CHAPTER VI.
THE SACRED HEART OF HIBERNIA.
“To-morrow—at dawn!” said Ethne. “Be ready!”
Cormac was well and strong again; on the morrow he was setting forth to see the wild plains of Hibernia—and Ethne would be at his side.
He was once more her slave. At first he had said that he would part from her, would never look on her face again, if she belonged to that foul and horrible faith.
But it was in vain he strove against a boyish passion for a woman more than half-a-score of years his senior—the very fury of her outbursts fascinated him. So it came to pass that the old relations were established between them, and little reference made to the cause of their division.
Though he rose early on the following day, Ethne was before him; seated on a beautiful white horse and holding by the rein a magnificent black stallion.
The creature was a pure bred Hibernian race-horse. His trappings were mounted with gold; a magnificent purple cloak lay across the saddle, ready for Cormac’s use; it was lightly flecked with gold—Cormac saw at once it was one of the speckled cloaks so much in vogue amongst the Druids.
“I told you you should find a horse awaiting you,” said Ethne, “and that it would be of the true colour.”
“But you did not tell me it would be of the purest breed the world can show!” exclaimed Cormac, as he leapt to the saddle. The horse rose on its hind quarters and pranced; the colour mounted with joy to the boy’s face.
A stout hide shield was slung on Cormac’s arm, a short, Irish sword thrust in his belt; room was found on his horse trappings for a tough yew bow, a sheaf of arrows bristled at his side—some with poison lurking in their points, others tipped with stone and of a rude make like the arrows of ancient cave-dwelling people. A pike supplemented his short sword, and some half-javelins found their place at his saddle.
He turned to Ethne, and poured out warm thanks for the horse.
“The gift is not from me,” said Ethne, her long hair streaming in the wind as she rode beside him. “Nor do I know if the givers’ names will please you, my Christian brother.”
“Tell me!” said Cormac.
“Need you ask?” returned Ethne. “Where can you find such fire, such strength, and lightness, but in the horses of the Druids? The steed is a gift to you from my brother-Druids.”
Cormac made no reply.
“It is a love gift, too, Cormac—for their hearts are true to the children of Tuathal! Though they can no longer feast at Tara, they can pour out such poor treasures as they have at the feet of their future lord. They are not rich, boy—and they could have sold that horse for its weight in gold to the Eastern merchants who are ever seeking Hibernian racers—but they chose rather to starve than forego the joy of giving him to you.”
The boy breathed hard—deeply touched.
“They shall not find me ungrateful,” he said.
“They ask little at your hands,” said Ethne. “All they say is, Come and Try. Try our mysteries, and see if they do not yield more knowledge and certainty than the Christian faith.”
Cormac shook his head.
“Well, well, we will not talk of it now,” said Ethne, lightly raising her arm as a signal to her horse to go faster.
Ethne looked her best on horseback. She was as lithe and active as a boy; and could rival a man in all the feats common amongst the riders of the day. She could rise upon her feet when her horse was at full gallop—could jump from the saddle and mount again, without drawing rein; and, as she rode along, could bend lightly down and pick the wayside grass and flowers.
Cormac drew deep breaths of rapture as he rode by Ethne’s side. It was good to feel a horse under him once more, to feel the wind on his face and hear the saddle creak beneath him. It was pleasant, too, to ride beside Ethne whom he loved; to laugh and talk; to be sure his wounds and weakness were a thing of the past; to cherish wild hopes of future war and victory—that seemed near and possible on this bright summer morning. He was a man now, he told himself; he had left boyhood behind him; a man and a leader of men—with a woman at his side. They travelled quickly; the horses, of their own accord, broke into a gallop and carried them forward, mile after mile, in swift, easy motion.
