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 recognized 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.