Estercel was staggered a little. He drew himself away from Sabia to his own end of the log and fell to considering.
“I do not like your way of speaking to me, cousin,” he said, “and what is the matter with you I don't know. But since you have asked me for an answer, I will say there is no shadow of love in my heart for Lady Meraud FitzPierce, nor ever has been. If she comes here, it is not by will of mine.”
Sabia sighed deeply, and then she burst into tears.
Estercel forgot his resentment in a moment. “Oh, what is the matter now?” he said. “Indeed, it seems I cannot speak without offending you.”
Very quickly, she cheered up again; she brushed away her tears and moved nearer to Estercel. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to be angry with me?” she said.
“Oh, certainly, surely,” he said in haste, delighted that she had ceased to cry and dreading lest she should recommence.
She moved a little nearer to him still and looked anxiously into his face, but there was no sternness left in it at all. “I will tell you where your ring is,” she said. “It is at the bottom of the river. I took it from your finger when you slept and threw it in the water.”
Sabia found it easy to read the thoughts of Estercel. He was surprised; and he was glad: he was vexed with her, and he was disappointed at one and the same time. After all, it had seemed a fine thing to have the spirit of the beautiful Meraud riding on a thunderstorm and disturbing the whole country because of him. Still, it was possible she might have done him a mischief: if she had once got as far as taking a ring off his finger, God knows what she might have done next. Dismissing her from his mind, he turned his thoughts on the creature that sat by his side and looked anxiously at him. He considered her for a little space.
“And why did you do such a thing, Sabia? The ring was yours, of course, to do what you would with, but I thought you gave it to me?”
Pale and with drooping neck, Sabia answered him: “A year and a half ago it was when I first thought of it. I was very young then and had not much sense. Now I am quite altered, quite changed. I would never think of doing such a thing now. I would not tie up even a dog. Now I wish you to be free.”
There was a long silence.
“I am very much obliged to you,” he said. “You have a kind heart, and that I well know. But I am sorry to lose the ring. Will you have the goodness to tell me in what part of the river did you throw it?”
“Come, and I will show you,” answered she.
Chapter XXXIII. - Dipping for the Ring
“It is right for me to tell you,” said Sabia, as they neared the river bank, “that Father Machen did most unfortunately see me throw the ring into the water.”
“Oh, indeed,” said Estercel. “And what effect did it have upon him?”
“He desired very greatly to possess himself of the ring for the benefit of the church,” said Sabia.
“Did he go into the water to seek it?” said Estercel.
“No, for the water was not clear; the ring had fallen into a pool. In fact, I threw it into deep water on purpose.”
“It is all the safer from the father,” answered he.
“Not so,” said Sabia, “he spoke of employing someone to dive for it. Here is the spot, and here is the stone which the father laid as a mark.”
Estercel stood still and reflected, and the more he reflected, the more sulky he grew.
“The people are talking of how wise you are become, Sabia. It was not a very wise thing to steal the ring from me and throw it in the water and then to expect me to fish it out.”
“You are making a mistake,” answered the girl; “I did not expect you to fish it out, nor did I ask you to do so. I did not know the father was behind the bushes, nor did I know old Ronnat would see the red-haired one in the thunderstorm and delude you with her visions. I have brought you here because I did not wish the father to have the ring. I wished to prove to you that no other person than myself had taken it.”
“Your tongue is very nimble,” said Estercel, looking solemnly at her flushed cheek.
“It is my only weapon,” answered she.
“You need employ no weapon against me,” said he.
Sabia reflected. “I will not for the sake of peace and a smiling countenance give in to what is false. It was you, Estercel, who turned your nimble tongue against me, saying that I had asked you to fish up the ring after having thrown it in the water.”
“Contention belongs to a woman,” said Estercel.
