narrowly at the king.
"Go now, my dear," said Lavarcham,
" and see that refreshments are brought for
the king."
Deirdre again made her deep reverence,
and, on rising, her hasty upward glance
,vas caught by Conachúr's eye. She trod
swiftly backwards, staring, and it was with
parted lips and wide eyes that she disap-
peared from the room.
But the king continued staring at the
112

CH. XVIII

DEIRDRE

doorway like one who has seen a vision and
is striving with every fibre to recreate that
which has vanished.
" Was I not right, master?" said Lavar-
cham gently.
"She is the Bud of the Branch," said
Conachúr. "She is the Fragrant Apple of
the Bough."
" Did I not say that she was beautiful?"
cried the gleeful and vehement lady.
" You did not say so," he replied sternly.
" You never told me of this."
" Nay, master, you would not believe me."
"It could not be told," the thoughtful
monarch admitted. "If the flight of the
swallow could be imparted by words, or the
crisping of foam: if the breath of the lily
could be uttered, or the beauty of a young
tree on a sunny hill: then this Troubler
might be spoken of. Have you noticed,
my friend, how the sun paints glories and
wonders on the sky as he goes west in the
evening, or at early morn with what noble
tenderness he comes again: she is radiant
and tender as the sun, Lavarcham."
" Thus it is," said Lavarcham.
"She is nine times sweeter than the
II3 I

DEIRDRE

EK. I

cuckoo on the branch," he cried. "I give
her the Pass before all the women of the
world, for she is notable and delicate and
dear. "
" Then you will marry her as is fitting,"
Lavarcham pleaded. U You will not give
my baby to a rough gentleman."
The king stood furiously from his chair.
"She is for no man but the king," he
stormed. "She shall be my one wife until
Doom."

IJ4

CHAPTER XIX

I N ten seconds the floor rugs had sailed from
their anchorages and were lying some neatly
inside out and all in woeful askewness. The
chairs left their military formation; some
stood seat to seat like couples preparing for
a dance, others in the woeful, slack isolation
of those who stare after uncivil partners that
have fled. And in this wreckage of a woman'8
room Conachúr strode.
"Lavarcham," he cried, "there shall
be great deeds done in Ireland from this
d "
aYe
" Yes, my dear lord."
" I am twenty years younger than I was
an hour ago. I could leap like a young
buck, Lavarcham."
" Yes, my dear lord," she stammered.
"Poets shall sing more wisely in Eirè
115

DEIRDIlE

EK. I

because of this day; harpers shall play more
sweetly; the magicians shall win increase of
power, for through me this land shall be
possessed by power and beauty."
" Yes, my sweet lord," cried the trans-
formed woman.
" You shan be with me always, Lavar-
cham. "
" Oh, my master 1 "
" I shan marry thee to an hero, and thy
descendants for ever shall sit, even in the
presence of a king."
" Nay, I shall kneel, and all my seed shall
kneel in the house of my dear lord."
"Sit down, my soul, and let us talk.
Lavarcham," he said, "that girl shall be
Iny wife."
" I have dreamed of this, day," she mur-
mured.
" Y ou knew I would marry her?"
" I knew that my lord loves'the best, and
that she is the best. I trained her for my
lord. "
" She is the best," he conceded. "She
is better than the best."
" The king will never blush for his bride,
nor I for my training," she continued, " for
II6

CH. XIX

DEIRDI{E

in everything that becomes a lady she is well
1 "
taug It.
" So 1" said Conach úr.
" There is no ceremony of court or camp
that she does not understand. There is no
domestic care that she is not mistress of.
She can touch the harp like a master, she
can make a poem like a bard."
" Y ou give me pleasure, Lavarcham, but
all these she need do or not do as she pleases.
Tell me rather of herself, what is her mode?
What is her way of thinking? "
"She is loving and obedient as a pet
fawn, and she is wild-spirited as a wild
fawn. She is thoughtful for others; she
loves knowledge, and she fears nothing."
, , Even lacking all this, there is yet the
makings of a queen in her."
Lavarcham nodded a satisfied head.
U But she does not lack, and she is a
queen. In a week, when she has become
used to the crowd and the court, all the others
will fall back to their own places and she
will remain in her place."
"I think it will be so. But," and he
aroused again, " you have said nothing about
the curve of her cheek, Lavarcham."
117

DEIRDRE

BK. I

" \\That would a poor woman say of that 1 "
she cried gleefully.
" I saw her neck when she bent over my
hand, and I saw the two great tresses falling
away on either side. Lavarcham, that was
a wonder to see 1 "
" We see with our own sight, master."
" When she stood up I saw the lips that
had touched my hand: and I looked in her
eyes as she went away. There is no end to
those depths of light, and I can imagine that
they would change as the deep sea changes.
If she were angry they would be-thus; and
if she smiled they would be thus again; the
same and different. If she smiled her lips
would move in the smile. How do her lips
go when they smile, Lavarcham?"
"These are things which women are
blind to, master; they are seen only by
men. You must ask your poets to tell of
them, for this is man's talk, and no woman is
versed in it."
" Lavarcham 1 "
" y 1 "
es, master .
" I shall take her away with me this day."
" M 1 "
.&. aster.
"Bring her to the Red Branch at nightfall."
118

CR. XIX

DEIRDRE

" Master 1 "
" At nightfall, you hear me."
" I will not do it."
"What will you not do, slave, that I
order? "
" I will not debauch your queen."
" Lavarcham 1 "
"No one shall make a leman of my
ba be. "
"She shall return in a few hours. Be
with her at the Red Branch to-night. Do
not fail on your life."
" If I bring her my knife will be in her
bosom."
Conachúr leaned back in his chair and the
terrible staring frown went from his face.
" 'Ve shall certainly marry Lavarcham to
an hero. I am impatient, my heart, but
strength and victory lies always with the
one who can abide, and I can, even in tor-
H "
mente ave your way, woman.
" It is the best way, master. You shall
thank me yet for this way."
He smiled wryly.
" Dear, my lord," she continued earnestly,
"there must be the ceremonies that befit
a king's wedding, and guests must be
119

DEIRDRE

BK. I

invited from the four great Provinces of
Ireland. I t cannot all be done before two
little months."
" You shall have one week, my friend."
" A week 1 0 my master 1 "
"A woman's mind runs to gauds and
tricks and rites, but in a week we two shall
be married, and you may have ceremonies
for a year afterwards if you wish for them."
Lavarcham wrung her hands.
" 0 1 d "
my sweet or
" It shall be so," said the king.
Lavarcham sat dumb.

" In this house," he continued impatiently,
"refreshments are long in appearing, and
after those excitements and battlings we
need them."
" They only wait permission to enter,"
she stammered, and clapped her hands.
Deirdre appeared with three servants
carrying silver trays. She took one and
knelt to present it to the king.
"Nay, you shall partake with me, and
Lavarcham shall serve us. Let those others
go. "
At a sign from Lavarcham the servants
120

Cll. XIX

DEIRDRE

placed their trays on tables and retired with
terrified courtesies.
"Taste from the cup, my brightness,"
said Conachúr, "and afterwards I shall
taste."
" A Rí U asall" Deirdre stammered.
" All precedence is yours from this hour.
Are you not called the Troubler? "
" I 1 d "
am, or .
" You have troubled the king, 0 sky-
woman. Do not be shy with me or fright-
ened, for although a king is terrible to all
he is not fearful to a queen. Drink from
O "
my cup, queen.
Deirdre glanced hastily towards Lavar-
cham, for this conversation had taken a turn
which her training had not provided for,
but her guardian was sitting bemused, in a
trance of benevolence and admiration.
She sipped from the cup, and, with a tiny
smile of apology and fear, tendered it again
to the staring king. He took the vessel, and
her hand with it.
" I imagined it so," he said; U I imagined
how the thin red lip would arch and curve
and cling to the cup; and I foresaw how it
would cling and uncurve and re-arch and
121

DEIRDRE

BK. I

withdra w. The poets tell of such wonders
when they can, but I know these things by
my own virtue better than they do. One
day, 0 shy cluster of delight, you will sing
to me: my harper shall listen to that when I
can bear a companion, for I may grudge a
sight or a sound of you even to the men of
art. I shall see your hair done otherwise,
and this way again. I shall see you stir
about me, this side and that and backwards;
a thousand harmonies of movement that I
divine and a thousand that I know nothing
of. Do not be fearful, 0 little twisted loop
of the ringlets, for you are my beloved. You
shall have no weariness or lack for ever, for
I shall fold you in my affection as a hawk
folds air within her wings. You shall leave
these bleak halls and yon mangy field to sit
at the banquets in the Red Branch: to be the
Queen of Ulster, the pearl of the world, and
h ' d "
my own eart s comra e.
Deirdre was the more alarmed, not only
because a strange and mighty gentleman
was holding a strange and monstrous dis-
course to her, but he was holding her hand,
and she did not know how to retrieve it.
She thought it would not be polite to laugh,
122

Cll. XIX

DEIRDRE

although she vastly wanted to, and she knew
it would be foolish to cry, although she was
so bewildered and terrified that an ocean of
frightened tears was surging behind her eyes.
"Lavarcham, my sweet mother," she
murmured in distress.
And that low plaint went to Conachúr's
heart like a sword of delight, so that his soul
was shaken and he could have wept for pity
and love.
" Return to your embroidery, my child,"
said Lavarcham. U I shall come to you later
and prepare your mind for all that is in store
L "
lor you.
Deirdre stood up then and fled, only re-
membering her courtesy at the doorway.

123

CHj-\.P1
ER XX

[JAVARCHAM came to her as. promised, and
she told Deirdre for hours of the delights to
come.
" In a week," she said, "you will be gone
from here, and our home will be desolate
indeed. But although the king called this
a bleak den, and spoke of our demesne as a
mangy field, he was not right in doing so.
A house is bleak that has no children running
and shouting in it, and this house will be
bleak when you are gone; but in all other
respects a cleaner or better appointed dwell-
ing will not be found in the Five Great
Fifths of Ireland; mark me well, child, the
king was excited and unjust, and I shall tell
him so. \V
en you rule in Emania you
will find how difficult it is to keep all things
in order, and how hard it is to have even one
12 4

Cll.XX

DEIRDRE

room clean; for men will be stirring at all
hours of the day and night in your palace, and
although they can make a home in a field men
make nothing but dirt in a house.
" You will have much to do and to remem-
ber, my secret bud, but, above all, you must
remember the genealogies of Ireland and the
precedences of the court as I have taught
them to you, and in any doubt or dispute
ask me rather than the herald. The chief
cause of trouble in a country is the herald,
for he is always wrong, and even when he is
right in fact he is wrong in tact. Do not
take any other woman's counsel in those
matters; do not even seek it-the one wish
of all women is to advance their husbands,
and themselves by consequence, and they
will ruin the world if they are let.
" Do not forget that, after the king, the
first man in the land is Fergus the son of
Roy. Be quick in respect to him, but be
slow to sit by him or to talk with him, for
Conach úr loves him on the surface, but he
hates him in the bone. The first woman in
the land is the wife of Fergus, the king's
mother. Be obedient to Ness in every-
thing. Be quick in your courtesies to her.
125

DEIRDRE

BK. I

Give her many kisses. Be careful not to
love her, for her love is uncertain as a eat's
paw, and where she strikes she draws blood.
But these two are not often at Emania. They
live in their fortress, deep in love, or in
thought, as Conachúr fancies.
" You will see Findcheam, the wife of
Amargin the Wonderful, and Dervorgilla,
wife of Lugad of the Red Stripes, Fedelm-
of-the-Fresh-Heart, the wife of Laerí the
Victorious, and Niab, the daughter of Celt-
char mac U thecar, and Brig Brethach, his
wife. Hussies alII spit-fires and scratch-cats 1
There is Lendubair, Conall Cearnach's wife,
and Findige, wife of Eogan mac Durthacht,
and Fedelm-of-the-Nine-Shapes, the king's
daughter. They, and an hundred others.
You will meet them all.
" They have all been whispering of you
this year back: and they have told more lies
of you than will be told again until you die.
You will like them at first, for many of them
are nearly of your age, and they will fuss and
gallop and chatter about you like claws.
Give them all the listening you like, give
them all the kisses they will take-O h, you
will be kissed from morning to night, my
126

CII.XX

DEIRDRE

pet-but do not give one of them a moment's
confidence.
" The king will talk to you urgently, whis-
pering in your ear like a madman. There
is nothing he will not tell you in the night,
however deep it is, or hidden ; for a man in
love will give all that he has to the beloved;
he would give his soul if he knew how to do
it; and Conachúr will think that by telling
all his secrets to you he will somehow tell all
your secrets to himself. Men are so. But
that which he tells must be uttered to no
other ear, for what is whispered in the
palace wil1 be shouted down the Boyne.
Y ou can tell me all, for I am different; I
am your nurse, your mother, and your one
friend, but to no other person must you shape
even one syllable.
" When the king has confided to you all
that he can think of he will beg you to con-
fide in him: he will pray you to tell him all
that you have even done or thought-when
he tells you of the wild glees and savageries
of love tell him in return of how you feed
your pet fawn; for a man, and the gods know
why, delights to think that his beloved has a
fawn in the valley, and he will listen for ever
12 7

DEIRDRE

BK. I

to the tale of how it is fed and of its grateful
eyes.
" You will meet many men in the palace,
and each gentleman that you speak to will
be looked at closely by the king. Until this
day he has been aware of women as one is
aware of the sun, but now he will grow aware
of men as one is aware of a wound. You
will not see him look, but look he will; and
when you seem most free from observation
he will be studying you. Whether it be a
captain or a butler that your eyes rest on, he
will know, without looking, at whom you
are looking, and thereafter he will examine
that person for himself, and he will examine
you in curious ways about that person. Any
question he ever asks about a man will be a
trap for you. Answer him carelessly about
them all, and make the same answer about
them all.
" I t is safe to say of all men that they are
nice, but do not say that one is nicer than
another. There is no end to the windings
of his mind, and if you say that one man is
ugly and another not he will dream about
the distinction and will dream you terribly
into his dream. A dreaming man is magical,
128

CH.XX

DEIRDltE

for he will make the dream come true against
his own wish and interest, and Conachúr is
at the age to have those dreams.
B
ge ntl e and uncertain with him. Be
wild and coy. Do not, although he prays
you, be familiar with him. Tire quickly of
dalliance, for in middle life a man likes not
to think that he has wearied first. Dance
oftén but do not gambol. Be girlish but not
childish. Do not pluck his beard or tickle
him. Sit sparingly on his knee. It is only
old men who like baby tricks, and he is not,
by fifteen years, old enough for that.
Discuss your dresses and ornaments with
him: ask his advice about your ribbons;
he will laugh at you and chide you, but he
will love that to be done, and he will love
you for doing it. Should he be sportive
among women, pout then a little, make a
small lament, but take no heed of it. He has
outlived all the chances of desire.
He will love you only, and each day he
will love you n1ore. What fear there is
will be on his side; he will be afraid of men;
and there your heed must be endless, for you
must not hurt the king even by a second's
thoughtlessness. His equal is not in Eirè
129 K

DEIRDRE

EK. I

for majesty and wisdom. He is a great king,
a great man, a royal hero. 0 my lamb 1 all
that is of good luck and of noble fate has
come to you, and you should thank the king
for ever on your knees, and thank your poor
Lavarcham who planned this happiness.

