CHAPTER III

It happened that the men of Lochlann came on an expedition against Ireland. A monstrous fleet rounded the bluffs of Ben Edair, and the Danes landed there, to prepare an attack which would render them masters of the country. Fionn and the Fianna-Finn marched against them. He did not like the men of Lochlann at any time, but this time he moved against them in wrath, for not only were they attacking Ireland, but they had come between him and the deepest joy his life had known.

It was a hard fight, but a short one. The Lochlannachs were driven back to their ships, and within a week the only Danes remaining in Ireland were those that had been buried there.

That finished, he left the victorious Fianna and returned swiftly to the plain of Allen, for he could not bear to be one unnecessary day parted from Saeve.

“You are not leaving us!” exclaimed Goll mac Morna.

“I must go,” Fionn replied.

“You will not desert the victory feast,” Conan reproached him.

“Stay with us, Chief,” Caelte begged.

“What is a feast without Fionn?” they complained.

But he would not stay.

“By my hand,” he cried, “I must go. She will be looking for me from the window.”

“That will happen indeed,” Goll admitted.

“That will happen,” cried Fionn. “And when she sees me far out on the plain, she will run through the great gate to meet me.”

“It would be the queer wife would neglect that run,” Cona’n growled.

“I shall hold her hand again,” Fionn entrusted to Caelte’s ear.

“You will do that, surely.”

“I shall look into her face,” his lord insisted. But he saw that not even beloved Caelte understood the meaning of that, and he knew sadly and yet proudly that what he meant could not be explained by any one and could not be comprehended by any one.

“You are in love, dear heart,” said Caelte.

“In love he is,” Cona’n grumbled. “A cordial for women, a disease for men, a state of wretchedness.”

“Wretched in truth,” the Chief murmured. “Love makes us poor We have not eyes enough to see all that is to be seen, nor hands enough to seize the tenth of all we want. When I look in her eyes I am tormented because I am not looking at her lips, and when I see her lips my soul cries out, ‘Look at her eyes, look at her eyes.’”

“That is how it happens,” said Goll rememberingly.

“That way and no other,” Caelte agreed.

And the champions looked backwards in time on these lips and those, and knew their Chief would go.

When Fionn came in sight of the great keep his blood and his feet quickened, and now and again he waved a spear in the air.

“She does not see me yet,” he thought mournfully.

“She cannot see me yet,” he amended, reproaching himself.

But his mind was troubled, for he thought also, or he felt without thinking, that had the positions been changed he would have seen her at twice the distance.

“She thinks I have been unable to get away from the battle, or that I was forced to remain for the feast.”

And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been changed he would have known that nothing could retain the one that was absent.

“Women,” he said, “are shamefaced, they do not like to appear eager when others are observing them.”

But he knew that he would not have known if others were observing him, and that he would not have cared about it if he had known. And he knew that his Saeve would not have seen, and would not have cared for any eyes than his.

He gripped his spear on that reflection, and ran as he had not run in his life, so that it was a panting, dishevelled man that raced heavily through the gates of the great Dun.

Within the Dun there was disorder. Servants were shouting to one another, and women were running to and fro aimlessly, wringing their hands and screaming; and, when they saw the Champion, those nearest to him ran away, and there was a general effort on the part of every person to get behind every other person. But Fionn caught the eye of his butler, Gariv Crona’n, the Rough Buzzer, and held it.

“Come you here,” he said.

And the Rough Buzzer came to him without a single buzz in his body.

“Where is the Flower of Allen?” his master demanded.

“I do not know, master,” the terrified servant replied.

“You do not know!” said Fionn. “Tell what you do know.”

And the man told him this story.

CHAPTER IV

“When you had been away for a day the guards were surprised. They were looking from the heights of the Dun, and the Flower of Allen was with them. She, for she had a quest’s eye, called out that the master of the Fianna was coming over the ridges to the Dun, and she ran from the keep to meet you.”

“It was not I,” said Fionn.

“It bore your shape,” replied Gariv Cronan. “It had your armour and your face, and the dogs, Bran and Sceo’lan, were with it.”

“They were with me,” said Fionn.

“They seemed to be with it,” said the servant humbly

“Tell us this tale,” cried Fionn.

“We were distrustful,” the servant continued. “We had never known Fionn to return from a combat before it had been fought, and we knew you could not have reached Ben Edar or encountered the Lochlannachs. So we urged our lady to let us go out to meet you, but to remain herself in the Dun.”

“It was good urging,” Fionn assented.

“She would not be advised,” the servant wailed. “She cried to us, ‘Let me go to meet my love’.”

“Alas!” said Fionn.

“She cried on us, ‘Let me go to meet my husband, the father of the child that is not born.’”

“Alas!” groaned deep-wounded Fionn. “She ran towards your appearance that had your arms stretched out to her.”

At that wise Fionn put his hand before his eyes, seeing all that happened.

“Tell on your tale,” said he.

“She ran to those arms, and when she reached them the figure lifted its hand. It touched her with a hazel rod, and, while we looked, she disappeared, and where she had been there was a fawn standing and shivering. The fawn turned and bounded towards the gate of the Dun, but the hounds that were by flew after her.”

Fionn stared on him like a lost man.

“They took her by the throat—” the shivering servant whispered.

“Ah!” cried Fionn in a terrible voice.

“And they dragged her back to the figure that seemed to be Fionn. Three times she broke away and came bounding to us, and three times the dogs took her by the throat and dragged her back.”

“You stood to look!” the Chief snarled.

“No, master, we ran, but she vanished as we got to her; the great hounds vanished away, and that being that seemed to be Fionn disappeared with them. We were left in the rough grass, staring about us and at each other, and listening to the moan of the wind and the terror of our hearts.”

“Forgive us, dear master,” the servant cried. But the great captain made him no answer. He stood as though he were dumb and blind, and now and again he beat terribly on his breast with his closed fist, as though he would kill that within him which should be dead and could not die. He went so, beating on his breast, to his inner room in the Dun, and he was not seen again for the rest of that day, nor until the sun rose over Moy Life’ in the morning.