"And wherefore is it called the Ford of the Watchings?" said Cuculain.
"Because," answered Laeg, "there is always one of the King"s knights there, keeping watch and ward over the gate of the province."
"Guide thither the horses," said Cuculain, "for I will not lay aside my arms till I have first reddened them in the blood of the enemies of my nation. Who is it that is over the ward there this day?"
"It is Conall Carnach," said Laeg.
As they drew nigh to the ford, the watchman from his high watch-tower on the west side of the dun sent forth a loud and clear voice--
"There is a chariot coming to us from Emain Macha," he said. "The chariot is of great size; I have not seen its like in all Eiriu. In front of it are two horses, one black and one white. Great is their trampling and their glory and the shaking of their heads and necks.
I liken their progress to the fall of water from a high cliff or the sweeping of dust and beech-tree leaves over a plain, when the March wind blows hard, or to the rapidity of thunder rattling over the firmament. A man would say that there were eight legs under each horse, so rapid and indistinguishable is the motion of their limbs and hoofs. Identify those horses, O Conall, and that chariot, for to me they are unknown."
"And to me likewise," said Conall. "Who are in the chariot? Moderate, O man, the extravagance of thy language, for thou art not a prophet but a watchman."
"There are two beardless youths in the chariot," answered the watchman, "but I am unable to identify them on account of the dust and the rapid motion and the steam of the horses. I think the charioteer is Laeg, the son of the King of Gabra, for I know his manner of driving. The boy who sits in front of him and below him on the champion"s seat I do not know, but he shines like a star in the cloud of dust and steam." Then a young man who stood near to Conall Carna, wearing a short, red cloak with a blue hood to it, and a ta.s.sel at the point of the hood, said to Conall--
"If it be my brother that charioteers sure am I that it is Cuculain who is in the fighter"s seat, for many a time have I heard Laeg utter foul scorn of the Red Branch, none excepted, when compared with Sualtam"s son. For no other than him would he deign to charioteer. Truly though he is my own brother there is not such a boaster in the North."
Then the watchman cried out again--
"Yea, the charioteer is the son of the King of Gabra, and it is Cuculain, the son of Sualtam, who sits in the fighter"s seat. He has Concobar"s own shield on his breast, and his two spears in his hand.
Over Bray Ros, over Brainia, they are coming along the highway, by the foot of the Town of the Tree; it is gifted with victories."
"Have done, O talkative man," cried Conall, "whose words are like the words of a seer, or the full-voiced intonement of a chief bard."
When the chariot came to the ford, Conall was amazed at the horses and the chariot, but he dissembled his amazement before his people, and when he saw Cuculain armed, he laughed and said,--
"Hath the boy indeed taken arms?"
And Cuculain said, "It is as thou seest, O son of Amargin; and moreover, I have sworn not to let them back into the Chamber-of-Many-Colours [Footnote: Tec Brac or Speckled House, the armoury of the Ultonians.]
until I shall have first reddened them in the blood of the enemies of Ulla."
Then Conall ceased laughing and said, "Not so, Setanta, for verily thou shalt not be permitted;" and the great Champion sprang forward to lay his fearless, never-foiled, and all conquering hands on the bridles of the horses, but at a nod from Cuculain, Laeg let the steeds go, and Conall sprang aside out of the way, so terrible was the appearance of the horses as they reared against him. "Harness my horses and yoke my chariot," cried Conall, "for if this mad boy goes into the enemies"
country and meets with harm there, verily I shall never be forgiven by the Ultonians."
His horses were harnessed and his chariot yoked,--ill.u.s.trious too were those horses, named and famed in many songs--and Conall and Ide in their chariot dashed through the ford enveloped with rainbow-painted clouds of foam and spray, and like hawks on the wing they skimmed the plain, pursuing the boys. Laeg heard the roar and trampling, and looking back over his shoulder, said,--
"They are after us, dear master, namely the great son of Amargin and my haughty brother Ide, who hath ever borne himself to me as though I were a wayward child. They would spoil upon us this our brave foray. But they will overtake the wind sooner than they will overtake the Liath Macha and Black Shanglan, whose going truly is like the going of eagles. O storm-footed steeds, great is my love for you, and inexpressible my pride in your might and your beauty, your speed and your terror, and sweet docility and affection."
