One summer night, when there was peace, a score of Puritan troopers
under the pious Sir Frederick Hamilton, broke through the door of the
Abbey of the White Friars which stood over the Gara Lough at Sligo. As
the door fell with a crash they saw a little knot of friars, gathered
about the altar, their white habits glimmering in the steady light of
the holy candles. All the monks were kneeling except the abbot, who
stood upon the altar steps with a great brazen crucifix in his hand.
'Shoot them!' cried Sir Frederick Hamilton, but none stirred, for all
were new converts, and feared the crucifix and the holy candles. The
white lights from the altar threw the shadows of the troopers up on
to roof and wall. As the troopers moved about, the shadows began a
fantastic dance among the corbels and the memorial tablets. For a little
while all was silent, and then five troopers who were the body-guard of
Sir Frederick Hamilton lifted their muskets, and shot down five of the
friars. The noise and the smoke drove away the mystery of the pale altar
lights, and the other troopers took courage and began to strike. In a
moment the friars lay about the altar steps, their white habits stained
with blood. 'Set fire to the house!' cried Sir Frederick Hamilton,
and at his word one went out, and came in again carrying a heap of dry
straw, and piled it against the western wall, and, having done this,
fell back, for the fear of the crucifix and of the holy candles
was still in his heart. Seeing this, the five troopers who were Sir
Frederick Hamilton's body-guard darted forward, and taking each a holy
candle set the straw in a blaze. The red tongues of fire rushed up and
flickered from corbel to corbel and from tablet to tablet, and crept
along the floor, setting in a blaze the seats and benches. The dance of
the shadows passed away, and the dance of the fires began. The troopers
fell back towards the door in the southern wall, and watched those
yellow dancers springing hither and thither.
For a time the altar stood safe and apart in the midst of its white
light; the eyes of the troopers turned upon it. The abbot whom they
had thought dead had risen to his feet and now stood before it with the
crucifix lifted in both hands high above his head. Suddenly he cried
with a loud voice, 'Woe unto all who smite those who dwell within the
Light of the Lord, for they shall wander among the ungovernable shadows,
and follow the ungovernable fires!' And having so cried he fell on his
face dead, and the brazen crucifix rolled down the steps of the altar.
The smoke had now grown very thick, so that it drove the troopers out
into the open air. Before them were burning houses. Behind them shone
the painted windows of the Abbey filled with saints and martyrs,
awakened, as from a sacred trance, into an angry and animated life. The
eyes of the troopers were dazzled, and for a while could see nothing but
the flaming faces of saints and martyrs. Presently, however, they saw a
man covered with dust who came running towards them. 'Two messengers,'
he cried, 'have been sent by the defeated Irish to raise against you the
whole country about Manor Hamilton, and if you do not stop them you
will be overpowered in the woods before you reach home again! They ride
north-east between Ben Bulben and Cashel-na-Gael.'
Sir Frederick Hamilton called to him the five troopers who had first
fired upon the monks and said, 'Mount quickly, and ride through the
woods towards the mountain, and get before these men, and kill them.'
In a moment the troopers were gone, and before many moments they had
splashed across the river at what is now called Buckley's Ford, and
plunged into the woods. They followed a beaten track that wound along
the northern bank of the river. The boughs of the birch and quicken
trees mingled above, and hid the cloudy moonlight, leaving the pathway
in almost complete darkness. They rode at a rapid trot, now chatting
together, now watching some stray weasel or rabbit scuttling away in
the darkness. Gradually, as the gloom and silence of the woods oppressed
them, they drew closer together, and began to talk rapidly; they were
old comrades and knew each other's lives. One was married, and told
how glad his wife would be to see him return safe from this harebrained
expedition against the White Friars, and to hear how fortune had made
amends for rashness. The oldest of the five, whose wife was dead, spoke
of a flagon of wine which awaited him upon an upper shelf; while a
third, who was the youngest, had a sweetheart watching for his return,
and he rode a little way before the others, not talking at all. Suddenly
the young man stopped, and they saw that his horse was trembling. 'I saw
something,' he said, 'and yet I do not know but it may have been one of
the shadows. It looked like a great worm with a silver crown upon his
head.' One of the five put his hand up to his forehead as if about to
cross himself, but remembering that he had changed his religion he put
it down, and said: 'I am certain it was but a shadow, for there are a
great many about us, and of very strange kinds.' Then they rode on in
silence. It had been raining in the earlier part of the day, and the
drops fell from the branches, wetting their hair and their shoulders. In
a little they began to talk again. They had been in many battles against
many a rebel together, and now told each other over again the story
of their wounds, and so awakened in their hearts the strongest of all
fellowships, the fellowship of the sword, and half forgot the terrible
solitude of the woods.
