When the pirates had seized Ethne and Baithene, one sharp cry had rung through the glen from the faithful clansman who had been watching below, when a javelin hurled by one of the pirates had pierced his breast, and silenced him for ever. That cry, though unable to reach Ethne and Baithene, muffled as they were in their plaids, had alarmed the household. But, so sudden had been the attack, and so swiftly was the vessel rowed out of the creek, that she was well out at sea before a boat could be launched in pursuit. There were nothing but small river coracles at hand, and the British vessel soon distanced them, and was hopelessly lost sight of.
Even when they reached the opposite shore of the Irish Sea, the pirates still seemed in fear of pursuit, and hugged the shore by day, hiding in creeks, stowing their captives in caves and hollows of the rocks, and then sailing on by moonlight till they reached the southernmost coasts of Britain. At last they came to a creek with which they seemed familiar, carefully steering the vessel through narrow channels between the rocks into a little sandy cove. This cove was shut in by cliffs hollowed at one end into a wonderful series of lofty caverns leading one to another like halls of some palace of the sea-gods.
The sailors had not been rough with the young captives, partly because they were valuable property, partly because their own hearts were not destitute of pity. One especially, called Dewi, had shown them no little kindness (the same who had crossed himself in half-sympathetic, half-superstitious fear of risking the divine displeasure by kidnapping baptized Christians), and missed no opportunity of ministering to their comfort. Moreover, there was in Ethne a heavenly gentleness, and in Baithene an unconquerable good-nature and readiness to help, that won on the rough sailors in spite of themselves. Once, moreover, Dewi had been greatly moved, when he had all but lost his balance in shifting a sail, and Baithene had sprung up from the bottom of the boat, fettered as he was, and had saved him by a timely grasp of his clothes. Here in the strange halls of this sea-cave, for the first time the boy and girl were set free to ramble whither they would. The sides of the cove were quite precipitous, and the outermost of these vaulted palace-chambers opened on another wider bay, which could only be reached by a rocky staircase always carefully guarded. So it happened that the morning after their arrival the brother and sister were left at liberty to wander along the little sandy cove together, to bathe their feet and hands in the waves. They were children enough to enjoy it, and were watching the morning sunbeams dancing on the foaming crests, when in the distance a familiar sound fell on their ears.
“It is like our own Patrick’s bell!” said Ethne.
They listened in silence. It was certainly a bell, and a bell meant Christianity and Christian worship. The clear tones came to them softly, like the pulsations of a heart that loved them.
“It is calling them to the Eucharist of God!” Ethne said, with an awed voice. “There are Christians within reach.”
“Alas! are not these robbers Christians?” exclaimed Baithene.
“I suppose the loveliest things always have the falsest counterfeits,” said Ethne; “but these surely must be real Christians, gathered together to adore our Christ.”
And she knelt down on the sands, and almost for the first time since their capture burst into a passion of tears. Baithene knelt down beside her, and tried to soothe and comfort her. But she was already comforted. The glow of sacred hopes and memories had melted away the icy weight on her heart, or she could not have wept. Instinctively they were drawn towards the sacred sound, creeping noiselessly through the rocky halls, till through an opening like a little arched window they caught a glimpse of the sandy bay on the other side, and above it, on a sandy ridge, of a little building of rough-hewn stones, scarcely larger than the cabins near it, but distinguished by a low bell-tower, within which their friend the Christian bell was slowly swinging. It was a little church, afterwards for centuries buried in the sands.
More surprises awaited them that day. From their post at the rocky window they saw a congregation gather and disperse, and then some of them cluster round a man in a long dark robe, like a priest or a monk. Most of the congregation dispersed in various directions, but a few followed the monk straight across the sands to the cavern where they were; and, to their inexpressible delight, they heard from the lips of the strange priest words in their own Irish language. The voice drew nearer and nearer, and, hidden as they were in a dark recess of the cave, they distinctly caught the name of their own Patrick.
“Patrick the great bishop has sent me,” said the voice of the stranger, in the speech so familiar to them. “I have sought you across Britain, Coroticus and his followers, to fulfil my embassy; and at last I have found you, and you shall hear the message of the great bishop, the Apostle of the Irish.” Many of the sailors and armed followers of the expedition were gathered around, half awed by the solemn tones of the priest, half deriding. But they seemed so far spell-bound as to be constrained to listen. The letter was in Latin, which the men understood, being Britons, until lately under Roman sway, and, to their great satisfaction, Ethne and Baithene found they could also grasp his meaning well.