"Nevertheless, O Laeg," said Cuculain, "slacken now their going, for that Champion will be an impediment to us in our challengings and our fightings; for when we stop for that purpose he will overtake us, and, be our feats what they may, his and not ours will be the glory. Slacken the going of the horses, for we must rid ourselves of the annoyance and the pursuit of these gadflies."
Laeg slackened the pace, and as they went Cuculain leaped lightly from his seat and as lightly bounded back again, holding a great pebble in his hand, such as a man using all his strength could with difficulty raise from the ground, and sat still, rejoicing in his purpose, and grasping the pebble with his five fingers.
Conall and Ide came up to them after that, and Conall, as the senior and the best man amongst the Ultonians, clamorously called to them to turn back straightway, or he would hough their horses, or draw the linch-pins of their wheels, or in some other manner bring their foray to naught.
Cuculain thereupon stood upright in the car, and so standing, with feet apart to steady him in his throwing and in his aim, dashed the stone upon the yoke of Conall"s chariot between the heads of the horses and broke the yoke, so that the pole fell to the ground and the chariot tilted forward violently. Then the charioteer fell amongst the horses, and Conall Carna, the beauty of the Ultonians the battle-winning and ever-victorious son of Amargin, was shot out in front upon the road, and fell there upon his left shoulder, and his beautiful raiment was defiled with dust; and when he arose his left hand hung by his side, for the shoulder-bone was driven from the socket, owing to the violence of the fall.
"I swear by all my G.o.ds," he cried, "that if a step would save thy head from the hands of the men of Meath, I would not take it."
Cuculain laughed and replied, "Good, O Conall, and who asked thee to take it, or craved of thee any succour or countenance? Was it a straight shot? Are there the materials of a fighter in me at all, dost thou think? Thou art in my debt now too, O Conall. I have saved thee a broken vow, for it is one of the oaths of our Order not to enter hostile territory with brittle chariot-gear!"
Then the boys laughed at him again, and Laeg let go the steeds, and very soon they were out of sight. Conall returned slowly with his broken chariot to Ath-na-Forairey and sent for Fingin of Slieve Fuad, who was the most cunning physician and most expert of bone-setters amongst the Ultonians. Conall"s messengers experienced no difficulty in finding the house of the leech, which was very recognisable on account of its shape and appearance, and because it had wide open doors, four in number, affording a liberal ingress and free thoroughfare to all the winds. Also a stream of pure water ran through the house, derived from a well of healing properties, which sprang from the side of the uninhabited hill.
Such were the signs that showed the house of a leech.
When they drew nigh they heard the voice of one man talking and of another who laughed. It happened that that day there had been borne thither a champion, in whose body there was not one small bone unbroken or uninjured. The man"s bruises and fractures had been dressed and set by Fingin and his intelligent and deft-handed apprentices, and he lay now in his bed of healing listening joyfully to the conversation of the leech, who was beyond all others eloquent and of most agreeable discourse.
When Conall"s messengers related the reason of their coming, Fingin cried to his young men, "Harness me my horses and yoke my chariot. There are few," he said, "in Erin for whom I would leave my own house, but that youth is one of them. His father Amargin was well known to me. He was a warrior grim and dour exceedingly, and he ever said concerning the boy, "This hound"s whelp that I have gotten is too fine and sleek to hold b.l.o.o.d.y gaps or hunt down a n.o.ble prey. He will be a women"s playmate and not a peer amongst Heroes." And that fear was ever upon him till the day when Conall came red out of the Valley of the Thrush, and his track thence to Rath-Amargin was one straight path of blood, and he with his shield-arm hacked to the bone, his sword-arm swollen and bursting, and the flame of his valour burning bright in his splendid eyes. Then, for the first time, the old man smiled upon him, and he said, "That arm, my son, has done a man"s work to-day.""