I3 0

CHAPTER XXI

AND Conachúr lived anew as he drove home-
wards.
He did not see the humble people who
louted and stared as he dashed by, nor the
others who stood at strict attention marvelling
at a king who returned no salute.
His feet were so light he could have
bounded in the chariot, but his heart was
lighter still.
It flew into his brain and stayed there,
, buoyant as a bubble, creative as a moon; so
, charging his mind with its own essence that
.., all which was material merged in a flash to
the spirit. The earth was eased of grossness
and became a shimmer of colours and trans-
parencies ; an aura of gold and green rose on
the crests of the manifolding hills. The
tender involutions of no bird's song were
131

DEIRDRE

EK. I

heard, for all songs merged into that of the
lyrical earth and the clouds and the shining
spaces between them. The world was sing-
ing for Conachúr, and he was song. For to
the clairvoyance of love all that is unseen
takes on sweet shape, and all that we see we
are shapen to. A new world emerges softly
from the old: not imperceptibly and un-
reckoned, but by such divine gradations as
we may note and rejoice in. Then the
creator is manifest in his creation, and all in
us. We are it and all: we are the soul of the
world, and our own soul: we are the victors,
for we are beyond fear: we are the masters,
for we are beyond desire.
How should fear or lust reach to the tops
we spurn 1 The sour-faced beggar shaking
his oaken bowl may have our purse and a
clasp of the hand to boot. Yon shaking
anatomy that hovers and limps shall have
our own health if none other is at hand, for
all now is soft and easy, and at one bend of a
brow the Land of Heart's Desire may be in
being.
So Conachúr went, dreaming; the shaper
of a world that was malleable to his wish.
To this hour he had triumphed in all that
132

CR. XXI

DEIRDRE

he had undertaken, but he had been un-
friended, forging alone as in granite all that
he willed, and feeling at every instant the
rigour of life and the intractability of events.
He saw that nothing he had yet done was so
completed that it might be forgotten. Here
an event had left dissatisfaction in its wake:
there it had left an enemy. But from hence-
forth his work would have the clean finish of
the spring, and all that he planted should
grow from the root.
He would have double strength; his
titanic own, and hers, breathing in him like
an elixir, exciting him, heartening him. She
was-what was she not 1 She was his to-
morrow. She was his all and his last chance.
She was his future, vivifying all that had
grown stale, and unfolding horizons where
an uttermost end had seemed. For at
times an ending comes on every man, and
thereafter there is nothing to strive for,
there being nothing left to hope for; energy
winces from the thought of any task, and
the future but prolongs a present that is
insi pid and wearisome.
The departure of Maeve had been such an
ending for Conachúr. Life had halted there
133

DEIRDRE

BK. I

for him, or had moved in a round of sameness
which chafed and tormented his whirling
mind. But he could forget her now and
start afresh, for when he looked on Deirdre
she went into his blood and into his bones, so
that to be removed from her was as though
he were distant from his own arms or his own
head.
He was impatient, and wished that all
should know, as at one shout, his glorious
news, but he yet would not speak of it to
anyone. He knew that he might safely
leave the publishing of that event to Lavar-
cham, and that ere nightfall every house in a
radius of twenty miles would be talking of
the king's marriage.
Down every road that ran from Emain
Macha messengers would be going in swift
chariots to tell the tale and to bid those who
were worthy to the wedding feast. Not
stopping for more than a few minutes at any
place; changing horses at the guest-houses,
and dashing off again; some deep into
Connacht in the west, others eastwards into
Leinster, and more again speeding the long
centre of Ireland to the two M unsters.
These distant kings and princes would think
134

CH. XXI

DEIRDRE

they had been slighted by such short notice,
or by a notice that could only reach them
after the event. But his wedding feast
should endure for three months, and there
would be pleasure and leisure for all. At
this moment, if Lavarchanl was doing her
duty (and she was never neglectful), the
ostlers should be pulling the great chariots
out and backing the snorting horses between
the shafts.
To-morrow would be a new day.
Every person who observed the king
would look on him with something else in
the regard. Many reserves would be down,
many barriers broken; for all people look
differently on the king when he is in love,
and they try to bathe in his fortunate regard.
The men would glance at him shyly and
subtly: each look a reminder and a weII-
wishing. While he stood among them he
and they would laugh without any word
being said, and they would be more familiar
with him than they would otherwise dare.
But if one dared to clap his shoulder, Cona-
chú.r would clap that comrade's shoulder
agaIn.
The women would look at him more
135

DEIRDRE

BK. I

openly; more softly and broodingly; each
mutely assuring him that all which was to
come would be good; each telling him that
woman guards for man all that which no
man can give; each telling that because he
loved one woman he must love all, and that
women are truly lovable, and are precious
beyond all precious things. He would see
that they all wished to touch him, so that he
might know they were truly woman and not
different from her he delighted in; and he
would see them turn from him, humbled and
aggrieved, seeking anxiously in other eyes
for the confirmations which he must not
give.
For when the king is in love the world
goes mad, and all who love him must cherish
\. each other or sicken of their suppressed
. loyalty and adoration.
. For weeks to come Ulster would be an
orgy. The man who had dodged marriage
as a fox tricks the hen-wife would tumble
into it with a thud: those who craved for and
feared it would find that they were married
in a morning: maids would become daring
and men shy. From one, walking coyly in
the moonlight, a shoulder-band might slip,
13 6

CR. XXI

DEIRDRE

and the moo.n and a man would be rewarded
for being out at night. One who stood and
spoke might suddenly shape her lips thus,
and the man who looked would go blind in
his brains and stay so to the last quarter of
the moon. A wave of frolic and daring
would go from the king, and thrill to the last
hamlet in his kingdom; for although war is
glorious, death is its ruler and companion;
but from love life flows and everything that
is lovely.
And, as his heart rose thus, Conachúr
knew that he was the life of his people, for
he was king and lover, and that all swung
about him as the world swings round
the sun.

137

CHAPTER XXII

BUT for Deirdre a night went by which to
the end of her days she would not care to
remember.
She had seen the king at last: that being,
all memory and dream, half monster and
half baby, whom she remembered from
Lavarcham's endless tale. She had seen
the grave brow, the graver eyes, the bushy,
reddish-yellow hair looped back to the slope
of his poll, and the yellow beard cleft at the
centre and foaming in two points to the
breast. She could not have thought that a
man might be so huge, so steady, so master-
ful. He was a being to whom one might
pray, or for whom one might die joyfully.
If a lord came striding from the Shí surely
he would look as Conachúr did: massive
and dazzling and wonderful; with an eye
13 8

CII.XXII

DEIRDRE

from which one winced as from the sun, and
with a voice that trolled and astonished like
the note of a beaten drum. She remem-
bered his hand that could hold both of her
own with ease, and the great ridge of his
shoulders, sloping away like the easy run
and fall of a mountain.
And this terrific being claimed her as his
wife 1
Nothing but terror filled her heart at that
prospect, for she could not see him in any
terms of intimacy or affection. He was and
would remain as remote as her childhood,
and no mere nearness could make him
present. And he would be as unaccount-
able as are the elements that smile to-day
and rage to-morrow in hurricane. What
woman could reckon his parts or his total?
He was like some god that had come out of
the hills to astonish and terrify.
And there was Naoise 1
As her memory retrieved the beloved
name her heart went bustling to her throat,
and she sat raging and terrified.
It was not that he would be defrauded of
her: it would be his own business to be
woeful on that count; but she would be
139

DEIRDRE

BK. I

defrauded of him, and her proper lack was
as yet sufficient for her mood, for lacking him
what could be returned to her? Her hands
went cold and her mouth dryas she faced
such a prospect.
The youth who was hers 1 Who had no
terrors for her 1 Who was her equal in
years and frolic 1 She could laugh with
him, and at him. She could chide him and
love him. She could give to him and with-
hold. She could be his mother as well as
his wife. She could annoy him and forgive
him. For between them there was such an
equality of time and rights that neither could
dream of mastery or feel a grief against the
other. He was her beloved, her comrade,
the very red of her heart, and her choice
choice.
Deirdre leaped from the bed, but she could
not leap from her thoughts, and she could
not attempt the crazy and mazy corridors of
her home to fly to him; for the excited house-
hold was clattering and chattering in the
corridors, and she could no more escape by
them than a bird can escape by its cage.
It was not until two nights had passed
that she could dare the wall; and in the
14 0

ClI. XXII

DEIltDllE

intervening days she must listen to Lavar-
cham, endless in caution and advice.
Do this, but do not on your life do that.
Remember this always, and this and this and
this. There seemed as much to remember
not to forget as there was to remember to
remember.
Deirdre would turn an eye on her guardian
so lack-lustre at times, and again so woeful
or wild, that the good lady marvelled.
cc Do not be frightened, my silk of the
flock, " her guardian soothed, cc there is
every cause for joy and none for fear. In
three days you will be the most envied lady
in Ulster, and in four you will be the happi-
est. Tell Lavarcham what is in your mind
and what you are afraid of? "
" I am in dread of the king," said Deirdre.
"That will pass," Lavarcham advised,
cc and in a few days you will wonder that
you could have been frightened. But a
maid is a maid: all that she thinks or dreams
is founded on inexperience, and has nothing
to do with reality: the world pours into a
young girl's lap heedless of what she wished
or dreaded; for no person can either hope
or fear until they know actually that which
14 1

DEIRDRE

BK. I

is hopeful or frightful. All you need do is
to accept what your heart approves of, and
what your heart rejects you can throwaway.
There is everything to hope for and n
thing
to be afraid of."
But her chance did come at last.
She found the sons of Uisneac still at their
encampment, but they were a silent trio.
They were more than silent: they were
abashed and embarrassed.
cc What is it?" Deirdre murmured, feel-
ing the constraint.
" We are bidden to your wedding," said
Naoise shyly.
The mild can dour of his voice went into
her heart like a sword, so that she could not
speak to him, and it was to his brother she
turned.
cc What shall we do, dear Ainnle?" she
asked.
But he had no answer for her, and it was
the youngest who replied.
" Let us all run away," Ardan cried, and
his face went suddenly red and his eager
eyes shone like stars.
Naoise glanced at Deirdre from under his
brows.

142

CR. XXII

DEIRDltE

CC Where could we run to from the king? "
Ainnle grumbled impatiently.
cc And we do not come of a race that run
away," said Naoise.
Silence fell. But the statement of his
own quality had unlocked a door of bitter-
ness in Naoise's heart.
cc Nor will you easily find the girl who will
run away from a kingdom," he continued as

ho
gh addressing reasonable counsel to his
Juniors.
Deirdre faced him gravely and lovingly.
cc I will run away with you," she said.
cc The king 1 " N aoise gasped.
cc I am afraid of that king," she whispered
urgently.
But her lover was pale and terrified.
It would be an affront that was never
offered to a king in Eirè. I t would be a
cruel ty: it would be an awful deed.
He turned to his brothers. cc The king
is our uncle, he loves us," he said.
cc Yes," Ainnle agreed, cc he loves us
better than his own sons."
cc After Cúchulinn," said Ardan, cc he
loves us best in the world."
cc And he loves me," said Deirdre.
143

DEIRDRE

BK. I

Naoise leaped to his feet.
cc 0 gods of day and night 1 " he cried.
He seemed to plead to Deirdre for com-
prehension and pity.
" Conach úr reared me like his own son :
I I sat in his lap: he buckled this sword on
J me with his own hand, he put his two palms
. on my shoulders when I won my weapons,
I and he kissed me three times on each cheek.
I love and venerate him."
Again silence throbbed among them.
cc I shall go home to Lavarcham," said
Deirdre.
The boys looked at her and at each other
and at the ground and did not know where
to look any more.
cc I also shall be reared by the son of Ness, "
she said gently. cc I too shall sit in his lap.
He will not buckle a sword on me, but he
will unbuckle my girdle with his own hands;
he will put his two palms on my shoulders,
and he will kiss me many times on each
cheek. "
Naoise beat a fist against his brow.
cc I am the king's man," he stammered.
But she turned her fleet smile and
trembling lips on him.
144

CR. XXII

DEIRDRE

" Am I to tell the king how well we loved
each other, night after night among the
trees? or would it be better to keep that as
a secret among us four: they say that men
can keep secrets."
The two lads blushed painfully and
turned a way.
Naoise was as one who has renounced life.
cc There is nothing to be done," said his
dry lips. And then, shaking his shoulders,
he tossed care from them.
cc We shall be beyond the trees at this
hour to-morrow night with the chariots,"
he said. cc If the hour passes and you do
not come we shall attack the guards and
take you out."
He turned to the others.
cc You must come with us, wherever we
go, my brothers, for when the king finds
that I am gone he will slay you two for
eric. "
cc He wouldn't kill me," Ardan boasted,
" for I wouldn't let him."
cc Nobody but Cúchulinn could kill you,"
Ainnle scoffed.
" You couldn't, anyway," the youngest
retorted.

145

L

DEIRDRE

BK. I

" Little boasting Pillar of Combat 1" his
brother gibed. " Pooh 1 Battle-Torch of
the Gael 1 "
And in terrified merriment they made the
rest of their arrangements.

14 6

CHAPTER XXIII

LAVARCHAM left the king's presence.
She came away bowed and blind and dizzy,
shuffiing in any. direction and unaware of
why she was walking or where she was
going. An hundred thoughts, battling furi-
ously for precedence, kept her thoughtless;
an hundred pictures, each striving for place
and examination, kept her blind. She was
all a din and whirl and swirl, as though the
winds that raged in gust and countercurrent
through her brain were blowing her along.
At times she would remember that she did
not wish to go where she was going, and
she would spin furiously aside and go as
stupidly in another path; and at times she
would discover that she was standing, still
and collected as a stone, a nothing; staring
on nothing. Great sighs broke from her
147

DEIRDRE

BK. I

miserable heart; or she was so shattered
by dry sobbings that it seemed her bones
must part company with her flesh and with
each other; and again, with her two hands
gripped on her mouth she squeezed back a
medley of screams, and listened, as in amaze-
ment, to the thin whinings that forced
through the crooked spaces in her fingers.
Again, the cautious woman would peep
and peer to see if any person was nigh to
observe her, and before that survey could
make its round she would forget what she
was looking for, and think that they could
not be seen from this place, for they have
hours' start, and will be-where? by this
time.
With what unbelieving anguish that
flight had forced itself upon her 1 She
had gone trotting and ambling and panting
about her rooms and fields, calling-

, Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre?"
Searching for her baby in a work-basket
or on the flat of a ceiling, while the servants
gibbered and squealed and bubbled and
blared at her and at each other.
With what an iron dismay the thought
of Conachúr came on her, desolating and
14 8

CR. XXIII

DEIRDRE

unreckoned as the thunderclap which howls
on the heels of its howling brother.
He must be told.
And at that she poked up her nose like a
moonstruck dog pealing scream on scream,
until the attending hags fled into corners
as the mice do when they are frightened, and
screamed with her and at her and at the roof.
She went to Conachúr.
She stood mumbling and staring outside the
door and then trotted in, whispering at him:
cc She's gone."
And Conachúr echoed, in uncomprehend-
ing amazement:
" She's gone."
Lavarcham stared into the king's face
that was carved in the granite of suspense
and astonishment.
cc She's gone, little Deirdre's gone," she
yelled, and emptied her thin fingers on the
air as though she emptied them of Deirdre.
She clapped her hands together with a
dreadful giggle, and flapped her arms along
her thighs like some ungainly crow that has
been set dancing drunk on mead.
"When a maid goes a man goes with
her," she croaked.

149

DEIRDRE

BK. I

She flopped to the door and hopped out
of it and popped back.
" She's gone," she cried. "She's gone;
she ran away with a man"; and she wobbled
to the doorway again, nodding and tittering
at the king until she disappeared.
The servants and guards were listening
wi th their eyes staring, their mouths open,
and their breathing forgotten.
A whisper, a thrill, a terrible constriction
of the heart fled through the vast palace, and
went zigzagging like wildfire about Ulster.
And in the centre of that Conachúr stood,
( alone; with his fists closed and his eyes
closed; listening to the whispers that were
, an inch away and an hundred miles away;
that were over him and under him and in
him: listening to the blanching of his face
and to the liquifying of his bones: listening
\ in a rage of curiosity and woe for the more
that might be said and all the more that
might be thought: trying, as with one grip-
ping of the mind, to sense all the bitterness
that might be; to exhaust it in one gulp,
and re-a waken as at a million removes from
all that had ever been or could be tin Doom.

15 0

BOOK II

IS1

CHAPTER I

TIME flies, scattering on all that had seemed
important the ash of forgetfulness, and so
crowding memory into memory that the
thing we recollect has no longer the shape
or colour that strode against us once upon
a time.
For all men but the dreamer time flies.
But it may be stationary for him who can
recreate in the night all that he forces to
oblivion in the morning. His woeful yester-
days can be timely at any time, for nothing
that touches him will rust or fade, and he
may be seen to wince at a word which his
contemporaries have lost the significance of.
The seven years that passed had not
touched Conachúr. He was still the master-
ful king, the unremitting lawgiver. He was
still the idol of his people. What would a
153

DEIRDRE

BK.II

banquet in the Red Branch be if the king
were away? But he was never absent, and
wherever there was music or frolic or
laughter the Son of Ness was urging it on,
and would be eager for more when the
youngest companion was wearied to stupidity.
Not time nor thought could blunt the edge
of his bodily or mental energy, so vast was
it, and misfortune beat as unavailingly
against him as the wind did against oaken
Emania.
To be energetic and self-sufficing is to be
happy; but while one desire remains in
the heart happiness may not come there.
For to desire is to be incomplete: it is the
badge of dependence, the signal of un-
happiness, and to be freed from that is to
be freed from every fetter that can possibly
be forged. Man becomes god when he
finds his satisfactions within himself, but
his dreams then are other than those that
harried Conachúr as a pack of hounds harry
a fox.
For Ulster might forget, and those who
had not been outraged might forgive, but
he would not forget or forgive until he was
as dead as those should be against whom his
154

CH. I

DEIRDRE

mind was directed like the point of a secret
spear.
Deirdre and the sons of Uisneac had fled
"to Scotland, where they had kinsmen and
acquaintances who had grown up with them
in Emain Macha as fosterages from the
Scottish courts, or as lords and captains in
Conachúr's mercenary armies. They may
have met Cúchulinn there, for it would be
about that time that he was under the tuition
of the female warrior and witch, Scatach;
and, if so, they should have met his comrade
F erdiad also, he who was to assail the ford
afterwards with what a hand I and it may
have been during their exile that Cúchulinn
fell in love with Scatach's daughter, and that
the child was born who would receive such a
woeful stroke on Báile's Strand.
I t is one of the wise arrangements of pro-
vidence that no person can either eat of the
same thing or talk of the same thing for
lTIOre than a week; and so, when gossip's
time had passed, Ulster, unless it might be
to some travelling historian, spoke no more
of the king's misfortune. Such an historian
would have learned that Deirdre was tall
and short, and that she was dark and fair and
155

DEIRDRE

BK. II

sallow: for every woman he interviewed
would lend her own contours and com-
plexion to such an heroine, and would, as
they reprobated or forgave, endow her with
the moral qualities which they best appre-
ciated-their own. Lavarcham could tell
the truth and so could Conachúr, but they
would not be questioned for some years to
come.
The - king had down faced the whole
matter from the start. He went to the chase
that day. He sat at the banquet that night.
He visited his foreign troops the next day,
and t4e day after he inspected the fortifica-
tions at the Pass of the F ews and a length of
the Black Pig's Dyke on either side. There
was the Boy Troop to be reviewed and their
competi tions to be scrutinized. There were
the unending ceremonies of the court, the
Judgement Seat, and of the embassies from
all parts of his realm and from overseas:
there were gifts to be received and returned:
counsels to be given and listened to. There
was an eternal variety of occupations for the
king, who, although he might employ a day
of eighteen hours' work, could have some-
thing yet to think of ere he slept.
156

CH. I

DEIRDRE

Cúchulinn and Conall Cearnach had been
equal kings with him, but they had (IJavar-
cham had assisted in that) surrendered their
powers to Conachúr, who was now known and
described as Emperor of Ulster.
What allegiance he gave to the High King
of Ireland we do not know, and it may have
been part of his plan to arrive at that dignity
himself. A Connacht prince was then, and
for a thousand years afterwards, High King
of Ireland, and although the effort of Con-
nacht and Ulster to achieve supreme rule
may now be forgotten, the effects of those
bitter wars lasted longer than an historian
would dare to count.
So far as Ulster was concerned the king
might have been at ease. His honour was
as safe as his kingdom, and as for the other
actors in his drama their condition was so
manifestly gentle and their youth so extreme
that no taint of ugliness or treachery could
remain in the tale, or in the mind of the
person who heard it. It could, in a while,
have been told of as a regrettable childish
misadventure, and one which not even the
king need further remember.
But the king remembered.
157

DEIRDRE

EK.I1

It was to escape such a memory that
he plunged into affairs and banquets and
a whole roystering self-expenditure which
would have devitalized any other man. He
prolonged his day until it could not for very
weariness be further extended, and then he
went to bed.
No: he went to Deirdre's bed where
Naoise slept, and over which he hovered
sleepless, though in sleep, and in a torment
that poisoned the very sunlight when he
awakened.

