DUNMAIL RAISE.
King Eadmund stood upon the brink of Thirlmere, and scanned the shore on
either side. His enemies had vanished as if by art magic. There lay the
path, running down to the ford, and up again on the farther side, and it
could be traced winding under the terrible crags whose tops were lost in
clouds, and away into huge headlands and shaggy promontories plunging
into the water, one beyond another, until they faded afar in the rain and
mist.
On this hand king Malcolm, and on that hand king Llewelyn, were instant
to go forward and follow the road: but the Lowland king, brave as he
was in fight and bold in counsel, hung back from the attempt and from
following unseen foes into unknown fastnesses.
While they talked, across the wath came two or three men, gaunt and
red-bearded and clothed in skins. They waved their hands above their
heads as if to signify that they came in peace: and the king bade bring
them before him. At their first words, “King,” said Malcolm, “these are
folk of mine, or should be: for it is our tongue they have. Let me be
interpreter.”
Then the fell-folk told the kings that Domhnaill and his men were lurking
in the woods, ready to roll rocks upon their enemies. But they could show
the Saxons how to get the better of the ambush.
Asked by what device, they said that fell-climbers could reach the top of
the brow under which Domhnaill lay; and once there, a few men could roll
rocks on him as he had meant to roll rocks upon the Saxons: and then the
main army could pursue them along the road, which was no worse than that
by which they had come.
“And a good counsel it is, king,” said Malcolm, when he had interpreted:
“and one that we use often in our mountain warfare. Give the business
into my hand, and you shall see them swarm out of the woods like ants out
of a stirred anthill.”
“But what faith can we put in the word of these savages?” asked Eadmund.
They said proudly that it was so as they had spoken, and they were in
the hand of the kings to reward or to slay. “And beside that,” said one
of them with a scowl, “we have an old grudge of our own to settle with
Domhnaill.”
So the army moved over the wath, and the main body halted on the road,
ready for the chase when the game was beaten out of cover. Malcolm
with a band of mountain men, guided by the red folk, climbed the brow
of Armboth fell: and when they were at the top, set to work heaving
rocks over the edge. There was a crashing among trees, and shouts and
shrieks; and presently men were beheld fleeing down the screes among the
woods, and the great stones whirling down after them. Such as got away,
streamed out into the road, and fled along it up and down, like worms
out of a dunghill when it is beaten to get baits. Then the trumpets
were blown that should signal to the men above to leave their work: and
forth marched the army in hot pursuit, along the path and along the low
foreshore of the lake, and then mounting over the crags where they were
high, and descending again among rocks, and cliffs, and wild wood, that
overhung the length of the lake. And at last they looked down upon the
city of Helvellyn.
Here for a while they were brought to a stand: the walls of great stones,
and the swampy flats on one side of it, threatened to hold them longer
than they liked. The day was wearing, and if the nut were cracked the
kernel was not eaten yet. So they took up their stand on the high ground
between the city and the fell, and the trumpets sounded an assault.
Then was there shouting, and a terrible cry that rose to Helvellyn top,
as the Saxons clambered up the rugged wall in throngs, and leapt over,
bearing down the defenders and slaughtering all before them. Domhnaill’s
wife and his two children were taken; but for the rest it was kill and
slay, as men ransacked the rude cots within the walls for their enemies,
and hewed them down where they found them.
But while all this was going forward, a band of men was spied making away
along the fell side. They had escaped by the farther gate and along the
road; and the freshest of the Saxons who were still outside the walls,
and the fleetest of their horsemen, were sent in pursuit. But the road
was rugged and difficult as ever, and if they came up with one party, and
brought it to bay, it was but to waste time, and the rest had the better
start of them. And so the battle went on, at every beck to be forded, and
every rock to be passed: and especially where the great tongue of land at
the foot of Steel fell stands across the valley, like a twin wall of huge
earth-works cast up by giants long ago.
The foremost of the flyers was Domhnaill himself, running for dear life
up the long slope of the pass. He was alone now, and on foot. One horse
after another had fallen under him, and of all the army he had led out
to its ruin not one was there to stand by him. This man had come between
him and the spear that threatened him: that one had turned back to keep
the hunters in play. They were gone now: but he was still a king, if the
crown on his helmet could make him one. And he bethought him of hiding
among the moors and rocks, anywhere, like a wild beast: and he peered
this way and that through the rain as he ran, with none following,
escaped, he hoped, at last. He neared the brow of the hill: soon it
would be down-bank and away; surely some woodland dweller would harbour
him.
Under a hawthorn tree at the summit sat a woman, with long golden hair
lank in the rain, and green gown wet, and clinging to her sides: hard
featured, and fierce she looked: strange, as she rose and stood before
him in the way. He dashed at her blindly with his sword, but she caught
his hand; and as he stumbled at her feet, the crown fell from his helmet,
clattering on the stones of the path. She took it up, and weighed it in
her hand.
“Domhnaill,” she said, “it is mine at last, then?”
“Oh, Aluinn,” he cried, “save me, hide me!”
She led him by a roaring stream and up a steep narrow gill, away from
the valley and the shouts of the pursuers, aloft into the cloud. It was
but a step, and they came to a black water, shoreless, beyond, for the
rain-mist. As he sank down, out-wearied, she flung the golden thing into
the dark tarn.
“It is safe, there,” she said.
And there they say the crown of Cumbria lies to this hour, in the depths
of Grizedale tarn.
[Illustration: INTO SAFE KEEPING]
Domhnaill passed away into the cloud and was seen no more in these parts.
Folk might well believe him to be dead, or gone to fairyland. Whether his
flight was spied by some of the Northmen coming over Dunmail raise toward
the Althing which they never held, or howsoever it might have been told,
the place kept his name, changed but a little in alien mouths; and still
haunted, they say, by the fleeing king and the fairy maid flitting before
him.