“Well, then, we'll leave it so,” said Sabia, bitterly. “I see it plainly, I have seen it all my life. Truth and justice are nothing unless they belong to a man. The strong are always in the right of it. A man may have the head of a cuckoo, and the heart of a weasel, and a right hand that sows nought but anguish and destruction. Because he is a man, he is in the right of it, though he stood before Saint Bridget herself.”
Estercel looked down at the small passionate creature: what was the matter with her? She was very angry with him, he could see. His heart began to beat. How was it that brown eyes could scatter fire? She seemed to grow more near and more dear to him when she was in a passion. So used his pet goldfinch fall in a rage and ruffle its feathers and peck at his fingers, and he only loved the bird the better.
Judging by the affectionate expression of his countenance, Sabia guessed that he was not giving any thought to what she said. Wringing her hands together, she turned away, and her face grew pale as she looked down at the lapping brim of the river at her feet. Then she felt a large hand on her shoulder.
“I did not mean to vex you,” said a kind and gentle voice; “it is plain to be seen that the ring is indeed gone since anger can come between us. Don't look so sad. I had rather have you angry than sad! I will not vex you again if I can help it.”
Sabia looked up in his face and sighed. “Well, then, do not, I ask you, when you talk with me say 'all women this' and 'all women that,' throwing us all together in one heap and casting shame upon the lot after the common fashion of men. Listen, Estercel: why should you take the sins of the light woman and the slut, of the gluttonous drunken woman and the fool and, binding them together in one pack, weigh them on to my shoulders to keep me down?”
“Indeed I would not dream of doing any such thing,” said Estercel, still patting her gently on the shoulder and trying to soothe her. “Do not let there be any more strife between us. Let us think rather of how we may get the ring. Would it not be a wise plan to lift the father's mark and carry it a little way up the river?”
Though her heart was still sore, Sabia smiled faintly. “There could not be a better plan,” said she; “but first let us look and see if any strange boy is in sight.”
Estercel stepped up the bank and looked out to left and right. There sure enough was a tall young man dressed in the loose Irish shirt or tunic of yellow linen belted round the loins coming whistling along the river bank, his eyes on the water's edge.
“I will deal with him, Sabia,” said Estercel. “When I have got him away, do you come out of the bushes and change the mark. I don't think the stone is a heavy one.”
With a cheerful and open countenance, Estercel strolled away to meet the youth. He accosted him in a friendly way, and hearing that he was come down to fish the river, he invited him up to Ardhoroe to refresh himself. The lad first seemed disinclined to go, but Estercel persuaded him powerfully, dwelling especially on the strength and sweetness of the mead of Ardhoroe. On the way thither he asked after the health of the lad's father and mother, of his grandmother and all his relations. He questioned him also on the subject of his religion, but the lad was very guarded in his answers and pretended he had not seen Father Machen since the Sunday before at Mass.
Leaving him in the midst of plenty, Estercel hurried away down to the river to find Sabia. He met her coming up from the water.
“He is safe for half-an-hour at least,” said Estercel. “Will you sit under the oaks there and keep watch — you ca
n see both the castle and the river. If you should see him coming down, tie your kerchief to a bough of the tree.”
Then Estercel bounded down the hill, and a minute after, there was a great commotion in the river. It looked as though a monstrous fish were gambolling in the pool, throwing up the water in sheets of spray. Again and again he dived: then Sabia heard a shout, and he left the stream. A few minutes more, and he had climbed to her side, shaking his hair that streamed with wet and holding the ring in his hand. Sabia rose up to meet him and looked curiously at the ring which she had never thought to see again. Even the form of it seemed altered.
“I suppose it is the same ring,” she said. “It looks different to me.”
“So it is to me,” he said. “The charm, you know, is gone from it. Perhaps that is why. But let us move further in under the oaks. I would not have the lad see me as he comes down.”