I5 8

CHAPTER II

CONACHÚR MAC NESSA was preparing a feast.
Household banquets were common matters
at his court, but this was to be a State banquet)
and every person who could be thought of as
noble or notable was invited to the Red
Branch.
As well as an aristocracy of birth there was
in every Irish court an élite of excellence.
Those who were foremost in learning, the
arts, or the crafts, had the privilege of visiting
the king equally with those whose merit rose
from their fathers' graves or their skill at
arms. A king was then close to his people,
and he was by training and habit a connois-
seur in Inany things which all could under-
stand. A commonwealth of taste is the only
one which can admit equality-it is demo-
cracy. He could commend with knowledge
159

DEIRDRE

BK.II

the man who built a house or the man who
did the carvings in it. He could speak to
the maker of his chariots or the breaker of
his horses in terms that apprehended to the
last shading the matter that was being dis-
cussed, and, so, to the expert who cured his
bacon or the sturdy master who superin-
tended the brewing of his beer. All arts
were household arts; all crafts were arts;
and the knowledge of these was culture. A
gentleman would know of all the music that
was worthy of being played, for a musical
person formed part of every household. He
would remen1ber the songs that had out-
lived time and could discuss their excel-
lences; and the only art which he need
regard as occult would be poetry itself; for,
while all other arts come by memory and
experiment, poetry, which is not an art,
comes solely by grace.
" L h " " d C h '" h
avarc am, sat onac ur, ave you
heard any talk of the banquet?"
"Indeed, master, I have heard nothing
else. "
" Will there be any notable absentees?"
"None but those who are dying of
wounds or sickness."
160

CH.lI

DEIRDRE

" Cúchulinn has stayed at hOD1e for some
time now?"
"For a year after marriage one is still newly
married," the conversation-woman submitted.
" I fear that boy's love for DIe has bounds,"
Conachúr pursued.
"The king has been too kind to him,"
cried La varcham harshly.
"The king cannot help himself," he
corrected, " for I love the lad, and I could no
more do him an ill turn that I could do one
to myself."
"I, too, love him," said Lavarcham, "but
he is more forward than is proper, even in a
. "
prince.
" Can you tell me, Lavarcham, why he ob-
jected to my sovereign privilege with his wife?"
" Pride," she replied briefly. "He is
prouder than ten kings."
"It is so, and it is a gentleman's pre-
rogative to be proud," he continued. "But
if such objections were allowed government
would become impossible. Do the people
still talk of his refusal?"
" The people know that the king did sleep
with Emer." 1
1 Emer=pronounced Ever.
161 M

DEIRDRE

BK.II

" Yes, they may know that, but do they
know that Fergus slept on the other side of
her as a guard?"
U N " h 1 . d U h . k
0, s e rep Ie; t at IS nown to
but five people, and they are all loyal to the
king. "
" Tell me," and Conach úr scrutinized her
gravely, U do you love Cúchulinn better than
me ? "
"I love you best of all, master, " said
Lavarcham.
" I think you do, my friend, but they say
that every woman loves the Cú.
" As to Fergus "-he muttered and went
silent for a moment- U I do not yet know how
much Fergus loves me. I am not sure that
a loyal man would have undertaken a duty
against his sovereign such as Fergus accepted
for Cúchulinn."
" He did it because he loves both of you,
master, and it is surely better that such an
arrangement should be known only between
f . d "
rlen s.
"Possibly," said Conachúr. "And yet
I had passed my word that if my right was
conceded I would not touch the girl. Is
a king's word not accepted any longer by
162

CII. II

DEIRDRE

those Ferguses and Cúchulinns?" he cried
furiously.
" It was Cúchulinn's doing," said she.
" It may have been Fergus's," he retorted,
and went moodily silent. "Who knows
what that man thinks of? "
"Feasts," said Lavarcham. "He loves
food. "
" I was tempted," the king gritted, "to
try in the night whether he dared obstruct
me, and to see if he dared thrust the sword
he went to bed with into his king-but I had
passed my word. If," he continued irrit-
ably, " the Cú had only asked Conall Cear-
nach or Cruscrid Menn or any gentlen1an
of the household to be his surety instead
of the man he did ask, I could have borne
. "
It.
Lavarcham chuckled respectfully.
" How did that night pass, master?" she
inquired.
Conachúr gave a great laugh.
" Fergus and I went to bed, and the girl
went to bed between us, and we all had our
clothes on. My bed is small enough for
n1e when I am alone, but to pack a large
girl into it with all her clothes on, and then
16 3

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

to pack an overgrown vast bullock of a man
like Fergus into it also, cannot - be done. I
made but one resolve that night, that on no
account would I be pushed out of my own
bed, and I was not; but every time that
Fergus closed an eye he fell on the floor and
the girl woke up and screamed."
Lavarcham let out a shrill titter, and
begged the king's pardon.
" How did Emer behave?" she asked.
"She went to sleep," said Conachúr
sourly. "She slept hard and kicked hard
for seven long hours; and this I know, that
if she has the round knee of a woman, which
she has, for it was thudded into my back a
thousand times, she has also the sharp elbows
of a girl, so that after a time it seemed to me
that there was a bundle of live bodkins in the
bed. I never knew how long a night could
be until that night: and we had even to
prolong it out of courtesy to the lady 1 I
shall keep a painful memory of that sweet
girl until I die, and the Cú is welcon1e to
every royal remittance he can desire on her
behalf. But now, about the banquet. Is
everything in order?"
" Everything, master."
16 4

CH. II

DEIRDRE

" The brewers, the bakers, the cooks, they
have their equipment and instructions? "
" Your butlers must answer for that,
master. "
"True, but as you went among these
people how did they seem? What do they
say about the feast? "
"They are excited and delighted. All
their talk is of the famous people and the
great retinues that are coming, and of how
Ulster will show the Five Kingdoms what a
real feast is like."
" They are good folk all," said Conachúr.
" They are very good folk. You have no
other news?"
" There is nothing to report, master, but
that everything is well."
" You have no tidings from Scotland?"
" None, master, or little."
"Even a little news is news," said he.
" Tell it, however little it be."
"They have been chased again," said
Lavarcham in a low voice. "Everywhere
they go they are hunted like foxes. They live
under the weather, crouching like wild crea-
tures in the bracken of a hill-side, or hiding
in rocks and caves by a howling shore."
1 6 5

DEIRDRE

BK. II

" They were delicately reared," he mur-
mured.
"They never knew hardship," Lavar-
cham whimpered, " and my babe "
" Ah yes, your babe 1 How old would
she be now, that babe of yours?"
" C]ose on twenty-three years, master."
" And I am forty-seven. She has all her
days in front of her still."
" What days will they be, and she quaking
in a burrow like a hare, or rising thin-legged
from the bog like a yellow bittern?"
" It is still the King of Scotland who pur-
sues them?" Conachúr queried.
" Yes; since he set eyes on her seven years
ago he has given them no rest, and he will
give none until he has killed the three
brothers and taken the girl for himself. That
is the welcome of a king in Scotland. I t is
not the welcome the same lord got when he
came here in fosterage."
" He is still a young man," said Conachúr.
" Young or old, it is not the act of a
. "
prInce.
"The acts of a prince need a prince's
criticism," said the king severely.
Lavarcham went silent.
166

CH.II

DEIRDRE

" Young men go wild at times, and it is
their right; but older men can be of a wild-
ness that no young man can understand,"
said the king.
He twisted sternly on Lavarcham.
" Love is told of in this way and that, but
it is not told of as it is. . . . It is savagery
in the blood, and pain in the bone, and greed
and despair in the mind. It is to be thirsty
in the night and unslaked in the day. I t is
to carry memory like a thorn in the heart.
It is to drip one's blood as one walks. Leave
men to the things they know, and do you
meddle with your own female businesses."
" Those children," said Lavarcham stub-
bornly, "are a woman's business, and his
own subjects are matter for a king."
"They are our kinsmen indeed," said
Conachúr thoughtfully, " and their troubles
shall be looked into. We shall speak of this
again after the banquet."
Lavarcham's eyes were shining:
" y " h d
es, master, s e croone ·
" Send in our butlers and all our masters,"
said Conachúr.

16 7

CHAPTER III

THE king and the guests of honour, mainly
members of his family and their wives, sat
on a raised dais overlo"oking the banqueting
hall.
I t was at the heart of the banquet. The
food had been eaten, and mead and ale
and wine were circulating. Gentlemen were
politely pledging each other's ladies, and the
ladies were feverishly considering each other's
costumes and ornaments.
" Everyone," Emer eXplained in her clear,
sweet voice to Cúchulinn, " everyone who
has any hair at all wears it this way."
" It is the Connacht fashion," said Crus-
craid the Stammerer.
" It is Maeve's fashion," Emer corrected.
"There must be three plaits," she con-
tinued; "two twisted round the head and
168

CH.III

DEIRDRE

caught in a brooch, and one hanging down
the back. I think it is a charming fashion."
"I think," Conachúr smiled, "that our
ladies might content themselves with our
own good Ulster customs."
" There are Ulster customs, indeed," said
Emer, "but there are no fashions. One
must go to Connacht for that."
" If it depended on the ladies," said Laerí,
" we might let the grass grow over the Black
Pig's Dyke."
"Shoulder torques are worn smaller in
Connacht just now," Emer continued, eyeing
superciliously the ornaments of a neighbour.
" Just like mine," she added complacently.
Cúchulinn laughed boisterously.
" Just like yours," he mocked. "Why,
you know well, my dove, I took that torque
on the last spoil I made in Connacht."
Great good humour descended on Cona-
ch úr .
" Is that where the torque came from, my
soul ? Your sweet lady must show it to me
more closely. Y ou had a hard fight on that
occasion? "
" I got away from them," the Cú answered
modestly.

16 9

DEIRDRE

BK.Il

" You got away from them only when you
got home," Bricriu jeered. "It was good
. "
running, my sweet.
" They were very persistent," the Cú ad-
mitted laughingly, " but I got away with my
spoil. "
" You know how the Connacht men ex-
plain the fact that you are still alive?"
" It will be an unpleasant explanation if
it is eXplained by Bricriu," said Emer.
"I should like to hear it," said Cona-
chúr.
" They are telling each other that our Cú
was so beautiful they could not bear to kill
him: think of that, Cúcuc."
"It is a stupid sentimental reason,"
growled Laerí.
" It is a good, honourable reason," Emer
flashed. "It is not a reason you will ever
give for letting a man escape."
" No," said Bricriu ; " Laerí's excuse when
he doesn't bring his man home is that he
couldn't catch him."
" And that," Laerí retorted, "would be
the Connacht men's reason for not getting
the Cú, if a Connachtman could tell the truth
about anything."

17 0

CH. III

DEIRDRE

" They tell the truth when it is pleasant,"
said Emer, " and when it is not pleasant they
tell a lie: they are a polite people, which is
more than we are."
u Oh 1 Oh !" Conachúr laughed.
" Their lies come from a good heart and
a love of happiness, while our truths come
grunlph, grumph, grumph like the snarling
of a badly trained dog."
" Oh 1 Oh 1" Conachúr roared.
" ConaIl, what do you say of these Con-
nacht people ? You also have been among
them lately."
"They are honourable fighters," said
Conall.
" No man can pray for a better enemy than
a Connachtman," Fergus assented. "They
come on where another would go back, and
when they go back it is either through pity
or poetry."
" Come," said Conachúr, U their compli-
ment to the Cú has been repaid, and we can
talk of something else. 'Vhat do you think
of our banquet?"
"There is nothing to be said," cried
Emer; "it is perfect."
" Everybody seems happy," said the com-
17 1

DEII
DRE

BK.II

placent king, as he looked down the Red
Branch.
His guests also stared down the hall.
" They seem happy and are happy," said
Cúchulinn. He turned to his servant and
charioteer:
" Laeg," he cried, " you do not love me 1
My cup is empty."
" My darling," Laeg replied, "you have
drunk as much as is good for you."
" I shall drink as much as is bad for me if
I please," said Cúchulinn, "so bring me
d t "
some mea , my reasure.
" I shall bring you ale or cider."
" Mead," said the Cú.
" Ale, my little love," said the charioteer.
" Bring mead for the Cú when he wants
it," Emer ordered indignan tly.
" Sweet mistress," said Laeg, "we have
to bring him home to-night."
" Then give him ale," said Emer.
" It will surely be ale," cried the delighted
Conachúr.
" Mead," Cúchulinn pleaded.
" You will want to fight the moon and
stars as we go home," Emer rebuked
him.

17 2

CR. III

DEIRDRE

" I can fight on ale just as well," Cúchu-
linn asserted.
"And it is good heady ale," the king
assured him.
" Let it be ale, then," said Cúchulinn.
"I think that not one person whom
we know is absent from this banquet,"
said Fiachra the Fair, Conachúr's youngest
son.
The conversation turned as they all looked
down the great hall. " There is So-and-so,
and So-and-so."
"Who," said Emer, "is that tall, sad
man with three men's chins about him?"
" He is such a one," said Fiachra.
" And the black bulk beside him with the
beard that was stolen from a porcupine? "
" His name is Borach, the son of Ann tè.
He has a fortified rock half in and half out
of the sea. He catches sharks through his
window, and his banquets are all made of
fish. "
"He is preparing a banquet for me,"
Conachúr cried.
" I shall not accept a feast from that man,"
said Fergus.
" You must if he asks you," Cúchulinn
173

DEIRDRE

BK.II

replied, "for it is geasa 1 on you not to refuse
.c "
a least.
" That is so; but the feast must be ready
before I am offered it, and as I do not visit
his part of the world I shall never have to
eat his sharks."
" You think there is no one absent?" asked
Conachúr.
" N " h d
ot one, t ey agree .
" I am sharper than you all," he continued,
" for I can count three who are not here."
Again they scrutinized the hall without
finding any missing friends. They ap-
pealed to the herald who stood by Conachúr's
chair. He, too, was mystified.
" What three are they?" said Fiachra.
"The three sons of Uisneac," the king
replied smilingly. "The three Lights of
V alour of the Gael."
At the words a moment's silence came on
the dais and no person knew exactly what to
say or do. Fergus turned his direct gaze
on the king.
" They are in Scotland," he said.
" They went there seven years ago when
Naoise ran awaywith Deirdre," said Conachúr.
1 Geasa = taboo.

174

CH.III

DEIRDRE

Conall Cearnach turned his harsh fore-
head to the king:
" They are in great distress," he said.
" I have just heard so," the king replied
gravely. " We must bring them home."
At the words the face of every person
changed. I t was as though a cordial had
been dropped into each heart.
Cúchulinn flashed enthusiasm and delight
at the king:
" You will let them come back? "
" They shall be at our next banquet."
"If I could love you more," Fergus
affirmed, " I would love you more for that."
" I know you love me well," said Cona-
chúr, " and I love you, my heart."
" We have been wearying to see Naoise
again," cried Cúchulinn.
" What is he like?" said Emer.
" He is under geasa about his return,"
Bricriu interposed.
Conachúr turned abruptly to him.
" What geasa is that?"
" He will come back in the company of
Fergus or of Conall or of the Cú, otherwise
he will not come back."
" Ah 1" said Conachúr.
175

DEIRDRE

BK. II

"He was always a sensible, far-seeing
boy,U Bricriu continued thoughtfully.
The king's eye rested on Bricriu for one
weighty moment ere he replied:
" We shall send one of the three, or all of
the three to fetch him."
" What is she like?" Emer insisted.
Bricri u replied :
" She has been sleeping in ditches for six
years. She will be like nothing that you
have ever heard of, sweet lady."
" She " said Cúchulinn.
" She " said every voice at the one
moment.
" She," said Conachúr with a grave smile,
"was called the Troubler; she has given
and received her share of trouble."