“‘I, Patrick,’” the priest began, reading from the parchment, “‘a sinner and unlearned, declare that I was made bishop in Ireland. I most certainly hold that it was from God I received what I am, and therefore for the love of God I dwell a pilgrim and an exile among a barbarous people. He is my witness that I speak the truth. It is not my wish to use language so harsh and so severe, but I am compelled by zeal for God and the truth of Christ, Who stirred me up for the love of my neighbours and sons, for whom I have given up country and parents, and am ready to give my life also, if I am worthy.’”
“He calls us his sons!” murmured the captives, “he has given up country and parents for us!”
“‘With my own hand I have written these words, to be delivered to the soldiers of Coroticus, no more my fellow-citizens, nor the fellow-citizens of the Roman saints, but fellow-citizens of demons, shedding the blood of innocent Christians, multitudes of whom I have begotten to God, and confirmed in Christ. Cruel slaughter and massacre was committed by them on some neophytes while still in their white robes the day after they had been anointed with the chrism, while it was yet visible on their foreheads.’”
“Then there are others captured besides ourselves,” groaned Baithene, “and some slain. Who? Shall we ever know?”
“‘I sent a letter by a holy presbyter whom I taught from his infancy, accompanied by other clergymen, to entreat they would restore some of the baptized captives whom they had taken, but they turned them into ridicule. Therefore I know not for whom I should rather grieve, whether for those who were slain, or those whom they took captive, or those whom Satan so grievously ensnared, and who shall be delivered over like himself, to the eternal pains of hell; “for whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, and the child of the devil.” Wherefore let every one who fears God know that these strangers to me and to Christ my God, Whose ambassador I am, are parricides and fratricides. Wherefore I earnestly beseech those who are lowly and humble of heart, not to eat or drink with them or receive alms from them, until they repent with bitter tears, and make satisfaction to God, and set free those servants and baptized handmaids of Christ for whom He was crucified and died.
“‘Avarice is a deadly crime. The Most High rejects the offerings of the unjust. He who offers a sacrifice from the substance of the poor, is like one who offers a son as a victim in the sight of his father. Do I show a true compassion for that nation which formerly took me captive? I was free born!’”
“Patrick understands captivity!” murmured Baithene. The voice of the priest had been ringing like a trumpet, now it deepened and softened.
“‘Therefore I will cry aloud with sorrow and grief. Oh, most goodly, well-beloved brothers and sons, whom I have begotten in Christ, what shall I do for you?’ Listen, beloved!” the priest interposed in words of his own, “if there be any of you within hearing, Patrick weeps for you as his brothers and sisters and sons. ‘What shall I do for you?’ he says. ‘It is written, “Weep with them that do weep;” and again, “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.” The Church weeps and laments her sons and daughters whom the sword of the enemy has not slain, but who have been carried away to far-off lands. These Christian free-men are sold and reduced to slavery. A crime has been committed which is horrible and unspeakable. I grieve, my well-beloved, for you and for myself. But at the same time I rejoice that I have not laboured in vain, and that my pilgrimage has not been in vain. Thanks be to God, ye, O believers and baptized ones, have departed from the world to Paradise. I behold you. Ye have begun your journey to that region where there shall be no night, nor sorrow, nor death any more. Ye therefore shall reign with the apostles and martyrs, and shall receive an everlasting kingdom.’” Then the priest’s voice grew stern again. “‘But where shall they find themselves who distribute among their depraved followers, baptized women and captive orphans, for the sake of a wretched earthly kingdom which passes away in a moment like a cloud, or like smoke scattered by the wind?’” Then his voice changed once more to a tone of appeal. “‘But oh that God would inspire them, that at some time they might return unto Him! They have murdered the brothers of the Lord. But let them repent and release the baptized women whom they have already taken captive, that so they may be worthy to live to God, and be made whole here and for eternity.’” Then with the invocation of the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the voice of Patrick’s ambassador ceased.
An angry murmur rose in the cave, and then there were mocking cries, and spears were pointed at the priest. No captives were allowed to be seen, and at last he turned sorrowfully away. But the message had reached three hearts that were in sore need of it.
“Patrick cares for us! he calls us his brothers and sisters. He is our shepherd, our brother, our father!” said Ethne.
