In the days when cells and churches sprang up like mushrooms throughout Hibernia, Saint Kevin had chosen as the site of one of his monasteries that point on the eastern shore of Leinster, where the coast is rendered dangerous by sand-banks.
The little band of monks who dwelt there added to their life of toil a special watch upon the sea; they made the rescue of fugitive Britons their peculiar care; feeling it a sacred duty to protect members of the Faith, who had been driven from their homes by the fire and sword of the heathen. Moreover, S. Kevin, as a child, had been under the guidance of Petroc, a Briton, and for this reason Britons were particularly dear to his followers.
Some days after the battle in Damnonia, the monks, keeping their ceaseless watch upon the sea, saw a raft among the wreckage that the waves were bringing to the shore. At the peril of their lives they dashed into the water and dragged the raft safely to the beach. On it were four unconscious beings. A fine young chieftain with his body sadly pierced and wounded—like a marble Antinous from loss of blood; bearing marks of royal birth in his person and in his princely garments. With his head upon the young prince’s feet was a great war-hound, hoary with age, his hair matted with brine and blood. A big fair girl lay with one arm round the hound’s neck and the other clasped to her heart a man’s sword and torques—of so rich and rare a pattern that only a great king could have possessed them. A little removed from these three beings was a small dark woman from whom the simple monks recoiled at first, saying she had the air of a sorceress; she was clothed royally, like the boy, and was fair, too, as women are accounted fair in Hibernia—having long fine hair of ebony blackness.
It needed much care and skill to bring the three human beings from the death-like trance to which exhaustion and exposure had brought them. But the monks knew their work well; many a homeless Briton had found warmth and comfort at their hands; indeed, the little monastery was already so thronged by castaways that it was thought better to carry the three poor refugees to Saint Kevin’s great monastery at Glendalough—where the sculptured saint may still be seen in the ancient ruin called Priest’s house; he is the central figure in the triangular pediment of the doorway, bearing on his head the crown of the early bishops of Ireland.
Crowned with gold, he is represented to the world; yet, in the life he led in the wilderness, it must have been seldom that crown or mitre adorned his head. His monastery at Glendalough was too luxurious for him, and, for years at a time, he would withdraw himself into the heart of the woods, sheltering in a hollow tree or bee-hive hut; without fire, and existing on herbs and water. In the long trances of prayer, into which he would fall, the beasts rambled fearlessly around him, the birds perched on his arms and shoulders singing and twittering about him. At such times, he said, the leaves and branches gave forth divine music to him. It was the state of spiritual ecstasy common to the early saints; who tested to the full the efficacy of prayer from which they drew the spiritual power that shed a greater influence than a life spent in ceaseless activity.
Glendalough, or Gléand dé, signified Valley of God; it seemed a fitting name, for there the tender-hearted monks laboured every day among the Britons whom they had rescued, sharing with them their own scanty food. Only a ragged hut of wattles with heather beds could be spared to the newcomers; but the monks brought cushions of down to spread upon the heather and begged, from the neighbouring chieftains, warm cloaks and skins of sheep and bear.
The women recovered before the boy.
When, at last they were able to sit up and look about them, their eyes—that had closed on scenes of bloodshed and storm—opened on green meadows dotted with apple-trees in full bloom and bordered by gardens filled with herbs and fruit-bearing plants. On a sunny slope stretched a vineyard, and in the distance were rows of bee-hives—bees and vines, sure sign of a monastery. Gentle-faced monks were at work on the soil, their songs mingling with the cheerful tinkle of carpenters and masons at their trades, for on the land around were being raised high, domed churches and beautiful carved crosses. On the breeze came the sound of silver bells.
When the wounded youth opened his eyes and saw this scene and heard its pleasant sound, he cried out that he was in Paradise.
“Tir Tairgirie!” he cried; the delirium of weakness was upon him. “The Saxons have slain body, but spirits have carried my soul hither to its resting place!”
He raved of Tir Tairgirie—the paradise of every Celt, the constant theme of their bards. Hidden from earthly vision by a cloud, full of lovely dwellings, grass and flowers; a place of unending day and perpetual fagless summer—abounding in meat and apples—free apples—free from disease or death.
As the young warrior slept the two women watched over him.
The rain—the frequent rain of Hibernia—came up on the wind, and beat through the wattles of the cote and on the arms and bosoms of the women. But they gave no heed to wind or rain so long as their warrior was protected—stripping their own bodies to add to the coverings the monks had begged for them from the chiefs around—purple cloaks, wrought with rich broidery by Fail’s fair daughters.
“Go!” said one woman to the other. “We need thee not—he and I.” The speaker had the cold, brilliant beauty of ebony and alabaster.
“No,” replied the other; “he woke with my name on his lips.”
“Ay!” said the first. “A dream cry—a wail of nightmare horror. Thou art his evil star. And with thy sobs, thy hoggish sighs and silly tears thou dost disturb his rest! Leave him to my care. I am sick of thy blunders.”
“Then will I wait on thee,” said the fair girl, bluntly. “Ay, though I hate thee, Ethne of the Raven Hair. I will put all within reach of thy hand that thou need’st. I will go and come at thy beck and call—for thou hast rare skill in sickness, that I see—and I will serve him through thee.”
Ethne watched the boy jealously. An early training among the Druids had given her great knowledge in Nature’s laws, and she knew that the loss of blood which was the warrior’s chief danger could be cured by rest and food and air. She did not leave him night or day. Yet, as she watched him, there was neither love nor tenderness in her gaze.
On the fourth day after their journey to Glendalough he opened his eyes and looked at her. She saw the fever had left him.
“There, there,” she said, softly. “Sleep on now, and take your rest—wounds need time to heal, and time now we have in plenty.”
The boy would have raised his head, but at the attempt pain closed, like a vice, on his temples; a white arm, laden with bracelets, held him back on his pillow of heather.
His eyes dwelt on the white arm; he recognised the royal saffron-scent of the drapery that fell over it. With a feeble movement he turned so that his cheek might rest against it.
“Where is she—the Saxon—Elgiva?” he asked after a time.
“She prays,” was the answer; the boy knew, without looking, that there was a smile of scorn in the dark eyes and on the sneering lips above him.
Through the openings of the wattled cote in which he lay he had seen that the day was dark and gloomy; the sky so purple with coming storm that the sprays of hawthorn aloft had a faint, pinkish tinge upon them. The day was as dark and tempestuous as his own sad soul.
“She prays,” continued the scornful voice, “and has she not need to pray—to offer up thanksgiving? The Saxons smote us on one cheek, then we offered the other—full and grievously have we been smitten on both. Therefore she may well be pleased at our performance of the Christians’ Duty!”
The woman paused, and when she spoke again there was rage as well as scorn in her tones.
“Never forget, boy, the fruit thy father’s Christian zeal has borne! In the shaping of thy future life, remember always, Cormac of Fail, that this mushroom faith has cost us our British possessions!”