17 6

CHAPTER IV

" You understand?" said the king.
" I understand wen, master," said Lavar-
cham.
"First you are to send Conall to me.
Half an hour afterwards you shall send
Cílchulinn. In another half-hour you shall
send me Fergus, and when he comes you
shall see that Borach is in waiting."
" I understand well, master."
" In a little while you shall see your babe
again. "
She scrutinized his face humbly and
gravely.
" y I "
ou are most gent e, master.
" A t d
"
re you not con ente .
"I am filled with joy and grief," she
answered.
" And grief!" the king echoed mildly.
177 N

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

" She will not be the girl I knew," said
Lavarcham.
" How so?"
" She will have been destroyed by hard-
ship."
" Girls are tougher than women pretend,"
said Conach úr.
" A man grows directly from the boy he
was," she continued. "He keeps the boy
you knew even when he is an old man. But
a girl grows suddenly at an angle to all that
she was. She becomes a stranger in a year."
" Hum! " he scoffed.
" The Deirdre we knew is dead, and some
weather-wise, weather-wasted woman will
look at me with unknown eyes and say,
, How do you do.' I shall not know how
to talk to her," said Lavarcham.
" If it is so we shall see it so," said Cona-
chúr. "Go now and send me Conall, and
then the others in the order I told you."
Lavarcham left the room.
When she was beyond the king's hearing
she stood for a good five minutes musing
deeply within herself; listening as it were
to her heart, to her instincts, to that monitor
on whom we call when the times are moment-
17 8

CR. IV

DEIRDRE

ous and doubtful and there is no other help
but our own to be sunlmoned. She sighed
inaudibly, tremulously, and went about her
business.

Conall Cearnach stood in the doorway.
" Good, 0 Chief and King 1" he saluted.
" Life and happiness 1 " Conachúr replied
briskly. "Sit here, my heart, for there is
but one chair. I shall walk up and down
while we discuss this business."
His guest sat down.
" It is about Uisneac's boys. You think
they should come home? "
" Everyone thinks so; there is a gap
among your gentlemen while they are away."
Conachúr nodded.
" There is an even worse gap among your
. "
captains.
" It is so."
" And among the boys growing from the
. troop," Conall resumed, " there is no one to
replace these three. They were already at
the force of manhood, and even then their
skill and knowledge were remarkable."
" T " C h ' d " Th
rue, onac ur agree . ey were
trained by me."

179

DEIRDRE

BK.II

" The last six years of combat and ambus-
cade and flight will have made them but the
better soldiers."
The king strode to his visitor and laid a
hand on his shoulder.
"ConaIl, my friend, these three have
treated me shamefully."
" The only way t
forgive a thing is to
forget it. You have forgiven, Conachúr-
and forgotten."
" If they returned with you, Conall, and
if evil happened to them while under your
surety, what would you do?"
Conall rose from his chair, and in rising
displaced the king's hand. He looked at
the king with his steady, pale regard.
" If evil came to a person placed under my
protection I would kill the person by whom
that evil came."
Conachúr laughed merrily.
" Even the king himself? " he quizzed.
" I would kill any person that dishonoured
me," said Conall sternly.
" You would be quite right to do so," said
Conachúr heartily.
He seated himself in the chair that Conall
had vacated.

180

CH. IV

DEIRDIlE

U The matter I wish to discuss is your
uncle, Cet mac Magach, Cet of Connacht.
That man scorns our borders, and his de-
predations are costly and impertinent. Our
young men also are not equal to that able
reiver. Could you not talk to him, Conall,
and draw him off us ? "
U I talk to Connachtmen with a sword."
U You may talk to him that way if you
I "
pease.
Conall reviewed the invitation imperturb-
ably.
U I would not care to kill Cet mac Magach.
He is my mother's brother."
U And he is not an easy person to kill,"
said Conachúr. U We shall make our own
arrangements about him. Blessing and long
life to you 1 "
The dismissed champion strode from the
room.
U That man," Conachúr thought moodily,
"has been hammered together stone by
stone, and is no more than a petrified vanity.
He loves nothing but his honour, which is
that he loves himself."
" Come in, the Cú," he called. "Come
in, and an hundred welcomes, my sweet lad."
181

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

Cúchulinn, magnificent in red silk and
gold embroideries, came leaping in.
u Well, my pulse 1 " cried Conachúr.
" And you have a new mantle 1"
U Emer made it," the Cú boasted. "She
does the finest em broidery in the world. She
told me so herself."
" If she told you so " said Conachúr.
" Let me look at the sleeve. I t is not bad,
my delight. But I have a few pieces some-
where-Did you pass Conall Cearnach as
you came in?"
" I did; he smiled a frozen smile at me,
and clapped my shoulder with a fist of lead."
" \Ve were arguing about honour. If
a person was placed under your protection
and was then killed, what would you do,
Cúcuceen ? "
"I would kill the other person," said
Cúchulinn.
" If it was the king, my pet? "
" I would kill the king."
Conachúr sat round at him in a rage.
U Would you kill me?" he denlanded.
" I would," Cúchulinn returned as fiercely.
" I would kill any one who destroyed a person
under my protection."
182

CIl. IV

DEIRDRE

u You would not kill me, Cúchulinn 1 "
" As sure as dawn begins the day."
" Begone, young puppy 1 Begone, cocks-
comb 1 " he thundered.
U Honour " Cúchulinn commenced.
U You do not love me," the king stormed.
U I d I "
o ove you.
" Begone," the king roared, and stamped
the floor.
The laughing Cúchulinn backed before
his rage.
U I do love you," he shouted; and he con-
tinued to shout, U I love you . . . I love
you, " until he reached the end of the cor-
ridor and turned the corner, where the
guards poked each other in the ribs and
giggled with joy.
Conachúr tugged at his beard half in
anger and half in laughter.
Another vanity in a mantle, he thought.
That boy loves me indeed, and he would as
surely kill me, for it is certain that I could
not think of killing him. Is there no person
in my realm who loves me better than his
own poor pride? And what a three that-
Naoise-must choose for his sureties 1
He strode savagely up and down the room.
1 8 3

DEIRDRE

BK.II

" We shall see now w hat Fergus is like,"
he sneered. "lie professes to adore me,
and eyes me with the devotion of a dull dog.
A dull dog he is, and a monster of suffi-
ciency to boot."
If he dares to thwart me-the king
gloomed, and went into a bitter rage of
meditation.
A great voice boomed on him.
" Good my soul, Conachúr 1 "
" It is Fergus," cried the king joyfully,
and strode to meet his visitor.
" Come, my pulse and best. Sit you and
I shall stand. Nay, sit," he chided gently.
" Indeed, if things were right you should sit
always, and this man," tapping his own
breast, "should bend a lover's knee before
you. You bear no ill-will, sweetheart, for
that trick of long ago?"
The giant sat.
" I never think of it, or I think of it with
relief when I remember the Judgement Seat,
and the knots and tangles and questions that
came day by day. I was not bad at justice,
but I was a sad fumbler at law, and the best
man has the best place, my dear. Do not tor-
ment yourself with memories of that old "
18 4

CH. IV

DEIRDRE

He halted for a word.
" T h " . d C h '
reac ery, sal onac ur.
U That is not the word I wanted," Fergus
laughed. cc You are too sensitive, Conachúr.
The nobles agreed and I agreed that you
should be the king, and I am your most
loving subject."
" You do love me?"
U Have I not proved it?" the other
smiled.
U Many a time. Times out of mind,"
said Conachúr.
He turned aside and closed his eyes.
A pang of dull hate smouldered and stirred
in him.
U If this man were dead 1 " he thought with
weary despair. "If this man would but
cease and disappear and begone, how free
my soul could be! "
He turned again to Fergus.
U Let us talk of other things," he said.
" Those sons of Uisneac "
, , You did a rare deed there," said the
other approvingly.
U Rare or not rare they will be brought
back, and you shall go for them."
Fergus nodded.

1 8 5

DEIRDRE

BK.II

"If they claim my protection " he
began.
" They do claim it, and they will return
under your protection."
"Then I shall go for them. I shall be
glad to see these boys again: they had the
makings of great fighters in them."
" That is settled," said Conachúr. "Y ou
can start to-day?" he inquired.
" I can start within the hour."
" Good."
Conachúr mused, and turned thoughtful
eyes on his companion.
" If anything happened to these three
while they were under your protection,
Fergus, what would you do?"
" I would kill the person who interfered
with my protection."
" No matter who it was?"
" No matter who it was."
" I wonder would our mutual love with-
stand even an attack on honour," said
Conachúr thoughtfully. "There are bounds
to love, but I doubt that I could lift a hand
against you even if you attacked my honour."
" Our love is a great bond," said Fergus
simply; "it would be hard to destroy."
186

CH. IV

DEIRDRE

" Nevertheless," the king smiled, cc if I
injured your honour-say that I attacked
these sons of Uisneac while in your surety,
your affection for me would scarcely with-
stand that."
cc That would be a hard case indeed,"
Fergus laughed.
" You would kill me?" the king queried
with a genial smile.
" You know," said Fergus, " that I could
not kill you whatever you did."
cc We love one another well," said
Conachúr. "It is a great thing to love
as we do, my friend.
cc But now," he continued briskly, cc we
must attend to this troublesome business,
and we must have a third person present
in order that the world may know how we
despatch it."
He clapped his hands, and, to the servant
who appeared:
cc Who is in waiting?"
cc Borach, lord."
" Tell him to come here."
" That is the man who feeds his guests
on sharks," said Fergus.
" He is on duty of honour to-day," the
18 7

DEIRDRE

BK.II

king replied carelessly, "and he will be
witness to the world of my instructions
and of your charge. Come forward, good
Borach.' ,
The bulky man strode in.
, , You shall listen to my instructions to our
dear Fergus, and you shall be the witness to
this arrangement."
Fergus thereupon stood up and Conachúr
seated himself.
, , Fergus, my friend, you shall go to
Scotland and bring back to this court the
three sons of Uisneac and the woman
Deirdre. There shall be no delay about
the execution of this duty."
"There shall be no delay," Fergus
affirmed.
" The instant they set foot in Ireland you
shall proceed here with them; and if, from
any cause whatsoever, you cannot come
yourself, you shall cause them to come to
me without the delay of even one half-
hour."
" That will be done," said Fergus, " but
I shall be with them."
" With you or without you, whether they
arrive by day or by night in Ireland, they
188

CR. IV

DEIRDRE

shall be sent here to me without the delay
of even one half-hour."
" That will be done," said Fergus.
" I bind that on you to the letter," said
Conachúr.
" I accept it so, " Fergus returned. "I
shall bring my two sons to Scotland, and if,
by any miracle, I should be delayed myself,
they shall go forward with every speed and
deliver these four people safely at Emain
Macha."
" A speedy return to you," said Conachúr.
"Go at once, my dear friend. But you,
Borach, stay yet awhile. I have the matter
of our feast to discuss with you."
Fergus smiled broadly as he with-
drew.
"Sharks," he murmured quite joyfully.
" Sh k 1"
ar s.

18 9

CHAPTER V

ON the slope of a sunny hill overlooking
Loch Eitche, Deirdre was cooking the meal
which her husband and his brothers had
run to earth and carried home on their
shoulders.
" The food is ready," she called.
" It is not as ready as I am, for I could
eat land and water," Ardan averred.
cc We shall not give you any," she
mocked.
"Serve the greedy person right," said
...J\.innle. cc He eats in his sleep."
"But I must get the part I killed,"
Ardan protested.
" What part is that?"
cc I don't know its name, but it is the
tenderest part."
"This is also a thievish person," said
19 0

CH.V

DEIRDRE

Ainnle indignantly; U he is trying to claim
the part I killed."
"Fight for me, Naoise 1 JJ Ardan im-
plored. "Be on my side, Deirdreen ! "
" You shall be served last," said Deirdre
severely, " and you shall get a tough piece."
" Ochone 1 ochone for ever 1 " he lamented.
"How do you like that piece?" said
Deirdre vindictively.
" I could eat a cow's horn if you cooked
it," he wheedled. " Won't you give me
more in a minute, little sister?"
" I shall give you ten kisses," said Deirdre.
"Do not go between that man and his
meat," Ainnle warned; "he will bite
you."
" The law says that you are my brother,
but I shall certainly divorce you," the other
cried, " and then you will be sorry."
" You are silent, N aoise 1 " said Deirdre.
U No man can talk with his mouth full
except me," Ardan explained.
" Half an hour ago, " said N aoise, "I
saw a ship beating in from the sea."
" A fishing-boat?"
" I think it was a boat from Ireland."
" Why should you think so? JJ
I9 I

DEIRDRE

BK.II

" It had the cut of an Irish boat."
" If it is any of our friends from Ireland,"
said Ainnle, " they win be almost at the strand
"
now.
" We have no friends in Ireland," Deirdre
returned coldly.
"Run to the strand, Ardan my pulse,
and see who came in that ship."
The boy scram bled to his feet.
" If they are friends I'll give them kisses.
If they are enemies I'll steal their supper."
But Deirdre was woebegone as she looked
on the two brothers.
"V,That ails you, little sister?" Ainnle
inquired.
" I had a dream last night," she replied,
" and it troubles me."
" We share all things, and our troubles.
Tell us your dream."
Deirdre looked away distantly to the
sea.
" I dreamed that three birds came flying
from Emain Macha."
"Happy birds," said Naoise dreamily,
" that can fly, and fly back."
" They had each a sip of honey in their
beaks. They left the three sips of honey
19 2

CII.V

DEIRDRE

with us, and they took away from us three
si ps of our blood."
"The ending," said Naoise, "is not so
sweet as the beginning."
" How do you interpret that dream?" his
brother asked.
" I think that three people will come to
us carrying a sweet, deceitful message from
Conachúr."
" A dream is a dream, J J he soothed her.
" And my dreams!" she cried. "How
many times have we fled on the advice of
my dream? and as we looked back we
saw that happening which we fled from. Is
that true, brother?"
" It is true. Our Deirdre has second
sight. "
Naoise turned his shoulder along the
grass, and laid his ear to the wind.
" I hear a shout," he said.
" It is some man of these parts giving a
hunting call," she answered.
" It seemed to me like the shout of an
Irishman. "
" It may be Ardan returning."
" It is not his call."
" It is Fergus and his two sons," said
I93 0

DEIRDRE

BK.II

Deirdre miserably. "They are coming
to us with three sips of honey in their
mouths. "
"What is in Fergus' mouth is in his
heart also," Naoise cried joyfully. "One
time or another even your dream may be
wrong, for if Fergus agrees to be a messenger
the message will be as true as his own
truth. "
" Remember," said Deirdre, " that I told
you they were coming without having seen
them. "
Fergus and his two sons, with Ardan
doing circles and whoops around them, rose
on a slope of the hill, and carne striding over
the tussocks. Behind them came the shield-
bearer and the shield itself, and at the sight
Ainnle fled to meet them, but Naoise drew
back to keep Deirdre company, for she had
not moved.
" It is Fergus," he said, with shining eyes.
"He has come for our blood," said
white-lipped Deirdre.
"Queen of queens," her husband
laughed, " you do not know Fergus."
At that the whole band came together,
and they an kissed each other fondly.
194

CH.V

DEIRDRE

u Welcome to this land," said N aoise.
" And thou art Deirdre!" cried Fergus,
as he kissed her on either cheek.
She smiled wanly as she returned his
kisses.
" We shall teach you to laugh in Ireland,"
he trolled.
"What news is there from the lovely
country?" her husband demanded.
"The best. The news that you are to
return there."
" Ah 1 " said Naoise.
U The king himself has sent me to bring
you home under my surety and protec-
tion;"
" Whoo-oop 1" said Ardan.
" He bids me tell you that he has forgiven
you, and wishes you all happiness."
But Deirdre turned to him, smiling and
fearful.
, , We are happy here in Scotland, " she
said.
" N " . d F " b
ay, sat ergus, one cannot e
satisfied when one is in exile, for his native
land is dearer to a man than any other."
U This is truly a dear country," she
replied.

195

DEIRDRE

BK.lI

"And it is well known," Fergus con-
tinued, "that if a man of Ireland had the
lordship of another country he would yet
be unhappy unless he could see Ireland
d "
every aYe
" It is so," said Ainnle.
" There is no one knows its truth better
than the sons of Uisneac," cried N aoise.
" You see, JJ the great man chided her.
" I know that this is a dear land," said
Deirdre stubbornly, "and that here the sons
of Uisneac might rise to any destiny they
. d r "
alme lor.
" It may be so," Naoise affirmed. "But
Ireland is dearer to me than Scotland."
" Scotland is safer," she said.
" Will you be safer in Scotland than with
me ?" cried Fergus in amazement. "I have
yet a little power," he smiled.
" We will go with you," said Naoise.
" Do not go, my pulse," said Deirdre in
great agitation. "Do not trust yourself
where Conachúr is."
"Women and cats dislike change,"
Naoise laughed, "but you will love this
change.' J
In half an hour they strode down the hill,
19 6

CH.V

DEIRDRE

and in an hour their sails were bent for
Ireland.
It was then Deirdre made her first poem,
beginning
A lovable land is that in the east,
Marvellous Alba . . .

