DOMHNAILL.
So there we leave Thorstein to bite his hands and weep for that slip
between cup and lip, the bitterest he had known. Gartnaidh came into the
cot, and what should he see but Raineach, giggling and wide-eyed over a
silken scarf that a gay spark, he knew him well, was tying round her bare
shoulders: and the house-mistress smiling and becking and bowing like
a fool. Aluinn was not there: but they seemed merry, and the wild lass
looked quite bonny in the firelight.
“What, goodfellow giant!” said Domhnaill, with somewhat shame-faced
bravery, as Gartnaidh scowled in at them; “here we are all as merry as
hares by moonlight; and upon my honour, I make my best bow to the father
of such a bright little thing.”
“See what he has given me,” said Raineach with childish pride.
“She’ll be back before long,” said the mother. “I warrant, now I know of
it, Aluinn just slipped away to look for somebody. But take something,
sir. It’s little we fell-folk have to offer the likes of you: though
fair’s the day that brought you: and it’s a poor place for a king’s son,
though the last drop of Roman blood runs in the veins of our Aluinn.”
“It’s the sweetest spot in the world, mother,” said Domhnaill: “and no
finer greeting can I give you when we take our Aluinn to court, and all
the lords of the land have to bow down before her.”
Then Aluinn burst in, breathless and haggard and panting. She flew at her
lover and held him tight, taking no heed of them all.
“What now?” cried they, and the young man unwound her arms from his neck,
and held her off a little.
They learnt bit by bit that she had strayed out to look for him, and away
on the road toward the wath. She had hidden while a troop of men rode
past,—Northmen they would be, going to their meeting place. She had heard
them splash over the ford, and then it was dark and she turned homewards.
But suddenly she saw a light, as if some wayfarer were camping in the
wood by the lake-side. It brightened and spread, until she thought the
forest was on fire. But no sound of crackling branches or hissing flame
could she hear. The blaze grew broader: sparks flew on high, and all
round it seemed one great flickering. Then she was terrified and fled by
the well-known wood-paths, daring no more to look behind her.
The men went out to a little spying-place on the uttermost brink of the
nab, but fire there was none. The glow of the Northmen’s Thing-stead was
hidden behind Great Howe, and the Welsh city was away beyond the crags.
“Why, pretty one,” said Domhnaill, coming in, “what fancies are these?
The heather’s afire I know, for all the country is up: but that is the
only blaze, and black night it is between here and Helvellyn.”
“But I saw it,” said the lass shuddering.
“It was only a glint of moonshine: come, little silly, let us be merry
again.”
“Nay,” said her mother thoughtfully, and stood up, tall and strange. “She
saw it. I have seen it. Twice before I have seen it, and well I know the
sight. Once for death: and again for death: and the third time.”
“Come, good mother,” said Domhnaill, “never seek to scare us. King’s
sons and queens that are to be, give no heed to old wives’ soothsayings.
Aluinn, smile now, and drink. It will do thee good, and me too.”
“Peace, young man,” said the mother. “Are not all thy men now bound for
battle, and unappeasable war with the great king? Which of them all,
think’st thou, which of them that drink to-night and shout drunkenly
round their fires, will come unscathed out of the fire of the fight,
to march hitherward again in triumph to the homes of their fathers and
their children? Nay, I tell you, not a man of them all. And which of them
will lie in agony on the desolate heath far away in Saxon-land, till the
ravens pluck out their eyes, and the wolves tear their hearts out of the
riven harness? Aye, by that token, many and many a one. I see them there,
the proudest, the mightiest, the bravest: I see them in their blood: and
I see the handful that flee over heath and hill, in their shame and their
sorrow, terror-stricken before the sword of England and trembling beneath
the spear of the stranger, fleeing to their lairs in the mountains and to
all the wild-wood fastnesses: and I hear the wail of the mourner, and the
scream of the captive, and the curse of the mother that bore the coward
and the coward’s son.”
“Ah, my life, go not out to this battle,” cried Aluinn, clinging to him.
“Stay by us in peace: and if evil must come, let it roll over thy head,
lying hidden here in safety.”
“What!” said Domhnaill, “shirk the play for a girl’s vision and a woman’s
fears?”
“King,” said Gartnaidh, “for thou, lord, may’st be king before this moon
has waned,—these are no idle counsels. A brave heart is the praise of
youth, but a seeing eye is the glory of a king. Hear me. Gartnaidh mac
Tairneach is no coward, but he is old: and life is good to him in the
woods: is it not good to thee in the city and in the court? And if blood
must be shed, why should the blood of father and son redden one field
together? Stay by us here, and claim from king Owain the wardenship of
these marches. It is a post of honour. And so we shall keep the seed corn
while we spend the reapings of the harvest.”
Thus they talked until morning, and it was resolved that Domhnaill,
nothing loath, for the sake of Aluinn if not to save his own skin,
should withhold himself from the battle. Gartnaidh, because he knew the
land, and was cunning as a spy, got the ear of King Owain next day; and
saying nothing of the vision, bade the king go in peace, and begged that
Domhnaill might be left with the defenders of the border, to keep them
in heart, and to be king of the land in his father’s room, to do justice
upon the upstarts and peacebreakers, who always showed their heads when
the king’s back is turned. Such advice was held to be good, and the army
went on its way to fight Athelstan at Brunanburg.