CHAPTER XV
ACROSS THE MEARINGS AND AWAY
"Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth.
From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the North?"
CAMPBELL.
As for the boys, they proceeded joyfully after that pleasant skirmish and friendly encounter, both on account of the discomfiture of him who was reckoned the prime champion of the Ultonians, and because they were at large in Erin, with no one to direct them, or to whom they should render an account; and their happiness, too, was increased by the mettle, power and gallant action of the steeds, and by the clanking of the harness and the brazen chains, and the ringing of the weapons of war, and the roar of the revolving wheels, and owing to the velocity of their motion and the rushing of the wind upon their temples and through their hair.
Then Cuculain stood up in the chariot, and surveyed the land on all sides, and said--
"What is that great, firm-based, indestructible mountain upon our left hand, one of a n.o.ble range which, rising from the green plain, runs eastward. The last peak there is the mountain of which I speak, whose foot is in the Ictian sea and whose head neighbours the firmament."
And Laeg said, "Men call it Slieve Modurn, after a giant of the elder time, when men were mightier and greater than they are now. He was of the children of Brogan, uncle of Milesius, and his brothers were Fuad and Eadar and Breagh, and all these being very great men are commemorated in the names of n.o.ble mountains and sea-dividing promontories."
"Guide thither the horses," said Cuculain. "It is right that those who take the road against an enemy should first spy out the land, choosing judiciously their point of onset, and Slieve Modurn yonder commands a most brave prospect."
Laeg did so. There, in a green valley, they unharnessed the horses and tethered them to graze, and they themselves climbed the mountain and stood upon the top in the most clear air. Thence Laeg showed him the green plain of Meath extending far and wide, and the great streams of Meath where they ran, the Boyne and the Blackwater, the Liffey and the Royal Rye, and his own stream the Nanny Water, clear and sparkling, which was very dear to Laeg, because he had snared fish there and erected dams, and had done divers boyish feats upon its sh.o.r.es.
Cuculain said, "I see a beautiful green hill, shaped like an inverted ewer, on the south sh.o.r.e of the Boyne. There is a n.o.ble palace there.
I see the flashing of its lime-white sides, and the colours of the variegated roof and around it are other beautiful houses. How is that city named O Laeg, and who dwells there?"
"That is the hill of Temair," answered Laeg, "Tara"s high citadel. Well may that city be beautiful, for the seat of Erin"s high sovereignty is there. The man who holds it is Arch-king of all Erin."
"Westward by south," said Cuculain, "I see another city widely built, and unenclosed by ramparts and defensive works, and hard by there is a most smooth plain. At one end of the plain I see a glittering, and also at the other."
And Laeg said, "That is the hill of Talteen, so named because the mother of far-shooting Lu, the Deliverer, is worshipped there, and every year, when the leaves change their colour, games and contests of skill are celebrated there in her honour. So it was enjoined on the men of Erin by her famous son. Chariot races are run there on that smooth plain.
The glittering points on either side of it are the racing pillars of burnished bra.s.s, the starting-post, and that which the charioteers graze with the glowing axle. Many a n.o.ble chariot has been broken, and many a gallant youth slain at the further of those twain. It was there that Concobar raced his steeds against the woman with child, concerning which things there are rumours and prophesyings."
So Cuculain questioned Laeg concerning the cities of Meath, and concerning the n.o.ble raths and duns where the kings and lords and chief men of Meath dwelt prosperously, rejoicing in their great wealth.
Cuculain said, "None of these kings and lords and chief men whom thou hast enumerated have at any time injured my nation, and there is not one upon whom I might rightly take vengeance. But I see one other splendid dun, and of this thou hast said no word, though thrice I have questioned thee concerning it."
Laeg grew pale at these words, and he said,
"What dun is that, my master?"