197

CHAPTER VI

As they approached harbour they noticed a
band waiting at the landing-place, and these
people raised mighty cheers as the ship
swung.
"That man 1" said Fergus, indicating
one who stood apart and issued commands.
" I surely know that man lIt is Borach,"
he laughed. "It is the man who feeds
people on sharks," and he eXplained to his
party all that he had heard of Borach at the
banquet.
"The gods be praised," he murmured, "we
cannot wait for his feast even if he offers it."
When they landed Borach ran to meet
them. He kissed Fergus three times, and
he kissed each of the others also.
" Welcome to this land," he said; "all
Ireland welcomes you."
19B

CH. VI

DEIRDRE

He looked with his black, deep-set peep
at Deirdre and kissed her, but when she
looked at him he turned aside.
He was ill at ease, and all his move-
ments were self-conscious and unhappy. He
turned, almost truculently, to Fergus.
" Fergus," he said, "I am honoured to
see you in my lordship."
" You are kind," said Fergus, "and I
shall bind you to visit me in mine."
" I am so delighted," Borach continued
hastily, " that I have prepared a feast for you,
such as is only offered to a king."
"The king did say," Fergus rumbled
joyfully, "that you had a feast ready for
him. ' ,
" That is the feast I am offering to you,"
said Borach.
" What? " cried the giant.
" The king has notified me that he cannot
come to my banquet, so I am offering it to
you instead."
Fergus stared at him.
" You were present, and you heard
Conachúr's instructions that there should be
no delay on this journey. I shall come and
feast with you another time, my dear."
199

DEIRDRE

BK.II

" I insist that you stay and feast with me
for one week," Borach growled.
" You insist 1" he murmured in astonish-
ment.
"I invoke your geasa," said the other
stubbornly. " You must remain with me
for a week."
At that Fergus became one purple mass
from the crown of his head to the soles of his
feet, and his face swelled so that the by-
standers feared he would burst with the
excess and violence of his rage. Borach
was nervous, but his own men were around
him, and although he was terrified of
Fergus he was yet more frightened of the
king.
" I insist, JJ he shouted, " and you cannot
refuse a feast that is offered to you kindly."
"This is a trick, JJ said Fergus. " You
know my oath; you listened to it, for the
king made me swear in your very presence,
that, was it by day or by night, I should
speed the sons of Uisneac to him from the
moment we landed. And you offer me a
feast and a week's delay! What dog's
deed do you intend, you Borach? Do you
not value your life? JJ he roared.
200

CR. VI

DEIRDRE

" I value my life indeed," Borach replied,
" and "-looking round on his attendants-
"and I shall take great care of it. I hold
you to the feast, Fergus."
"Come apart with me," said the be-
wildered giant to his companions, "and let
us discuss this wonder."
" What ought we to do ? " he asked.
" It seems that you must make a choice,"
said Deirdre timidly.
" What choice is there, sweet queen?"
" You have to choose whether you will
forsake the feast or forsake us," she mur-
mured.
Her heart swelled as she spoke, so that
her voice was not steady, for she was aston-
ished and unhappy and her mind was be-
wildered.
" In truth I must leave one or the other,"
said Fergus.
Naoise and his brothers stared at the
fogged noble.
"Dear cham pion, " she pleaded, "i t
would be more fitting to leave the feast, but
it would not be right to leave us in the
middle of our enemies."
"But I cannot leave a feast," Fergus
201

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

explained, "for that is my compact with
the gods. One cannot break his geasa."
They stared at him and at one another in
consternation.
"Whatever is in his mind, this Borach
will not release me from the eating of his
accursed sharks," Fergus continued wrath-
fully. " Eat them I must, but I shall leave
my sons with you, and they will protect you
on the road to Emain."
" By my hand," said N aoise, "you are
doing a great deal for us 1 The protection
we seek is that of your name and fame and
station. Any other protection we do not
value, for we. are well used to taking care of
ourselves."
" But " said Fergus.
"We did not come here under your
wea pons, " said N aoise, "we came under
"
your guarantee.
" You mistake me," said Fergus mildly.
"My sons carry my guarantee, and with
them you will be as secure as though I were
"
present.
He turned to Rough-Red Buinne and
Iollann the Fair.
" Is not that so? "
202

CH. VI

DEIRDRE

" It is SO," said Buinne.
"The Council of All Ireland would not
tolerate the breaking of this notable surety,"
said Iollann. "It is known now through
the whole country."
" And what man would dare to break my
guarantee?" Fergus inquired.
Naoise bit his lip.
" Let us go on," said he.
He turned his level gaze on Fergus' sons.
" You are our guarantors," he said, " and
we accept your protection."
They returned to where the black-avised
chieftain was waiting, and him Fergus stared
and out-stared until he was reduced to a
mass of unhappiness.
"I shall eat sharks because I must,
Borach," he thundered.
" What sharks are you talking about?"
said Borach.
" Lead me to your miseries of the deep,"
said Fergus, " but do not talk to me about
them."

203

CHAPTER VII

As the travellers proceeded they were morose
and thoughtful, and even Ardan's high
spirits flagged. But as they looked on a
native sky, and on the fields and hedge-
rows of an Irish countryside, something of
their disquietude was eased and a lighten-
ing of the heart became apparent in each of
them.
" Dear girl," said Naoise, and he placed
an arm about her shoulders. "Weare in
Ireland," he said.
At the word every misery fled from
Ardan's breast, so that he began to look
truculen tly on his brother Ainnle, and even
to give him an occasional shoulder as they
marched.
Deirdre leaned to her husband.
" I have had other visions," she said.
20 4

CH. VII

DEIRDRE

She moved her hand languidly towards
Fergus' two sons, who strode a few paces in
advance.
" These are our sureties 1 " she mocked.
"They represent their father," Naoise
affirmed.
"They represent nothing but them-
selves," she answered, "and if their father
leaves us for a feast, they will leave us for
any other prank."
" It was his geasa," said Naoise patiently.
" Whatever it was," said Deirdre.
" We are utterly alone," she continued.
" We have no backing of any kind, and we
will arrive in Emain Macha at the absolute
mercy of Conachúr."
She seized her husband's arm.
" You also are under geasa not to return
unless in the company of Fergus. He may
be delayed for a week. Let us camp here
and wait until he comes up with us."
" Dear child," said N aoise, " how can we
insult these good youths ? "
But Deirdre was in terrible agitation.
"I dread appearing in the presence of
Conachúr if Fergus is not by us."
" His guarantee is with us," and Naoise
2 0 5

DEIRDRE

BK.II

indicated the two young men. "There it is,
four legs of it marching stoutly."
" At least," she pleaded, "let us go to
CúchuIinn's fortress in Dun Dealgan and
wait there until he or Fergus can come with
us-if you will do that) I shall complain no
more. "
" Fergus," he replied, "has bound him-
self before the king that he would send us on
without an hour's delay."
" And he bound himself to stay with us,
but he has broken his word." .
" We must keep his word for him with
the king," said N aoise.
"Another person's honour is another
person's business. That compact is broken
by him, and your geasa is not kept by keep-
ing his. Let us turn to Dun Dealgan and
take Cúchulinn's protection."
Naoise indicated the two who were march-
ing in front.
" I shall ask their advice, and if they agree
to it we will go to Dun Dealgan."
He called the two, and put the question
to them. But they were scandalized.
" You have no confidence in us)" said
Buinne.

206

ClI.VII

DEIRDRE

" And none in our father's word," said
Iollann.
"This woe has come on us because of
your father's word, and he has left us In
our danger for a feast," she raged.
" The whole world," said Buinne,
, "knows Fergus rnac Roy, and the worth
of his protection.- You know it," he said
to Naoise, "although your queen does
not.' ,
" You are right," said N
oise. "We may
go on without misgiving, my dove."
And they went on.
On their journey the next day they
reached SIieve Fuad. Deirdre strayed be-
hind, and in the movement and conversation
her absence was not noticed for a long time.
Naoise retraced his path from the \Vhite
Cairn of the '\^.T atching, and came on her
sleeping in a grassy hollow. When he
awakened her she stared and clutched him,
and cried wildly and bitterly.
" What is it?" he asked in alarm.
" I have had a vision," she sobbed. " I
have had a dreadful vision."
" What did you see? "
" I saw Iollann with no head on him, and
20 7

DEIRDRE

BK.II

I saw Buinne with his head safe on his
shoulders. "
N aoise took her in his arms.
" Be glad," he laughed, " that one of our
friends will escape the doom you have
planned for us all."
But she stared at him in distraction.
"No friend of ours will escape," she
moaned.
"But Buinne kept his head on in your
dream ! "
"The man who had no head had been
fighting for us, and the man who had a head
was fighting against us," she whispered.
Naoise was shocked.
"How you have changed, my one
treasure," he said mournfully.
She threw her arms about him.
"Do not speak unkindly to me," she
begged.
" That lovely mouth spoke always lovely
things, and now it speaks nothing but
evil. "
She closed his lips with her hand.
" No, no," she said. "Do not say more.
Or say only that you love me. You do love
me) my husband?"

208

CR. VII

DEIRDRE

" Little tender wife 1" he smiled. "After
all the dangers we have gone through you are
frightened at last."
" Yes," she breathed, "I am terribly
frightened. I die of fear for us all. When
I remember Conachúr . . . He looked so
at me, Naoise 1 He ! Come with
me to Scotland. We will be safe there.
We will be happy again. We will hunt in
the Woods of Cuan and Glen cia Rua. I
shall never complain again in this life if you
will come with me to Scotland. Let us go
away. You and I, and our darlings, Ainnle
and Ardan. He is so young to be killed,
our brother Ardan. He is but twenty-one
years old, and he is gay and loving and
fearless. We will be together again; we
four: alone and happy. Listen! we will
hunt and feast and defend ourselves and
fear nothing. You shall win a kingdom
there: in sweet Alba of the heathery up-
lands; but let us fly from Conachúr. You
do not know him. Only I and Lavarcham
know that terrible king. He is thoughtful.
He is bitter and unforgiving, and his
memories are rooted deep like the roots of
a deep tree."
20 9 p

DEIRDRE

BK.II

But Naoise put her hands away.
" If you must speak badly of others,"
he said coldly, " speak to me of foreigners,
and not of my own people 1 "
"Alas, my husband 1" said Deirdre.
" Alas and alas for all of us 1 "
She rose wearily.
"Do not be angry with me. Let that
last unhappiness be spared mc. I am your
wife, Naoise. I would prefer that evil
should happen to all the world rather than
one small misfortune should come to you.
I am not Deirdre any more. I am
Misery. "
But he kissed and petted her, putting
back the hair from her brow and framing
her face in his hands.
" We are here now," he said, "and no
matter what awaits us we must go to meet
it. You would not wish me to run away,
Deirdreen."
" W b r " h . d " d
e ran away elore, s e sal, an
we have greater reason to run away now
than we had then. The spider is waiting
for us in the web."
, , You forget, and you will keep on for-
getting it, that we are under the protection
210

CH. VII

DEIRDRE

of Fergus, and through him we are under
the protection of all Ireland."
But she looked at him almost angrily.
" F " h J:r d " H ' .
ergus, s e SCOne . e IS a traItor,
that Fergus. He is being used by the king
to betray us."
Naoise bit his lip and his eyes became
hard and sombre.
" Let us go on," he said. "We should
reach Ard Saileach ere the evening."

211

CHAPTER VIII

THEY stood on the slope of a hill in a rounded
and rolling country looking down on Emain
Macha. . The evening was advanced, and
the late sunlight, all a glimmer of gold, was
shining tenderly on the city, so that the
mighty ten-acre palace of Conachúr shone
back again as though it also were a sun.
The great bronze doors, polished like
mirrors, were blazing in red lakes of flame,
the glass windows of the women's sunny
rooms were like blinding pools of gold, and
the roofs, painted in broad reaches of red
and green and orange, glowed and sparkled
in the mellow evening.
" It is good to look on that again," said
Naoise in a low voice.
"I had almost forgotten it," said
Ainnle.

212

CII. VIII

DEIRDRE

But Ardan squatted in the grass and stared
and stared with his soul in his eyes.
" You have not seen the city for seven
years 1 " said Buinne. .
Naoise drew Deirdre to him.
" Are you not contented now, my heart?"
"Our wanderings are ended," he con-
tinued tenderly. "V\T e are outlaws no more,
and that long vagabondage is àone with.
You will sleep at last in a bed," he smiled.
" Oh, my dear 1" she breathed.
" We are home again," he said, and his
heart filled suddenly so that he could not
tell if it were really joy that stayed his
tongue and blinded his eyes, or if the grief
of seven long years had risen within him
like a wintry tide.
But Deirdre was not happy. She saw
Ainnle's contained joy, and the ecstasy In
Ardan's eyes.
" Alas, my darlings 1 " she said.
" You still think, " said N aoise, "that
the king of such a land can act towards us
like a traitor?"
"I shall give you a sign," she replied
mournfully and gently. "If Conachúr lodges
us this night in his own house we are safe."
213

DEIRDRE

BK.II

"He has sent for us of his own royal
will," said Ainnle, "and he will lodge us,
as is proper, in the Royal Branch."
" Poor trusting gentlemen 1 " said Deirdre.
" Conachúr could not live again in the house
where you three had lodged. He will send
us to the Red Branch."
" And if he does?" said Naoise.
" I," Ardan cried, "am going to put a
new edge on my sword if he does. There
is a good edge on it already," he explained,
" but I am going to put edges all over it."
" If we are sent to the Red Branch," said
Ainnle, "I shall let you give my blade a
rub too."
" I call on Iollann and Buinne for protec-
tion," Ardan cried indignantly. " That man
makes me work for him like a horse," he
com plained.
Naoise turned to the two sons of Fergus.
" If we are sent to the Red Branch what
will you do ? "
" We will go there with you," said Buinne.
"The king's house is always filled with
guests," lollann said. "He cannot know
just when we should arrive, and he may have
1 .c , ."
no p ace lor us at a moment s notice.
21 4

CH.VIII

DEIRDRE

"There is nothing Conachúr does not
know," said Deirdre. "Borach will have
sent a runner to tell of our arrival, and his
own spies will have told the king in what
place we camped each night, and at what
hour we marched again in the morning. He
knows now that we are here, and if he sends
us to the Red Branch we are lost."
"I am as full of curiosity as an old
woman," Naoise laughed. "Let us go on
and find out everything that is going to
h "
appen.
In a short time they were among the
streets and booths around Emain Macha,
but the twilight had descended and the
passers-by did not recognize the six travellers.
" Yonder is the Speckled Branch, the
Armoury," said Ainnle. "The Boy Troop
will be going to bed shortly. Y ou re-
member those nights, Naoise, and all the
chattering? "
" And the climbing out of windows by
a cord," said Ardan. "And the scrambling
back again while the comrades above threw
all the world at the guards who were trying
to stick spears in us as we shinned up."
" There is the Red Branch," said Naoise.
2 1 5

DEIRDRE

BK.II

U Is it truly full of dead men's heads?"
Deirdre chattered through frozen lips.
" There is generally a head or two," he
answered carelessly, " Connachtmen mostly."
" Very hairy, beardy, toothy kinds of
heads," said Ardan. "I remember them,
and they used to get hairier and beardier
and toothier every second day. At last,"
he eXplained to Deirdre, "there wouldn't
be any head at all, no face at all, only a mat
of hair as long as a woman's, and it in knots,
and a shiny grin among the knots."
" You are all wrong," said Ainnle. "A
dead man's hair grows lank and long like
a drink of water."
" Pooh 1" said Ardan. " You remember
everything 1 You are the great man of the
world 1 The wind knots them and twists
them and wobbles them all in and out like
a doormat."
" Yonder is Conachúr's house, the Royal
Branch," said Naoise.
" We will give a good thundering knock
at the door and make them jump," said
Ainnle gleefully.
" I'll give it a kick," said Ardan.
Naoise did give a thundering knock.
216

CH. VIII

DEIRDRE

The door opened and a guard appeared.
" Who asks admission at this hour?" he
demanded.
" The sons of Uisneac."
The guard stared.
" Come in, nobles, and sit for a moment
while I seek instructions."
"Let a message be sent to the king, "
said Buinne, " that the protection of Fergus
mac Roy and those he protects have arrived
as he ordered."
The chamberlain came, Scel, son of Bar-
nene.
"The household have retired," he said.
" But the king sends his regrets and court-
esies, and has instructed that his noble
guests are to be lodged in the Red Branch
for this night. A guard will escort you
there." He motioned to the captain of the
guard, who ranged his men.
" Don't forget about the edges you pro-
mised to do for me," said Ardan to his
brother.
" No wriggling, young lazy-bones," Ainnle
retorted. " You shall do your work and be
respectful to your betters also."
" Is not that man a tyrant?" said Ardan.
21 7

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

He turned to the captain of the guard.
"Hold me away from him, good sir," he
implored.
" I am at your orders, gentlemen," said
the smiling captain.

218

CHAPTER IX

BUT Conachúr had not retired.
He was seated in the central room away
in the heart of his monstrous palace, and the
great crystal ball swung at his shoulder. He
had stared into it for hours and had seen
nothing.
Lavarcham also was there, seated humbly
on a stool.
" Fill my cup," said Conachúr. "I am
thirsty to-night, my heart. I could drain a
sea and not drown this thirst."
" You are troubled, lord. All this busi-
ness has fevered you."
" And you 1 Are you not excited at the
thought of seeing your babe again?"
"I have interested myself in so many
things these seven long years, master, I have
almost forgotten her. She has dropped out
21 9

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

of my mind, and now I would as readily not
see her as see her."
" I thought you loved that babe! "
" After all, she is not my babe. F elimid
mac Dan's wife bore her."
" Is it so?" Conachúr mused. "I had
almost forgotten that old tale."
" I had but the labour of rearing her, and
of being disappointed by her," she said
bi tterly.