They sat down comfortably together. Estercel laid the ring on a stone before them, and together they looked at it, thinking of all that had come and gone since first it was placed on his finger. Then they fell to talking of the town and its stone-paved ways and houses that flung back the noise upon the ear; of the wonderful ranks and ranks of gorgeous gentlemen; of the terror of the cannon; of the beauty and the kingly state of Essex; of the misery of the camps; of the narrow cells of the gaol and the men of noble birth who groaned and wept within them.
While they talked, the lad in the yellow tunic was seen by them going down towards the river, his rod in his hand. They kept close beneath their tree, and at last they had the pleasure of seeing him diving in the river some forty paces away from the pool. While he thrashed the river vainly up and down, the two in the grove talked sweetly together.
It was late in the afternoon when they rose to go. Estercel lifted up the ring and hesitated a moment as he stood holding it in his hand.
“Sabia, the charm is broken now; the ring is all cold from the water. Will you set a kiss upon it for another charm?”
Chapter XXXIV. - Children of Famine
Estercel and his troop rode south to join the musters for O' Neil's war. A small fine rain was falling — through it shone the bright steel of lance heads and battle axes, and the many-coloured garments of the horsemen. All picked men and athletes they were who sang as they rode or turned in their saddles to listen to the music of the pipes that followed; or they laughed and shouted with the band of runners who leaped as they ran, showing off their deep chests and their muscles of steel.
In front of Estercel rode Sabia's father, eagerly talking with two other chieftains of his own age and standing. Estercel had ridden alongside of them at first, but he was never very ready with his tongue and so had gradually fallen behind, content with his own thoughts. Tamburlaine understood his thoughts, every one. When Estercel thought of the battle, the fierceness of his heart would start out along nerve and muscle, till he quivered and hardened with the strain and sat there a man of steel, cased in the thousand steel rings of his suit of Spanish chain mail. Then the horse would feel the strong stiffening of the man, and he would plunge and bound, longing for the leave of the rein and the scream of the slaughtered. Again Estercel would think of the riverside and the woods of Ardhoroe. Then his soul would leave his body and flee backwards, and the horse would feel the listless hand on the dropping rein. He too would give himself up to remembering the slopes of Slieve Gallion, the galloping hoofs of the mare that sped beside him in equal race, and the joy of the free life.
As the brown bird comes to the tree and sings in the heart of the leafage, so this brown girl had slipped into the kingdom of Estercel's thought. Did he think of hunting the bright deer along the autumn hill, soon his dream hand would slacken on the rein and the chase sink away, while he watched the figure of Sabia coming down the hill. Sometimes one spoke to him, and he would wake to find that he had been wandering with her by the river or listening to her harp as she played at the fireside. Once his memory had been open and free, now it was never safe from her; she was for ever entering and making herself at home. And this had not happened all at once. At first, she had come but seldom and stayed but a little time, either in his waking thoughts or in his dreams. Then oftener and oftener she began to come till now she never went really away: her figure appeared clothed in an increasingly bright light; her imagined tones grew sweeter, more appealing. With ever greater pleasure did he learn to respond. While he did his man's work, he felt she was there always, waiting for him in his dreams.
As the troop rode through the lands of Cremorne on their way into Ferney, it happened that, towards afternoon, Estercel's friend Calvagh of the Brasils waited for their coming with his men. Thereafter, Estercel rode at his side and a little apart from the rest. Calvagh was a young man of great endowments. He had the makings in him of many excellent men: it was impossible to imagine a better warrior than he. If he had not been a warrior, a good saint was in him. If he had been neither warrior nor priest, he would have been renowned as a bard, for he understood all the difficulties and intricacies of verse composition. He was an excellent tale-teller, and his sweetness of voice was wonderful. When there was nothing else to do, he used to carve heads of men and animals on the butts of spears. And with it all, he was a person of great modesty. Probably because his gifts were derived straight from Heaven and not produced and fostered by his own exertions or the exertions of those who had brought him up. It was a pleasure to Estercel to ride at the side of this man either in silence or listening to his conversation. It seemed to Estercel that he understood the mysteries of Earth and Heaven more clearly and quickly than other men.