“Patrick also was once a captive and a slave!” murmured Baithene.
“And Patrick,” Ethne replied, “has lived to serve and to liberate those who enslaved him, and to be their saviour and friend, like his Lord.”
And before the sun of that Sunday night had set, their friend the sailor Dewi contrived to get near them, as they strayed with the deer-hound along the little inner cove, now reduced by the high tide to a narrow strip of sand.
“The voice of Patrick has reached one at least of those it was meant to reach,” Dewi said, in a low, tremulous voice. “One of us at least repents at last. Never again will Dewi help to rob and murder the brothers and sisters of Patrick, and of our Lord Christ. Children,” he concluded, “what can I do for you?”
“What can any one do for us?” said Baithene, despondingly.
But Ethne took the sailor’s rough hands and clasped them in her own.
“You can do this for us,” she said, “the best service any can render us now. Go back to Ireland and tell our people, tell Patrick the bishop, we are alive! And find our father, Conan, chief of the O’Neills, and our mother, if they are still alive, and tell them about us.”
“I will try, lady,” he said. “If I fail, you will know it was not for want of trying. But the country of your kindred is, and ought to be, as a den of lions for any of our band.”
“I know!” she said. “But I know you would like to have something hard and dangerous to do for us.”
“You know the truth,” said Dewi, with quivering lips. “And if I can, I will come back and hunt you out again, and bring news of your own to you.”
“We shall be lonelier and more friendless than ever when you are gone,” Ethne said.
“They do not want me any further,” Dewi said. “Just now I heard them say they have other Irish captives in other vessels further south, who are to be joined to-morrow. And they have hired new sailors who know this coast. For it is a perilous coast, beset by rocks and shoals and narrow channels between islands full, they say, of savage people.”
“Where are they taking us?” Baithene asked.
“To Gaul, I believe. There are men of our race there who speak our language.”
“And then?”
“To Rome, they say. To the great Court of the Empire and mart of the world. They have a good cargo: gold ornaments of great price among the Irish plunder, copper and tin from the ancient mines in this west country, and a goodly troop of captives.”
“To Rome!” exclaimed Baithene. “To the great slave-market!”
And Dewi could not deny that this was their destination.
The brother and sister slept little that night.
“I longed and prayed to go to Rome, sister. And some one must have heard me! Can it be the Friend or the Enemy? For there is an Enemy, you know. We renounced him at our baptism, and no doubt he will do us all the harm he can. And he is strong, they say. It would seem, sometimes, nearly as strong as God!”
“He is weak, they told us!” replied Ethne. “He can only hurt people who give themselves up to him and are cowards. And, brother,” she added, after a long silence, “a beautiful thing has come back into my mind. One of the priests (I think it was Patrick) was speaking to our mother about prayer. He said we must tell all our wants to God. But mother said, ‘How could we dare? we know so little, and we might ask for the wrong thing.’ But he told her, God never gives wrong things when His children ask for them, any more than she would. And then he told her a story about a great saint, I think he was called Paul, who prayed that he might go to Rome; and God heard him, and he went to Rome, but shipwrecked and a prisoner.”
“What comfort is there in that melancholy story, Ethne? It is exactly what I am afraid of!” Baithene said gloomily.
“Do you think the great Paul did not know what he was asking, or the good God what He was giving?” she said. “Hear the end of my story. In his prison in Rome Paul gathered together crowds of people who came to listen to him. And many of them became Christians. And,” she added, after a pause, “in the end he died a martyr at Rome. And that, you know, is the greatest death, they say, that any Christian can die.”
“But that Paul wished to go to Rome to do good,” said Baithene, “to serve his people and God.”
“And so did you, darling,” she replied; “and God has heard.”
“I did not exactly wish to be a martyr,” he replied, “at least not quite yet. I do not feel fit for it. And I did want to learn Latin, and so many things, and to do so many things.”
“Ah,” she said, “I suppose we none of us quite know when we are fit to be martyrs. And, darling, do I want you to be a martyr? God has many good things to let us be besides that. The Church would scarcely get on if all her noblest were to be martyrs, nor the world either, could it?”
“Patrick did come back; and he saved the people who might have martyred him, which seems almost better in some ways,” Baithene rejoined, more cheerfully.
“But Patrick forgave first, and I suppose that is what we have to do now,” said Ethne.