" You did not fill my cup, Lavarcham."
" I did, master, but you have emptied it."
" Fill it again, good friend. . . . She was
beautiful, Lavarcham 1 She was a thing of
joy and wonder 1 "
" Young girls are beautiful while they are
young, master, but in a few years they look
like any other person."
" You think so?"
" They get fat or they get thin. It is not
girls that are lovely, master, it is youth."
"And I am forty - seven years of age 1
The years go by doing what I know to me,
but for her there has been only the time to
ripen what was immature. The green fruit
will be ruddy and fragrant worked on by the
220

CH. IX

DEIRDRE

sun and the wind. What age is she now,
woman? "
" She is seven years older in time, and
twenty years older in hardship. She will
have forgotten how to lie in a bed, or how to
eat proper food."
"She will surely have changed," said
Conachúr.
A brisk moment returned to the great
man, and he aroused himself.
"How will she look after her years of
lying in the butt of a wet ditch or in the bog? "
" Ah me 1" said Lavarcham.
" She will have plodded over tough hills
with a thin belly and a dry lip. She will
have slept with her fingers in her mouth to
keep them warm in the winter. She will
be lean and red-handed and windy-faced;
with the arches of her feet broken down by
too. much walking, and her knees sagging
under her like an old ploughman's. Is that
how the Troubler will look, Lavarcham?"
" I think, master, that she may be a long,
thin, tough woman. She will be rheu-
matic "
" She will awaken in the night coughing
like a sick horse," said the cheerful king.
221

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

" I do not wish to see her," said Lavar-
cham sourly.
" No more do I," said Conachúr. "Let
her go. . . . My cup 1" he murmured.
" Lavarcham, you do not attend me well."
Again he became moody.
" If I were not the king I would steal to
the Red Branch and spy on her ruin through
a window. I should like to see that she
is lank and depressed. . . . Go you, Lavar-
cham; the guards know your privileges.
Look through the window and bring me
back that tale."
" I do not want to see her at all, master.
Let her stay with the people she has chosen,
and let her torment our sleep no more."
"Go, nevertheless, and bring me a full
account of her. Fill up my glass. Ex-
amine her carefully, my soul, so that you
can bring me a true report. But do not
delay, for I shall be waiting for you. I am
lonely to-night, woman; I am very lonely.
Send me a man of the guard to fill my cup 1 "
Lavarcham, with every sign of distaste,
almost of annoyance, set on her errand.

" Sit there, and take your ease," the king
222

CII. IX

DEIRDRE

ordered the guard who came in. "Do not
stare at the floor, good soul, nor at the ceil-
ing. Ah me 1 stand behind my chair then,
and when my cup is empty refill it for me."
The embarrassed soldier moved gratefully
to cover, and the king fell again to his woeful
meditations.
" Guard 1" he said.
" A Rí U asall" the guard rolled sonor-
ously.
" Have you ever looked in a crystal?"
" N k ., ,
ever, Ing.
" Look in this crystal, my friend. Can
you see anything? "
" There is a fog in the crystal."
" I t has been there these three days.
Look again, good lad."
" I think there is a woman's face."
" What sort of a woman?"
" It has gone, majesty."
" What sort was she?"
" I saw the loveliest face that ever bright-
ened the world. I t seemed like the face of
a sky-woman or a lady of the Shí."
" Sit on this little stool, and fill my cup.
What age are you, guard?"
" Twenty-two years, majesty."
223

DEIRDRE

BK.II

U What is your name?"
" I am called Strong Fist, sir."
"I remember you, Tréndorn, you are
my hereditary man. Your father was my
man before you. How did he die ? "
"He was killed by Naoise, the son of
< Uisneac, sir."
.. " I b " . d C h ' " d
remem er, sal onac ur, an
your two brothers were killed by that
Naoise. Do you remember that also?"
" I would not forget it, sir."
"There are things that one should not
forget, guard. Would you do an ill turn
to the same N aoise ? "
" If I had that chance I would take it, sir."
" He is in the Red Branch," said Cona-
chúr. "He is there with the woman whose
face you saw in the crystal. Go there for
me, good soldier, and look through the
window. See that no person vlÎthin ob-
serves you, for these are murderous and skil-
ful men, and if they saw you they would
stop your breath."
The guard stood glowering.
" In what way do I get equal with Naoise?"
he demanded.
" Each thing in its time, good soul, for
224

CR. IX

DEIRDRE

you would not understand how the king
moves. This is but the first step, and the
second shall be taken in no short time.
Climb to the window, and look carefully at
the woman who is there with Naoise. Ex-
amine her well and bring me back news of
how she seems and what she looks like.
You have seen women before?"
" I have, majesty."
" You know what to look for; you wil1
know how to look at a woman. Go. Fill
my cup, guard, and go on my errand."

225

Q

. CHAPTER X

" STILL," said Ardan, "we are not treated
too badly. There is plenty of food."
" And there are beds in the alcove," said
Ainnle.
" We shall sleep well to-night," said
Deirdre, and she burst into tears.
They sat dumb, each feeling as if a chill
wind had touched him.
"Forgive me," said Deirdre. "I shall not
complain any more. Let us sit to our meat."
" I shall eat and eat and eat," said Ardan.
"I am so hungry I could growl over my
food. "
" Y ou shall be served first, Ardaneen,"
said Deirdre, "and if there is one tender
. piece you shall have it."
"Our Buinne is even hungrier than I
am; let him have the first piece."
226

CH.X

DEIRDRE

Deirdre looked kindly at Buinne, but as
she looked her eyes widened and she went
white to the lips. She spoke to him with a
shy smile.
" Y ou will have the first piece, Buinne,"
she stammered.
" I shall take what comes," said Rough-
Red Buinne.
Deirdre sank back in her chair.
"Naoise, my dear," she said, "please
carve for me. I am not well."
" Buinne is sensible," said Naoise. "He
has a head on his shoulders." He stumbled
in his carving, and cast a swift glance at
Deirdre.
" The first portion," he continued gravely,
" shall be for Buinne, the second for Iollann,
the third for Deirdre, the fourth for Ainnle,
the fifth for Ardan, and the sixth for Naoise."
" lY1y piece is to be the tenderest," said
Ardan complacently; "Deirdre said so.
Fight for me, Deirdreen 1"
" Ardan, my dear brother," said Deirdre,
" come to me and give me ten kisses."
" I'll miss my turn," he wailed, as he
moved round to her.
They ate their supper, and were sitting
227

DEIRDRE

BK.lI

at chess-that is, Deirdre and Naoise were
playing, while the others watched the game
-when there came a tapping at the door
which was nearest to them. Naoise held
a piece poised in his fingers.
" Go, Ainnle, and challenge that person."
" It is a woman's voice," said Ainnle.
" L h . "
et er come In.
The great bolts were pushed back, and
Lavarcham entered.
"My babe, my treasure 1" she cried,
and she ran to Deirdre.
" Oh, my sweet mother 1" said Deirdre.
"I have no time," Lavarcham panted.
" I must fly back to the king. He sent me
to spy on you through the window."
" There is danger, mother?"
"There is terrible danger. Conachúr's
household men are standing to arms in the
Speckled Branch, and there is a posse at
each of the gates of this place. He will
attack before morning. Oh, Deirdre,
Deirdre, that you could have come here
knowing Conachúr as I taught him to you 1
What madness brought you from Scotland,
child? Are you glad to see me? Do you
love your mother still, little one? I have
228

CH.X

DEIRDRE

told the king that you would be ruined with
hardship and sorrow; alas 1 you are more
beautiful than ever. I shall tell him that
you are one-eyed and lame, I shall tell him
anything to quieten him for this night.
To-morrow Naoise's people will get news
of your return and he may fear to attack.
If only I can quieten him for this night 1
He is drinking. He may go to sleep. Oh,
my darling, my one love 1 I must fly.
Keep all the doors barred. Do not open
to anyone. I shall send messengers to
Uisneac's people. Kiss me again. Oh, my
love of all loves 1 I must fly."
U Ainnle, Ardan, run round all the doors.
See that they are secure," said N aoise.
He turned to Buinne and Iollann.
U Your father may be too late to help us.
I give you back your protection, gentlemen."
U I shall stay with you," said Buinne.
U And I," said IoHann.
" Good comrades 1" Naoise cried, and his
eyes sparkled with delight and gratitude.
U W fi " h " d " . d
e are ve, e sal, tralne to arms
from the moment we could walk. No
person of our q uali ty will be against us, for
no gentleman of Ireland would take part in
229

DEIRDRE

BK.II

such an attack. There will be only the
common soldiery: hardy men, but as skil-
ful at our trade as ploughmen. They can-
not break in, for the Red Branch was
designed not to be broken into. These
bronze doors "
" The windows 1 " said Ainnle.
" God pity the man that gets in through
a window 1 " said Naoise. "Moreover, they
are too high. A man's legs would be splint-
ered if he jumped from them.
" Fire 1 " said Ardan.
"Conachúr will not burn his own
fortress. "
" There is a man at the window now,"
said Deirdre.
Naoise's hand was on the table. He
picked up a heavy chessman of gold and
ivory and with an underhand flick he sent
it buzzing up and through the glass.
A roar of pain came from without and
then a scream. "M Y eye 1 my eye!" a
voice wailed.
" He won't peep through windows again
in a hurry," said Ainnle.
"Conachúr has overreached himself,"
said Naoise. " We can hold out until the
230

CH.X

DEIRDRE

morning, and if Lavarcham sends her
messages my people will be baying around
Conachúr like wolves, and there will be
many another one with them."
U The people of Fergus mac Roy will be
vvith them," cried Buinne.
" That king will learn what it is to dare
my father's protection," Iollann raged.
U Why," said Naoise joyfully, U we are
as safe as if we were in Scotland."
" If we are only as safe as that!" said
Ardan with a giggle. "Buinne, my soul,
we used to be running from morning until
night. We ate our food on the run. We
used to run in our sleep. I tell the world
that in six years I have not felt safe for a
minute until this minute, for there are stout
walls around us, and food to last a week's
siege. The gods be praised," he said
piously, U we cannot run even if we have to."
The band of young men shouted with
laughter, and Deirdre chimed in as joyously
as any of them.

23 1

CHAPTER XI

U IT is as you thought, master," said
Lavarcham. U The girl is ruined."
" You saw her?"
" Her cheeks are hollow and her eyes are
red. One would pity her, master. Indeed,
I shall go to see her to-morrow."
" You did not want to see her any more,"
said the king.
" It was so," she replied humbly. "But
my heart was wrung when I looked on her
wretchedness."
" And the young men?"
" Th "
ey are stout young men, master.
" And the guards that I posted?"
" They were at their posts."
" There ends a tale, and seven of my poor
years. . . !" said Conachúr. "What did she
look like, woman?"
232

CH. XI

DEIRDRE

U She is thin and haggard, and she leaned.
by the table as though all the weariness of
the world were in her sides."
U Thus. . . 1" said Conachúr. "And we
fash ourselves for these things and spend our
years and our pith. . . 1 Fill my cup, Lavar-
cham. Let the years go and the rest, for
we are fools and children. Get to your rest,
friend, and let me mourn my foolish years
and all my nonsense."
U Nay, go to your bed also, sweet king,"
said Lavarcham. "Y ou shall rest to-night,
for that bad dream is ended. Y ou will
be troubled no more. To-morrow will be
a new day, and all that the world has is for
the king."
" It is so," said Conachúr. "This will
be the last of those nights. Go to your
bed, good soul, and I shall go to mine in a
moment."
Lavarcham left the palace with her mind
in a turmoil of weariness and fear, but with
hope dawning in her soul. She sent secret
runners to the men of Uisneac and to those
of Fergus mac Roy, warning them that their
chiefs were in urgent danger; and when she
slept she was too happy even to remember
233

DEIRDRE

BK. II

what the king might do when he discovered
her treachery. That memory would be for
the morrow.

But the king did not sleep.
" I shall wait the report of that guard,"
he said, " and then I will be able to sleep."
The guard came moaning and limping.
" What ails you, man? " said the astonished
kin g.
" N . " h d d " He
aOlse, t e guar stammere.
has knocked out my eye."
He removed his hand from his face, and
there was one eye there, and a bloody mess
where the other should have been.
U Did I not tell you," the king stormed,
U that they were murderous men? Did you
take no heed in your work."
" It was the woman saw me," the guard
stammered. "She told the man, and before
I could move he threw a chessman at me
and knocked out my eye. My leg is broken
too, master, for I fell from the window."
U You will make a better herdsman than
soldier," said the king harshly. U You are
one-legged, one-eyed, and stupid. Go to
your bed, and be careful that you do not
234

CH.XI

DEIRDRE

cut your throat by taking off your boots.
What did the woman look like?"
" What woman, majesty?"
U The woman I sent you to look at."
U She looked like the woman I saw in the
I "
crys ta .
U I know she did. vVhat did she look
like, fool?"
U She looked like the most beautiful
woman in the world."
Conachúr turned his great head and wide
eyes on the soldier.
"Be careful how you report to me,
guard. How did that woman look? Is
she thin-faced? Is she pale and haggard
and wretched? "
U She is not, majesty. She is red-lipped
and sweet-eyed and delicious. She is the
loveliest woman that moves in the world."
U Sit on that -stool. Do not mind your
eye for a moment. We shall mind it for
you in a little time. Answer my questions.
Did that woman look young or old? "
U She looked young as a bride."
" Are her cheeks thin ? "
U They are not thin; they are round and
rosy. "

235

DEIRDRE

BK.II

U Are her eyes red and sunken?"
U They are clear as sweet water, majesty;
they are coloured But for looking into
them I should have got away, for, having
looked, I could not but keep on looking
until Naoise threw his chessman."
" You are muddled," said Conachúr
sternly.
" I would give my other eye for another
look at her," said the guard savagely.
Conachúr leaped furiously to his feet.
, , You shall be cared for," he said. "Go
to your bed. A doctor shall be sent to you.
A comrade will help you along. . . . Ho,
there 1" he thundered. U Ho, there, the
guards 1 "

23 6

CHAPTER XII

" WHAT do you hear, Ardan?"
U Big feet, and a big lot of them."
U The doors are well secured?"
U Every bolt is drawn."
U And the door we arranged for IS left
with only one bolt shot?"
U Yes. It is a quick, well-oiled bolt. It
will open and close again like lightning."
There came a loud command, and, in a
moment, a thundering knock.
N aoise strode to the door.
U Who goes there?"
" The king's men."
U What do you want?"
" We want the woman who is with you."
" Is that all you want?"
" And we want Naoise, the son of Uis-
neac. "

237

DEffiDRE

BK.II

U They are both here," said Naoise.
U Open this door," the voice commanded.
U Ah, no," Naoise laughed; "why should
we do your business, honest man?"
There was no reply for a moment, but the
rumble of conversation could be heard; then
the voice came again:
U You others, Ainnle and Ardan and the
sons of Fergus, open this door and you shall
go free."
Naoise looked gravely at his companions.
" That is the necessary second part," said
Buinne, hitching his sword-belt round.
Naoise's brothers took no notice, but their
faces grew savage and their eyes narrowed
and sparkled.
" Iollann and Deirdre, keep an eye on the
windows," Naoise warned.
Iollann dangled a sling in his hand and
Deirdre held another with a copper bolt in it.
" If," said the voice, " the woman Deirdre
comes out we will go away."
" Watch the windows," N aoise warned;
U they are talking to keep us occupied."
Deirdre's arm swung viciously, and a wild
yell told that the bolt had gone home.
U I thought so," said N aoise. "They
23 8

CR. XII

DEIRDRE

cannot get in through the windows because
of the bars, but they could manage to fly
an arrow through, although it would be an
awkward shot."
U Why," said Ainnle, U we could go to
sl eep here 1 "
A series of thundering knocks came on the
door.
U A ram 1" said Buinne.
U Half an hour of that might bring even
these doors down," said N aoise.
He turned to his companions.
"Ardan, yours will be the first sortie.
They will not be prepared, lad, for it is very
awkward to work a ram and to keep guard
at the same time. Do not mind the men
with the ram; they will be unarmed. But
behind them there will be a mass of men.
You know how deep a fighter can penetrate 1
It depends on his own weight. The instant
you touch that weight fight backwards.
When you are two yards from the door
Ainnle will shout. Turn then and run. I
shall have the door closed on you almost
before you are through. The moment the
door slams, you, Buinne, push in the bottom
bolt. I shall slide the middle one with my
239

DEIRDRE

BK.II

right hand and will be reaching for the top
one ,vith my left. You are ready! Ardan,
listen to me. The men immediately in
front of you will give back a step until they
start to come on. Fight, therefore, to the
right sidewards, and with the point all the
time. Keep your left covered \vith the
shield, and if there is a press cut with its
cutting edges. The moon is high, and you
will be able to see. No foolhardiness, boy!
The moment you touch weight fight back-
wards, and then sweep broadly with the edge,
and, when Ainnle shouts, run."
He turned again.
"Buinne, stand to the bolts. Iollann,
Ainnle, Deirdre, place yourselves so, and
sling the ramsmen or they may cumber his
retreat.' ,
Under the thundering batter of the ram
and the savage roaring of the invaders the
bolts were half drawn.
"Ready alII" said Naoise. " Ready,
Ardan ? "
Ardan hunched the shield to his left side
and crouched, staring.
"Good boy 1 n said Naoise. U Now,
Buinne-Pull ! n

24 0

CR. XII

DEIRDRE

They heaved the great door wide and
Ardan went through it like an arrow.
"Sling, children," said N aoise. "Keep
me informed, Ainnle. I must stick behind
the door."
" He is at them, and well in. . . . Ah 1 "
said Ainnle, and he slung shrewdly. "He
has forgotten to thrust and is cutting . My
thanks, IoHann, for that bolt. His shield
work is excellent, brother, but he will cut.
There is his limit, if he knows it. He is
fighting back, and now he is thrusting where
he should use the sweeping blade for a
retreat 1 That ramsman, IoHann 1 This one
for me, and you, sister, for the crouching
man. I shall shout now."
" Ardan 1" he roared.
The boy dropped his combat as a dog
drops a toad. In three seconds he was
through the doorway, and in four the door
had slammed.