After Cormac’s weeks of confinement, the long ride was bliss to him. The motion of his horse was like the flight of a bird, he thought—such a long, winged, untiring stroke, bearing him on through the scented summer air. He had no eyes for the country near at hand; his gaze was fixed on a gap in the hills before him where smooth and soft, stretched the waving grass of Hibernia. In the songs which Ethne sang to him there was so much about the wild grass of the great plains. How it waved up the slopes of the hills around, and clothed them to their summits. How it sprang, everywhere, even roofs of the little wattled cotes of the hamlets; how the bards would lie and sing their melodies into it, and all the tiny blades would carry the music from one to another—thus spreading their songs over all Hibernia. There were a thousand pretty fancies of a like kind in the old tales and songs. Cormac noticed how much greener and richer it was than the grass of Britain; unspoilt by frost, bright and fresh from constant showers.
In the deep, rich pasture hundreds of horses lived lives of joy—untouched by the hand of man. In their freedom a thousand times more beautiful and graceful than their brothers who knew bit and saddle. And here, in Hibernia, thought the boy to himself, he would find warriors as fresh and free as the creatures of the wilds. It was his constant wail that Rome had caused the ruin of Britain—here he felt the truth of his words. In the life struggle against Jute and Angle and Saxon only fierce, wild races could survive. Civilisation meant indeed destruction.
“Rome!” he said to himself. “Rome is no more!”
Ay, she had been gone for long—fallen prey to Goth and Hun, but for the first time in his life Cormac realised it; and in doing so a momentary weakness seized him for Roman civilisation had played its part in his life; it had drawn his grandfather from his fellows, the Picts and Scots, and made him Bret!
But here, thought Cormac, in Hibernia he would find the ancient spirit, unknown in poor, lost Britain. Back, then, once more to Pict and Scot! He leapt to his feet, on his horse’s back, as they rode along; and, brandishing his sword around his head, uttered the wild scream of a war-cry.
Ethne joined her voice to his; and, as they galloped by wattled hamlets, by dun and cabin, all eyes were turned on the two noble riders and on their black and white horses. The news spread fast that Cormac of Fail, of the race of Finnfuathairt, had returned from Britain. Men, women and children ran everywhere to salute them. A party soon formed around them, mounted on horseback. When they halted beautiful girls ran forward, offering mead and curd to refresh them. Old men tottered from sunny grianans to look upon the face of the last of the house of Finnfuathairt. Old women called down blessings upon them and children peeped at them shyly from hiding places. Slaves crept unperceived from quern and hoe to stare upon them, open-mouthed.
Everywhere Ethne proclaimed their lineage.
“We are the children of Tuathal the Legitimate! We trace our descent through the race of Finnfuathairt! Cormac of Fail, known in Britain as the Black Horse; and Ethne of the Raven Hair—foster sister to Cormac, and likewise descended from his family, through Ethne the Terrible!”
Her cry was taken up far and wide; for Hibernians never tired of reciting pedigrees. And, here and there, one would come forward who remembered her in childhood; and how she had been sent for from Britain when her mother fostered Cormac.
Every hour the crowd around them grew larger. From marsh and forest wild men came forth, clad in skins with red naked limbs; their beards and long hair plaited, strange devices tattooing their freckled skins. Even from the weans beneath the earth, short, long-armed men, dark and swarthy, scrambled out and ran, fleet-footed, in the rear—some, among them, leaping on the great Irish hounds, rode in this manner amongst the throng.
Thus riding on in triumph, they left the hills behind, and entered the great central plain of Hibernia.
The day drew near its close; but, as the shadows fell, Cormac thought that the crowd around him grew thicker. He had pictured these wide plains desolate and uninhabited; and now it seemed to him they swarmed with people and with flocks and herds—everywhere he looked he saw lights twinkling.
Ethne had chosen for their journey the time of the Beltane Festival.
“It is a fitting time to enter the sacred heart of Hibernia,” she had said to Cormac, in speaking of the two great Druidical festivals, Beltane and Santheine. “Therefore I have chosen it; it is our time of joy—so hallowed by custom that even some of the Christians share it with us.”
There was such excitement and fascination in these ancient festivals that the wild spirits of the Hibernians were unable to resist them; when, as Christians, they wished to do so. They entered often from mere love of excitement and danger; not realising—or realising too late—that they were offering homage to the sun-god of the Druids who was no other than Baal—the Baal of the Syrians, the Phœnicians, and the ancient Hebrews—the Bosheth, or shameful thing of the Jewish writings.