Suddenly the first two horses neighed, and then stood still, and would
go no further. Before them was a glint of water, and they knew by the
rushing sound that it was a river. They dismounted, and after much
tugging and coaxing brought the horses to the river-side. In the midst
of the water stood a tall old woman with grey hair flowing over a grey
dress. She stood up to her knees in the water, and stooped from time to
time as though washing. Presently they could see that she was washing
something that half floated. The moon cast a flickering light upon it,
and they saw that it was the dead body of a man, and, while they were
looking at it, an eddy of the river turned the face towards them, and
each of the five troopers recognised at the same moment his own face.
While they stood dumb and motionless with horror, the woman began to
speak, saying slowly and loudly: 'Did you see my son? He has a crown of
silver on his head, and there are rubies in the crown.' Then the oldest
of the troopers, he who had been most often wounded, drew his sword and
cried: 'I have fought for the truth of my God, and need not fear the
shadows of Satan,' and with that rushed into the water. In a moment he
returned. The woman had vanished, and though he had thrust his sword
into air and water he had found nothing.
The five troopers remounted, and set their horses at the ford, but all
to no purpose. They tried again and again, and went plunging hither and
thither, the horses foaming and rearing. 'Let us,' said the old trooper,
'ride back a little into the wood, and strike the river higher up.' They
rode in under the boughs, the ground-ivy crackling under the hoofs,
and the branches striking against their steel caps. After about twenty
minutes' riding they came out again upon the river, and after another
ten minutes found a place where it was possible to cross without sinking
below the stirrups. The wood upon the other side was very thin, and
broke the moonlight into long streams. The wind had arisen, and had
begun to drive the clouds rapidly across the face of the moon, so that
thin streams of light seemed to be dancing a grotesque dance among the
scattered bushes and small fir-trees. The tops of the trees began also
to moan, and the sound of it was like the voice of the dead in the
wind; and the troopers remembered the belief that tells how the dead in
purgatory are spitted upon the points of the trees and upon the points
of the rocks. They turned a little to the south, in the hope that they
might strike the beaten path again, but they could find no trace of it.
Meanwhile, the moaning grew louder and louder, and the dance of the
white moon-fires more and more rapid. Gradually they began to be aware
of a sound of distant music. It was the sound of a bagpipe, and they
rode towards it with great joy. It came from the bottom of a deep,
cup-like hollow. In the midst of the hollow was an old man with a red
cap and withered face. He sat beside a fire of sticks, and had a burning
torch thrust into the earth at his feet, and played an old bagpipe
furiously. His red hair dripped over his face like the iron rust upon
a rock. 'Did you see my wife?' he cried, looking up a moment; 'she was
washing! she was washing!' 'I am afraid of him,' said the young trooper,
'I fear he is one of the Sidhe.' 'No,' said the old trooper, 'he is a
man, for I can see the sun-freckles upon his face. We will compel him
to be our guide'; and at that he drew his sword, and the others did the
same. They stood in a ring round the piper, and pointed their swords at
him, and the old trooper then told him that they must kill two rebels,
who had taken the road between Ben Bulben and the great mountain spur
that is called Cashel-na-Gael, and that he must get up before one of
them and be their guide, for they had lost their way. The piper turned,
and pointed to a neighbouring tree, and they saw an old white horse
ready bitted, bridled, and saddled. He slung the pipe across his back,
and, taking the torch in his hand, got upon the horse, and started off
before them, as hard as he could go.
The wood grew thinner and thinner, and the ground began to slope up
toward the mountain. The moon had already set, and the little white
flames of the stars had come out everywhere. The ground sloped more and
more until at last they rode far above the woods upon the wide top of
the mountain. The woods lay spread out mile after mile below, and away
to the south shot up the red glare of the burning town. But before and
above them were the little white flames. The guide drew rein suddenly,
and pointing upwards with the hand that did not hold the torch, shrieked
out, 'Look; look at the holy candles!' and then plunged forward at a
gallop, waving the torch hither and thither. 'Do you hear the hoofs of
the messengers?' cried the guide. 'Quick, quick! or they will be gone
out of your hands!' and he laughed as with delight of the chase. The
troopers thought they could hear far off, and as if below them, rattle
of hoofs; but now the ground began to slope more and more, and the speed
grew more headlong moment by moment. They tried to pull up, but in vain,
for the horses seemed to have gone mad. The guide had thrown the reins
on to the neck of the old white horse, and was waving his arms and
singing a wild Gaelic song. Suddenly they saw the thin gleam of a river,
at an immense distance below, and knew that they were upon the brink of
the abyss that is now called Lug-na-Gael, or in English the Stranger's
Leap. The six horses sprang forward, and five screams went up into the
air, a moment later five men and horses fell with a dull crash upon the
green slopes at the foot of the rocks.