N aoise towered long and lean over his
young brother.
"Good lad 1" he said. " Well done,
Ardan 1 "
" I kiHed a million," said Ardan.
.24 I R

DEIRDRE

BK.II

A savage, raging yell came from without.
"They will begin to warm to it now,"
said. Naoise, "and we must keep them
occupied. It is your turn, Ainnle. Give
your sling to Ardan."
Ainnle whizzed at one window and Deirdre
at another. Two loud shouts were heard.
" Whether they are hit or not their skulls
are cracked by the fall," said Naoise, "but the
windows do not matter. Come to this door."
" Why cannot I go out?" said Buinne.
" You and I are the heaviest metal, my
heart, and when the real fighting commences
we shall have plenty to do. This is only a
little fun for the boys. Ainnle, listen care-
fully . You will slip out by this door, and
will run, and fight as you run. Range where
you please, but run always. In five minutes
-do not delay, Ainnle-make for yonder
door. This one will be shut, and the slings-
men will be inside that door to cover your
retreat. I t is understood?"
Ainnle nodded, and made his blade whistle
through the air. He heaved the shield from
his back to his shoulder.
" The instant you are in, Ainnle, fly to this
door again, while we close the other behind
24 2

CH. XII

DEIRDRE

you. Open all the bolts but one; Buinne
will help, and I and Iollann will dart out for
five minutes. I wish to see what arrange-
ments they are making."
" Are you protecting my brother? " said
Buinne savagely.
"No, my heart, I am giving him a run
and spying their dispositions."
"I claim this combat," said the rough
young man.
" You shall have one immediately after-
wards. Y ou and I together will make the
tour of this fortress, shoulder to shoulder,
Buinne. Will not that content you?"
Naoise laughed.
"I was beginning to feel lonely," said
Buinne. " We shall have a pleasant run."
" Ten minutes for our run," said Naoise.
" Ready, Ainnle?"
His brother nodded.
" Run straight out, thirty feet out if you
can. Double then as you please. Remem-
ber the door you are to come in by, and do all
the damage you can. If you are in diffi-
culty give our call."
"I could not get into difficulty in five
minutes," Ainnle smiled.
243

DEIRDRE

BK.II

" Ready, Buinne? Pull! "
Ainnle sped out, and the door slammed on
him like thunder.
The uproar without had been terrific, but
now it redoubled, and at times a long scream
topped the noise as spray tops a wave.

" We cannot see our brother, " said Deirdre
nervously.
" We know his work," N aoise replied.
" He is as safe for five minutes as if he were
in bed."
" Your combat, Naoise 1" she breathed.
" It will be the easiest of them all. There
.
will be a rough companion with me. Run
all to the other door," he cried. "Iollann 1
Deirdre! Ardan 1 Your slings 1 The bolts,
Buinne 1 Pull, my soul 1 "
Far out in the moonlight Ainnle was
coursing like a deer. The moon flashed on
his blade and on his shield. Men ran from
him, and men ran to head him off, and into
the middle of these he went diving like a
fish. A band from the right came rushing
for the open door.
" Out, Buinne, for ten seconds, and back
w hen he is through."
244

CH. XII

DEIRDRE

Naoise and Buinne leaped out with whirl-
ing weapons. There was a clatter of shields,
a medley of shouts and curses, and in ten
seconds they were in again and the door was
closed.
" You opened a minute too early," said
Ainnle. "I was all right."
" You did some damage?"
4' Not badly."
" You didn't kill as many as I did," said
Ardan.
" Pooh 1" Ainnle retorted. " No one
could kill as many as you except Cúchulinn."
"Let us arrange the next sortie," said
N aoise.

245

CHAPTER XIII

CONACHÚR had come to the Red Branch, and
a great roar of cheering greeted him. He
strode to the captain of his troop.
" Well, my soul?"
" We have begun, majesty."
" How is it going? "
"Excellently," said the captain. "We
have lost about forty men already."
Conachúr stared at him.
" How did that happen?"
" It happened because of the king's royal
decision to lodge these men in a fortress."
" You have five hundred men here 1"
"When they are all killed," said the captain
sourly, "we can call out another :five hundred."
"What is the difficulty?" his master
growled.
" A fortress with six doors. They leap
24 6

CH.XIII

DEIRDRE

in and out of these doors the way frogs leap
in a pool. While we are using the ram on
this door they make a sally by another door,
this door, any door-and they are the devil's
own fighters! We don't know where to
expect them, and anyone of those within
is the equal of ten of our men in fighting,
and the superior of them all in tricks. I am
to have them out before morning-it is the
king's orders, but I don't know how it is to
be done."
" Ram all the doors," said Conachúr.
" I have but one ram. I can get others
to-morrow."
"To-morrow will be too late," said the
king furiously. " We shall have half Ulster
on our backs to-morrow."
" I want scaling ladders, grapnels," said
the officer angrily. "This work has been
thrown on us at a moment's notice, and we
are not prepared for it. I can get them out
in a day, but not in a night."
" Attack a door with your ram," snarled
Conachúr, " and guard your other doors."
" I am doing that," said the captain, " and
my men, I fear, are beginning to love the
work."

247

DEIRDRE

BK. II

He returned to his place, and in a few
minutes the thud and batter of the ram was
heard again. Conachúr strode there and
watched the work with savage impatience.
The captain returned and stood by him.
" You put good doors in the Red Branch,
majesty," he said cheerfully; "an hour of
that ramming will begin to make them
. "
qUiver.
A shout arose, but it was multiplied from
every side by the roaring soldiery, and one
could not tell from which direction danger
came.
" They have popped out somewhere," said
the captain. "In about two minutes they
will pop in again, somewhere-they know
but we don't,-and in those two minutes
we will lose five men or twenty."
" Stick to the ram 1" Co
achúr roared.
" Keep at that door, my men! "
A wild yelling came from the side and
a burst of men came pell-mell round the
corner. Weapons were striking everywhere
and anywhere.
"Which are our men and which are
theirs?" said the captain. "Ours don't
know in this light which is friend and which
24 8

CH. XIII

DEIRDRE

is enemy. They know," he said bitterly;
" but we are killing one another."

Two figures detached themselves in the
moonlight. They were bounding like great
cats, and wherever there was a mass they
bounded into it, burst through it, and
leaped on.
" Ho, Conachúr 1 " a voice called. " Do
you remember Naoise?"
"Ho, traitor king I" another boomed.
"Do you remember Fergus?"
" It is Naoise and Buinne this time," said
the captain.
The two figures leaped at the ramsmen.
The ram was dropped and the unarmed
crew fled yelling. The door that was being
battered opened and shut, and the two
figures were gone.
" That's how it's done 1" said the captain.
" Get to the ram 1" Conachúr roared.

249

CHAPTER XIV

" THE king himself is there," said Naoise.
"Let us hunt him," cried Ardan in
savage glee.
"He will move about," Naoise replied.
"We would never know where he is, and
we should only waste time. We have but
to hold out until the morning, and we can
do it with ease. Why 1" he cried, "we
have forgotten our days of travel; Fergus
himself may be here to-morrow."
"He will travel day and night, and by
chariot where we came on foot," said Iollann.
" He may be here in the morning."
Naoise nodded joyfully.
" He will have choked whatever is in it
out of Borach's throat long before this,"
Iollann continued, "and he will be an
"
angry man.

250

CH. XIV

DEIRDRE

U If he came, even alone," said N aoise,
U that rabble would fly."
" They will fly before he comes," Ardan
boasted, "for it's my turn to go out now,
and I shall show them a trick or two."
U It's two by two now, babe," said Ainnle,
c C so we are going out together."
U That man," Ardan mourned, U is trying
to cheat me of my fame. Fight for me,
Deirdreen ! Back me up, N aoise ! "

U Hark to them battering," said 10Hann.
cc How angry some people get I " Ardan
giggled.
cc Let us make a full sortie," Buinne cried.
U We five could eat those soldiers."
cc One must be left for the door," N aoise
replied. U Ardan "
" No door for me I" said Ardan violently.
cc Ainnle," said N aoise, "our lives will
depend on the doorman."
eel shall go out the next time all by
myself," Ainnle bargained.
His brother nodded, while Ardan danced
for joy.
U Pooh 1" Ainnle gibed. cc He thinks
he is Cúchulinn 1 "

25 1

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

Ardan squared up and began to shoulder
him and to speak very roughly.
" And I am better than Cúchulinn," he
concluded.
Ainnle seized his head and gave him
three kisses.
"Little brother 1 " he said, "you are
even better than I."
u You are a good brother," said Ardan.
U I shall not divorce you," and he returned
the three kisses.
U Are we ready all?" said N aoise.
C C Then let us arrange this sally.
U It shall be in two parties. Buinne
and "he halted for one moment;
U Buinne and Ardan, Iollann and my-
self. "
U Y ou trust Ardan to me 1" said Buinne
shortly.
U Why not?" said Naoise.
Deirdre was staring at her husband with
a fixed, white stare, and Naoise's throat went
suddenly dry. He strode to her.
U What is it?" he murmured.
U I have no vision," she whispered. U I
do not know."
U You still think ? "
25 2

CR. XIV

DEIRDRE

U I know it," she said, U but I do not
know when."
He closed his eyes and turned again.
" We go through this door. Once out,
you turn to the left, Buinne, and I to the
right, and away each on a grand half-circle.
When we meet we form in line and charge
back to this same door: six feet between
each man for sword-play; Buinne and I
on the outside."
" I shall be quite on the outside," said
Buinne.
U As you will, friend," said N aoise. "Get
to the bolts, Ainnle. You two will watch
over each other?" he said, but it was at
Buinne he looked.
U I shall bring him back," said the gruff
man.
U If one of Buinne's hairs is touched,"
Ardan boasted, U I shall give him one of
my own hairs instead of it."
U You are ready, Ainnle?"
"How shall I know when to open the
door?" Ainnle roared.
" My wits are going 1" said Naoise. U We
shall fight in silence, and when you hear our
battle-cry open the door at that instant."
253

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

" Wait! " said Buinne. "Heavier blades
are wanted for this sortie. I t should be
two-handed work at the edge of a thirty-
foot line, and the shields must be left
behind. "
U My wits are indeed going 1" said
Naoise.
U I shall bring him back," said Buinne.
U I take him under my protection," he
growled.
, , You two, " said N aoise, "keep your
shields. Buinne and I take the great swords,
and we leave our armour off for speed. The
outside men must run twice as quick as
the inside ones," he eXplained to Buinne.
Buinne nodded and began to unlace his
battle-coats. Deirdre flew to help him, and
she looked at him with such soft affection
that the youth marvelled. Naoise was bend-
ing the great blade that he got from Manan-
nan mac Lir, the God of the Sea.
" Now, Ainnle, the door 1 Buinne is out
first, I second, Iollann and Ardan together.
Ready 1 . . . Pull 1 "
They were gone.

Ainnle and Deirdre slammed the door,
254

CR. XIV

DEIRDRE

and he stood with his back leaning against
it, staring as it were inwardly, and listening
with every pore of his body. Deirdre threw
her arms about his neck.
" 0 Ainnle 1 dear Ainnle 1 "
U It is lonely here," he muttered.
Her head drooped on his breast.
U Do not faint, sister; the door has yet
to be opened, and you must help with the
bolts. Hear those clowns roaring! "
U If our own men would but shout once I "
she moaned.
U I should open the door immediately,"
he smiled, U and this noble combat would
have a stupid end."
U To-morrow will never come," she moaned.
U Do not make my teeth chatter," said
Ainnle.
U We must attend to the door," he
continued. U I shall draw the top bolt now.
Crouch down with your hands on the bottom
one, and, when the shout comes, draw it; I
will draw the middle one, and when I say,
, Pull,' drag with me on the door. It is
almost too heavy for one man to move, but
between us-and they will push from the
outside."

255

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

Deirdre crouched at his knees. A vast
confusion of noise began to draw nigh.
"They are coming back," said Ainnle.
" Draw your bolt now, sister, and take hold
of the knob."
Above the infernal uproar there came the
shout they knew.
" Pull 1 " he roared.
The door gave, a great push from with-
out helped it, and the four leaped through.
A blade leaped in behind them and was
snapped in pieces as Ainnle, and a shoulder
helping, smashed-to the door.
Buinne was panting heavily.
" That deserves a rest," he said.
And the other three began with one voice
to narrate the sortie to the two who had been
within.

25 6

CHAPTER XV

BUINNE stood up.
" Naoise," he said sternly.
" M I
" " d N .
Y sou. sal aOlse.
" You interfered in my combat."
" Your end of the line was almost too
heavy for any man, dear heart."
" You did it twice."
" Thirty feet out is a great distance. All
the press was in your path. I did but
lighten it when my own front was easy."
" I will accept no man's assistance," said
Buinne.
" We are comrades," N aoise replied gen tly.
" We give and take help."
"Did I call for help?" the other
growled.
Naoise's great chest rose, but his VOIce
was calm.

257

s

DEIRDRE

BK II.

, , No man will ever hear you call for hel p,
Buinne."
" Let no man give what is not called for."
" But for that help, Buinne, you would
now be dead."
" I was not fit for the end of the line? "
said Buinne harshly.
" You are young yet, comrade, but in
two years you will have the speed and
smash that such a post calls for."
" Your speed! your smash 1" said the
sardonic Buinne.
" The world knows," Ainnle interposed,
"that the four greatest champions of Ire-
land are Cúchulinn, Fergus, Conall, and
N aoise. "
." And Ainnle," Buinne completed with a
grin.
The young man turned his dancing length
of whipcord and his narrowed brow on
Buinne.
" I, myself " he said gently.
" And so could I," said Ardan.
"Do not quarrel," Naoise interrupted.
" In two years Buinne will be the equal of
any man you have named. Hush," he said.
He bent his head sideward and hearkened
258

CH.XV

DEIRDRE

in amazement. The others listened, with
their eyes turned questioningly on each other.
They listened to nothing, for the ram had
ceased and there was a silence of the dead
wi thout.
In a few moments there came a gentle
tapping, then a louder knocking at the door.
Naoise stood before it, frowning.
" Who goes there? "
U The herald."
U What do you want? "
U Parley."
" Say what you have to say, herald."
U If the woman Deirdre is put out through
this door the troops will march away."
" And what then ? "
" No vengeance will be for ever exacted
against the sons of Uisneac."
" There is no answer," said N aoise.
U I have yet a message," said the voice.
" D I . ."
elver It.
U It is for the ear of the sons of Fergus."
Buinne strode forward.
" Deliver it," he said.
"There is no quarrel," said the herald,
"between the king and Fergus mac Roy.
The king's love for Fergus is such that he
259

DEIRDRE

BK.II

wishes at any cost to save his two sons from
a death that is certain."
" Well? " said Buinne.
" The king says that if these young men
retire from the com bat he will bestow a lord-
ship on them."
" What lordship? "
"A cantred of land greater than that
which Fergus himself has, and the king's
friendshi p."
Buinne looked under steep red brows at
Naoise.
" I shall go out," he said.
He turned to his brother.
" You will come out with me."
" I shall not," said Iollann.
His brother stamped a foot.
" My father is my chief," said Iollann.
" What he orders I do. I cannot protect
the sons of Uisneac as he commanded, but
I can fight beside them."
Buinne turned.
" Herald," he roared, "tell Conachúr
that I shall go out to him."
His hand went to the door, but Naoise
stepped forward.
" Do not touch a bolt," he commanded.
260

CH.XV

DEIRDRE

, , You shall go out by the door I choose.
That door," he pointed, and strode to it.
" Iollann, Ainnle, stand so with the spears.
Ardan, Deirdre, sling from this point.
Buinne, stand so, one foot beyond the swing
of the door."
" .V'l e may meet again, N aoise, " said
Buinne.
" If we meet in the press, Buinne, I may
perhaps spare you for the sake of my brother
Iollann. Ready, Buinne 1 When the door
is opened I shall count three. Be gone ere
the last count or I shall smash you to a pulp."
Naoise gave one mighty heave, and
counted. Then Buinne was gone and the
door had closed again.

" I claim this sortie," said Iollann, as the
ram recommenced on the door.
" It is my turn," said Ainnle, "but we
will go together, friend."
" I wish to go alone, and bring honour
back to the name of Fergus. I am a better
fighter than you think," he insisted.
" You are a good fighter, in truth," said
N aoise, "but a solitary venture is now
dangerous. They are more accustomed to
261

DEIRDRE

BK.II

the light and to our methods, for there is
nothing to vary in them. We must emerge
by a door, and they are watching every door
like hawks. But before you go, Iollann,
there is one work we must do for safety's
sake. Listen carefully, my dear ones."

262

CHAPTER XVI

" THIS is endless," Conachúr gritted. "Has
that Buinne come out yet? "
" The men will shout when he appears."
" Bring him here and we will get their
dispositions from him."
" There is nothing to get, majesty. Their
plan is the simplest. They have six
doors: they choose one to come out by
and one to get in by. That is the whole
plan. "
"Post men in such a way that when
one does come out he will not be able to
get in again through that door or any door.
Send for reinforcements and put fifty men
against each door. . . . Those ramsmen have
women's shoulders, " he growled. ,;,; They
would beat a mud wall down in a month."
" It must give shortly," said the captain,
26 3

DEIRDRE

BK.II

"but there will be no entrance when the
door is down."
" No? " said Conachúr.
"They will have the inside barricaded,
and our men will not dare that narrow,
black, impeded passage. We could leave an
hundred dead in that doorway and be no
farther. "

"There is Buinne, " the captain con-
tinued, as a shout came from the side.
" Buinne," said Conachúr, "you will
fight for me ? "
"My lordship, Conachúr?" said the
gruff young man.
" It shall be as I said, and more," said the
king. (It was given as promised, and was
known for long as Dal Buinne, but it is now
called Slieve Fuad.)
Buinne told what he could of the defence,
but, as the captain had foreseen, there was
nothing to tell.
"This door," said Conachúr, "will be
down shortly. Have they barricaded it on
the inside? "
" They have not," said Buinne.
The captain became active and violent.
26 4

CR. XVI

DEIRDRE

" Ah 1" he cried, " there is always some-
thing forgotten. Get at the ram, you
there," he roared. "Put your shoulders
into it."
He turned to the king.
" We have them 1" he said.
Conachúr, with his eyes gleaming and a
savage smile curling his lips, strode towards
the rammers, but as he moved, the door
swung open and four men leaped from its
yawning blackness. In a second two of
the ramsmen were dead, and the rest were
flying wildly, bustling the very king in their
passage.
" By my hand 1" the captain gurgled.
Two of the assaulters lifted the ram and
trotted with it through the door. The other
two made an onslaught of such ferocity that
the soldiers were appalled. Then one fled
back through the door, which instantly
slammed, and the other sped like lightning
around the building.
" After him 1 " roared Conach úr.
But the captain remained where he was,
howling and dancing with rage.
" I've lost my ram," he bawled. "I've
lost my ram."