They had left the open fields where the plentiful harvest was showing more gold than green and had ridden half a mile through a shady wood, when Estercel saw some movement among the trees of the wood's edge at his right hand. A touch on the bridle brought Tamburlaine to a stand while he peered through the wood. Some strange brown animal seemed to be crawling along with smaller ones collected about it. Calvagh, too, checked his horse and then leaped down; Estercel did the same. Seeing them come, the creatures, whatever they were, crawled into a bush and became still. The young men came on and parted the branches, when six pairs of large human eyes of varying shades of blue looked out of them. Most beautiful were the eyes, like still pools of Heaven behind fringed curtains. But terrible was the sight of all the rest of that woeful family. Mother and children chattered together with fear, and even while gazing upward, the naked children strove to hide themselves under the tattered mantle of the mother who herself had no other garment. Famine was carven on their bodies, terror had dragged their faces across. The woman tried to hide herself, but she could not hide her sores, nor her bleeding feet and knees.
“Where do you come from, poor woman dear?” asked Calvagh.
The woman only made a sound like an animal, and the children all cried aloud together, but a quick motion of the mother silenced them, and they cowered together like a covey of young partridges when the reapers enter the corn. Only the lovely eyes, ten stars of blue, still kept gazing on.
“Speak, my dear,” said Es tercel, “we will neither hurt nor harm you. Where are you from?”
The woman moistened her dry lips and spoke.
“Noble youths,” she said, in a dialect of the south, “I am a free woman, the wife of a free man of Assaroe. The Foreigners came against us and slew, robbed and burned. My husband they killed, me they treated with indignity, my children were beaten. Our cattle were stolen, our corn they ripped from the ground with the sword, our house was burned. Not a blade of corn is left in the land of the south. Therefore, that my children may live and not die like the others, I am come here. And further yet I must travel to the king of all Ireland, O'Neill himself, that I may plead my cause to him. I can no longer go upon my feet, and I purpose, with the help of God, to go upon my knees, and Angus, whose is the youngest, rides upon my back. Seven children I had when I started, five remain to me, and Sheila here is sick.”
Neither Calvagh nor
Estercel had ever seen wild famine and nakedness before. The province of Ulster had been like a still pool of peace, guarded by her mountain ramparts and her brave men. Estercel had seen ugly sights among the camp-followers of Dublin, but never anything like this. The hoarse and hollow voice of the woman, her extreme unsightliness, sickened his heart. He went to the bag that hung by his saddle and, taking from it some wheaten cakes. threw them into the bush and watched while the woman and her children tore and devoured them, but Calvagh stood looking on the ground.
“What do you say, Estercel?” he said at last; “it is not far to the nuns of Ferney — an hour's ride at most. Shall we charge these creatures of God on the backs of our horses and place them in the hands of the good women?”
Estercel blushed red: he was afraid that he would be seen by the troops of fighting men on their way to the mustering place. What if they should cross the path of O'Donnell's army of three thousand men and be seen by them?
“It is very doubtful,” he said at last, “if Tamburlaine would permit people of that description to get upon his back.”
“Do you speak to him,” said Calvagh, “as you know so well how to do, and he will be sure to listen.”
Reluctantly, Estercel turned and spoke in the ear of Tamburlaine. Fortunately, the horse had had enough exercise to satisfy him and was in a mood to practise a peaceable charity.
“I will take the mother and the sick one,” said Calvagh; “do you take the remaining four,” for he saw that his friend had a horror of the woman.
Estercel was relieved. In a few minutes, the two young men were striding along side by side leading their horses. The brown horse of Calvagh was led on a loose rein, but Tamburlaine followed like a dog, his nose now in his master's pocket, now on his shoulder, a row of skeleton children on his back, two on the saddle, one behind and one before, their arms about each other's waists. It was good to see how carefully he stepped, how he would balance his step over the rough places to keep an even seat for the creatures who clung upon him.
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