2 6 5

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

" We have you, lollann 1" said Conachúr.
" Traitor to your king 1" he growled.
"Traitor to your friends," Iollann re-
torted.
" Deliver yourself to me," said Conachúr,
" and you shall be spared."
" I came out for a purpose," said Iollann.
" I demand single com bat."
"There are no gentlemen here," Cona-
chúr replied, " except your brother, so your
claim cannot be granted."
" I shall cuff him," said Buinne, "but I
will not fight him," and he strode a way.
" I shall take this combat," said a voice.
Conachúr turned and saw his own son,
Fiachra, standing there, and his heart
sank.
" You have no arms," he said harshly.
" Y au will lend me yours," said Fiachra.
Conachúr stared on the fierce circle that
surrounded him. He stared at Iollann,
who stood with his back to the Red Branch
swinging his blade, and he knew that the
com bat must take place.
" lollann and I were born on the same
night," said Fiachra. "It is an equal
com bat."

266

CH. XVI

DEIRDRE

Conachúr took off his own battle-coats and
gave them to Fiachra. He gave him his
shield, the enchanted Aicean, and his green
sword.
cc Fight, then," he said, "and remember
my teaching. Remember my shield work
and my thrust."
They fought then, but at the first stroke
from Iollann the great shield roared; for
that virtue was in the Bright-Rim, to roar
when the man it covered was struck at, and
in answer to its roar the Three Waves of
Ireland, the Wave of Tua, the Wave of
CHona, and the Wave of Rury, roared in
reply, and thereby all Ireland knew that a
king was in danger.

A way in the palace Conall Cearnach sat
drinking, listening to some great brawl, as
he thought. He heard the roaring of
Aicean, and leaped to his feet.
" The king is in danger 1" he said.
He seized his weapons and fled from the
palace of Macha, and came on the great
combat.
In the dim light he thought it was Cona-
chúr himself was behind the shield, and from
26 7

DEIRDRE

BK.II

the daring and mighty onslaught of the
opponen t he saw there was no time to lose.
He burst his blue-green spear through the
press and through the back of Iollann.
Iollann staggered to the wall of the Red
Branch.
"Who has struck me from behind?"
he said.
" I, Conall Cearnach."
" Great and horrible is the deed you have
done, Conall."
" Who are you?" Conall demanded.
"I am Iollann the Fair, sent by my
father to protect the sons of Uisneac."
" By my hand," said Conall fiercely, " I
shall undo some of what I have done," and
with one side twist of the sword he lifted
the head from Fiachra.
"Help me to that door, Conall," said
Iollann. "The sons of Uisneac are
within. "
The appalled soldiery shrank back, and
on Conall' s arm they came to the door.
There Iollann gave his shout. A feeble
one it was, but it was heard and the door
opened. Iollann staggered in.
"Fight bravely, Naoise 1" he said, and
268

CR. XVI

DEIRDRE

with that he sank on the floor, and he was
dead.

Outside the Red Branch Conachúr ran
hither and thither like a man enraged by
madness.

. 26 9

CHAPTER XVI!

" W h " " d N " " D
E are yet tree, sat aOlse. ra w
the bolts, Ainnle, for one sortie of friend-
ship. We have no doorman, for Deirdre
could not close or open the door by herself.
You and I, Ainnle. Be quiet, Ardan 1
Come, my brother, and put all your arm
in to the blade. We will come in by the
door we go out of. This door 1 Be ready
for our shout, Ardan 1 "
They went out and returned with red
weapons, and for a long time they sat in
the dim flare of a torch watching by their
dead comrade.
" He was a brave boy," said Deirdre.
" He did not obey my order," her husband
sighed. "I do not know what he did."
" I smell-smoke," said Ainnle suddenly.
"I have smelled something for a long
27 0

CH. XVII

DEIRDRE

time," said Deirdre, " but I could not think
what it was. I am weary because of the
death of this good friend."
But little by little the vast building
became full of smoke, and in awhile a fierce
roar and crackling was heard also.
Naoise was again the hardy leader.
" They have fired the fortress 1 We do
not know what happened while Iollann was
away, but Conachúr has reached the end of
the world. Who could have foretold that
he would fire the Red Branch 1 We must
prepare for all that can happen."
" We are not dead yet," said Ardan.
" What do you counsel, brother?" said
Ainnle.
"Sit down, there is less smoke on the
floor. "
A ruddy glare could be seen by each
window.
" Fire is laid all round the building. We
must make our plans quickly."
Ainnle turned gleefully to his younger
brother.
" You shall run after all, my poor friend."
"In good truth," Ardan grinned, "I
thought in Scotland that I should never
27 1

DEIRDRF

BK.II

wan t to run again, but I feel now that we
have been staying too long in the one place.
After all," he said complacently, U I am a
man of action."
"And, of course," Ainnle gibed, "no
one can run as quickly as you can."
U N "' d A d " D . d "
o one, sa1 r an, except e1r reo

" Listen," said Naoise. " We have still
more than a chance. We can run. Scot-
land trained us in that certainly, and if we
can surprise but forty yards on the men
without, we shall outrun their best in twenty
minutes. "
" Where shall we run to? "
" We shall take the road to our own lord-
ship. If Lavarcham's message has been
sent, our kinsmen should be marching at
this moment on Emain. But," he said,
and pointed, " we cannot wait for them."
They looked in silence.
A huge golden flame licked screaming
through the window, wavered hither and
thither like some blindly savage tongue, and
roared out again.
"It was ten feet long and three feet
thick," said Ardan in a whisper.
27 2

CH.XVII

DEIRDRE

" In ten minutes we shall go," said Naoise.
" What arms ? "
" Shield and spear, brother. Strip off all
armour. We must run lightly.
"I shall be out first," he continued.
"Give me twenty seconds before you
follow, Ainnle, I can make room in twenty
seconds. You will run ten paces to the
left of the door. Deirdre and Ardan will
run immediately into our interval; turn all
to the right, and at my shout, run. Single
file; Ainnle at the end. If I shout ' halt,'
you two turn about and protect the rear.
When I shout 'run,' drop every combat
and fly. You, Deirdre, take Iollann's shield."
" And his spear," said Deirdre.
" Keep actually at my back, beloved, and
each time we halt drop flat on the ground."
He was shouting his instructions now, for
the voice of the fire was like the steady rage
and roar of the sea, and through every
window monstrous sheets of flame were
leaping and crashing.
" This door," said Naoise. "A kiss for
every one," he called. " We shall win yet.
Pull, Ainnle ! "
" The door is red-hot," said Ainnle.
273 T

DEIRDRE

ElL II

"Back for a mantle; two. Now grip.
PuII! Give me twenty seconds, Ainnle."
He leaped across fire and disappeared.
The others leaped after him, with a wild
yell from Ardan.
Conachúr had sent a flying messenger to
the palace.
" Bring Cathfa back with you," he ordered.
" Tell him I want him. Say that the king
beseeches him to come."
The captain of his troop stood by.
"Alas for the Red Branch!" he said
mournfully.
" All that can be destroyed can be rebuilt,"
said Conachúr. "I shall rebuild the Red
Branch. "
He was in terrible distress and agitation.
" The morn is nigh," he said.
And he strode unhappily to and fro, with
his eyes on the ground and his mind warring.
Far to the east a livid gleam appeared.
The darkness of a summer night, which is
yet a twilight, was shorn of its soft beauty,
and in the air there moved imperceptibly
and voluminously a spectral apparition of
dawn. A harsh, grey, iron-bound upper-
274

CH.XVII

DEIRDRE

world brooded on a chill and wrinkled earth.
The king's eyes and the eyes of his captain
scanned each other from colourless, bleak
faces. There was no hue in their garments;
their shields were dull as death; and their
hands, each clutching a weapon, seemed like
the knotted claws of goblins.
A slow, sad exhalation came from the
king's grey lips, like the plaint of some
grim merman of the sea, rising away and
alone amid the chop and shudder of his
dismal waters.

"The fire is catching," the captain mur-
mured. " Hark to that crackling 1 "
"Weshall have light," the king murmured.
" The Red Branch will flame."
" Within. . . 1 " said the captain moodily,
and he looked with stern mournfulness on
the vast pile.
" They must soon come out," he muttered.
" y t d
"
our men are pos e .
" Every door is held. When they pop
out this time "
" They will have no place to pop into,"
said Conachúr. "I have them," he growled;
and he threw his hand in the air and gripped
275

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

it, as though in that blanched fist he held
all that could never escape from him.
" They will fight," said the captain, " and
they are woeful fighters."
" You are nervous, man," said Conachúr.
" At this hour and after this night," sai d
the captain, " our men could fly from those
three like scared rabbits."
" I fear that," said Conachúr.
" They may get away," said the captain.
Conachúr advanced on him so savagely
and with such a writhe of feature that the
man fell back.
" Dog 1" said Conachúr. "If they
escape I shall take your head."
"They are surrounded," the captain
t d " th "
s ammere; ey cannot escape.
"They can escape," Conachúr roared.
" You know they can escape. Your men
are cowards and idiots, and what are you?
Oh, am I not a thwarted man 1 Am I
not a forsaken king 1 Where is Cathfa?
Where is the druid? " he cried.
" Majesty," the captain implored, "do
not curse us. The great magician is coming."

The magician indeed had come.
276

CH.XVII

DEIRDR

U What has set you raging, Conachúr?"
he asked.
" Father," said Conachúr, "if you do
not assist me I am lost."
The old, old man looked at him.
"Tell me your tale, son. \\,Thom have
you locked up in fire? "
"The sons of Uisneac are there," said
Conachúr. "They will escape me," he
said.
"They are my grandchildren, " said
Cathfa.
"It is the woman with them,-it is
Deirdre I want. She was mine. She was
stolen from me. I am not myself without
her. I am a dead man while she is with
N aoise. JJ
"What do you fear from boys roared
round by flame? "
"They may escape with her. When
they come out my men may run from
them. If they escape this time, father, I
am dead."
" If I help you, Conachúr ? "
" I shall do anything you ask. Nothing
you can demand will be too much for
Conachúr."

277

DEIRDRE

BK.II

" It is the woman you want? "
" The woman only."
" It is not the blood of these boys you
lust for? "
" The woman, father, only the woman."
"I shall help you, Conachúr. Do not
lay one finger on my daughter's sons, the
sons of your young sister."

"They are out," the captain said, as a
great roar came from the soldiers.
Conachúr moved to that direction.
"Quick, quick," he said, twitching his
father's mantle in his impatience. "They
will escape me."
"They shall not escape me," Cathfa
answered. "There is no need for haste."

They were out, indeed, and,' like two
grim lions or woeful griffins of the air,
N aoise and Ainnle were raging in that press.
Into their interval leaped Ardan, with but
one eye peeping from the shield and a
deadly hand thrusting from the rim. Back
and forth they leaped with resistless savagery.
Men flew at them and from them. Every-
where was a wild yelling of orders and the
27 8

CH. XVII

DEIRDRE

wilder screaming of stricken men. But, over
all, Naoise's voice came pealing-
" Up, Deirdre. Run 1 "
She was at his back in an instant, the
shield covering her side; her spear darted
viciously by his right elbow, and a venture-
some man dropped squealing. Five feet
behind, Ardan was leaping like a cat, all
eyes and points, and ten paces behind him
Ainnle was bounding.
" Halt," roared N aoise.
Deirdre was again on the ground. Ardan
ranged tigerishly to right and left, while
Ainnle whirled on the pursuers in ten-foot
bounds.

Conachúr had arrived with Cathfa. Men
were falling before them at the rate of three
a second. So dreadful was Naoise's on-
slaught in the front that none would face
him. Men tumbled over each other when
he charged.
" The men will run away in a second,"
said the captain.
"Get into the mêlée, coward," roared
Conachúr. . " Cathfa 1" he im-
plored.

279

DEIRDRE

BK.II

The officer whizzed out his blade and
leaped forward. In three seconds he was
dead, and five who followed him were
roning in their agony along the ground.
Naoise's voice came in a wild shout.
" Up, Deirdre. Run!"
The four were again in line. The men
in front melted to either side of that dreadful
file.
" Run!" said Naoise. " We are out 1 "

In front of him there was but Conachúr
and Cathfa. Conachúr drew his great
sword and stood crouching; and at him,
with a dreadful smile, Naoise came on.
Cathfa moved two paces to the front and
stared fixedly at Naoise. He extended his
two arms widely

N aoise dropped on one knee, rose again,
leaped high in the air and dropped again
on his knee. Deirdre fell to the ground
and rose up gasping. Ardan rolled over on
his back, tossed his shield away, and came
slowly up again, beating the air with his
hands. Ainnle went half way down, rose
again, and continued his advance on tiptoe.
280

ClI.XVII

DEIRDRE

A look of dismay and rage came on
Naoise's face. He moved with extra-
ordinary slowness to Deirdre and lifted her
to his shoulder.
" We are lost," he said. " That
. ' "
magicIan
"Keep on swimming," Ardan giggled.
"There was never water here before, but
the whole sea has risen around our legs,
and we may paddle to Uisneac."
The arms dropped from their hands, and,
in fact, they s warn. ..
Not for a minute or two did the soldiers
dare advance, and then they did so cautiously.
They picked up the fallen weapons, and then
only did they lay hands on the raging
champions.
Cathfa dropped his arms to his sides.

" We are taken," said Naoise. "Our
run is ended."

281

CHAPTER XVIII

CATHFA had gone away, and Conachúr strode
to his prisoners.
" s I N . " h . d
o . aotse, e sat .
u S I I " . d N .
o. un c e, sal aOlse.
" I win in the end. I always win at last,"
said Conachúr.
He looked at each with his stern smile,
and when he spoke again it was to
Deirdre.
U Little fawn 1 yOU have run wild for a
long time. You shall rest at last."
But she made only the reply that a fawn
makes, the reply of parted lips and terror-
stricken eyes.
" You shall come to me," he said.
Then she moistened her trembling lips
and looked at Naoise.
"Do not look at him," said Conachúr.
282

ClI.XVIII

DEIRDRE

"He is already a dead man; let him be
forgotten. All tricks and troubles are
ended for you, sweet bird; you shall have
"
peace.
" Will you have peace to-morrow, Cona-
chúr?" said Naoise. "Fergus is marching
"
on you.
"Be at ease, nephew," and the king
smiled grimly. "I shall take care of
Fergus when he comes. For long I have
wanted to take care of Fergus. But, first,
I shall take care of you, N aoise, and of your
traitor brothers. Your hour is on you," he
said, " and you die now."
" Churl and rogue 1 " said Ainnle.
But a gesture from his brother stopped
him.
"Let this king do his business," he
said.
" That must be done," said Conachúr.
He turned briskly and moved away.

N ow the day was at hand, and these four
looked on a world that was spectral and mis-
shapen, but which was yet the world. On
high the clouds could be seen, a grey im-
mensity, stony as the face of Conachúr, and
28 3

DEIRDRE

BK.II

a chill wind moaned thinly about them.
But far away the grey misery of morn had
lightened, and a silver gleam, slender as a
,rod, crept up the east.
To that gleam their eyes turned, and
from it to each other's faces.
At the guards who ringed them in they
did not look, or they looked unseeingly.
But those gaunt apparitions stared like
statues on the four and did not move a lip.
U The sun will rise in a little," said
Ardan. . . . "That magician has gone,"
he whispered. U If we leaped at the
guards 1 "
U No good, brother, they are too many
and we have no arms."
U We should have one merry minute,"
said Ardan.
U We have had a merry night," said
Ainnle, " be contented, babe."

Naoise looked lovingly on his brothers.
" We were always together," he said.
" We shall always be together."
"And I... I" said Deirdre, "am I to
be left out at last? "
"Sweet girl," said Naoise, "he will kill
28 4

CH.XVIII

DEIRDltE

us, but you will be spared. You shall
see that sun come up. You shall look at it
for us."
" Dear husband," she said, " do you still
love me ? Do you truly love me ? "
His eyes gave her answer.

" Here comes Conachúr," said AinnIe.
"And a large person with him," said
Ardan.
It was Mainè Rough-Hand, son of the
King of the Fair Norwegians, they say; but
others think it was Eogan, son of Durthacht,
the prince of Ferney.
" You shaH die at the hand of a gentleman
as befits your rank," said Conachúr.
" I shall be the first," said Ardan briskly.
"I am first in every great deed," he ex-
plained to Conachúr.
" Hark to him 1" Ainnle laughed.
"Respect your elders, young person, and
the heads of your family."
But Ardan appealed to Mainè.
"Let me be first, sweet sir," he pleaded.
He turned confidingly to Conachúr. "I
cannot bear to see my brothers killed," he
said. . . .

2 8 5

DEIRDRE

BK.I1

Deirdre knelt by the bodies, and she
sang their keen, beginning:

" I send a blessing eastward to Scotland."

When she had finished the poem she
bowed over her husband's body: she sipped
of his blood, and she died there upon his
body.

SO FAR, THE FATE OF THE SONS OF UISNEAC,
,
AND THE OPENING OF THE GREAT TAIN

Prmtetl in Great Britain by R, & R. CLAnK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.

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