“Is it?” replied Baithene, with some hesitation. “That scarcely seems much easier than being a martyr.”
It seemed almost like a second exile to Ethne and Baithene when they left the lofty caverns of that rocky sea-palace, and missed the familiar sound of the matin-bell coming across the sands; and when they lost sight of Dewi, their one friend, standing on a point of rock and watching the boat as long as it could be seen. They had great need of their new faith; and the anchor held, although they took their religion differently, according to their character.
For Baithene it was a commission to conquer circumstances and so reign over them, king of himself, if of nothing else, like the Stoics, with the inspiring addition of the patience being the patience of hope, and the conviction that in ruling himself he served the King Who ruled the nations and the ages.
For Ethne it was a talisman to redeem and save, to save by loving, to redeem by forgiving, like Patrick; a link with every human creature she met, not of thought merely but of life, of kindred, through the Divine Christ Who had redeemed all mankind and is Himself man. Whatever untruth men thought, she felt the truth they did not think remained; whatever evil men did, the evil could be turned into good for the sufferers by love and faith, and for the wrong-doers by the forgiving patience which might win them to repent.
Therefore, sad and dark as their life might be, it could never be empty or unmeaning, because of the quenchless hope of this Christian faith, because of the life-giving power of the living Christ. Life was not a mere tangle of twisted lines, decorative or chaotic; it was a sacred inscription which God could read if they could not, for He was writing it; which one day, when they had learned His language, they also would be able to read.
They needed all the comfort they could find, for their lives were dark enough, smitten down from such a height to such a depth, driven out from such a warmth of love into such an icy cold of cruelty and injustice, driven out into an unloving world at one of its darkest moments. Happily for them they had all the gaiety and pleasantness of youth and of their race, enabling them to find amusement in incongruities even when most uncomfortable, and to make things pleasant and easy to others by word and deed whenever this was possible. Moreover, they had the birthright and training of their rank in their own little world. Being quick-witted, they learned soon enough that it had been a little world; and that it was quite useless, and would bring them nothing but ridicule, to insist on their dignities. Nevertheless the natural dignity and grace of their station remained, and, not being asserted, made itself felt: a kind of royal way of recognizing little services, of avoiding neglects or hasty words, which they had been used to feel might give pain; a kind of princely indifference as to slights or rudenesses, which they had been used to think could only spring from ignorance or want of breeding; an innate sense of something within themselves that could not be changed by outward changes, which made any menial thing they had to do seem not so much a degradation as a condescension; a royal consideration for others which fitted well into the high humility of their Christian calling. There is a good deal of education in the fact of being royal, if the lesson is learnt the right way.
So it happened, that by the time the rough voyage from Cornwall to Armorican Brittany was over, the young captives had won the hearts of many of the crew, who tried to lighten their bondage; and not a few were sorry to part with the brave, bright boy and the fair, sweet maiden; and were moved to a tender, reverent pity when they had once more to be fettered and guarded, and led away among the file of slaves to the market at the port at the mouth of the Loire, where the ship was to end her voyage and unlade her living merchandise.
But these two had still each other, and also Bran, the great deer-hound, who had established his claim to be with them by making it plain he would be the death of any one who tried to part them, whilst he was obedient to the slightest touch or softest word from them, especially from Ethne, whose guardianship he assumed as the representative of the whole clan O’Neill.
It was some solace to the brother and sister to hear around them, when they landed, a language resembling their own. But it was a motley company which gathered round the little captive band, no strange or unwonted sight then in any European seaport. “Prisoners and captives” came into the petitions of every Litany during those tumultuous times. Their ransoms were among the perpetual claims of the alms-giving of every church. “I was in prison, and ye came unto Me,” meant much in days when the prisoners were often no dangerous criminals or idle vagabonds, but innocent children, or high-born youths and maidens such as Baithene and Ethne.
As they stood there, a gazing-stock for the idle crowd always loafing about quays and unloading vessels, Ethne felt their rude jests and insolent staring the worst things they had yet experienced; and there was a wonderful comfort for her in the loyal worship in Bran the dog’s eyes, as he nestled his great shaggy head against her knee and looked wistfully up into her face. It brought into her eyes healing tears, which to his surprise fell on his head, and made him lay his paw on her arm with grave, sympathetic remonstrance.
Baithene, on the contrary, faced the crowd, feeling every inch a king, in lofty indifference to anything the low rabble could look or say; he had never felt so princely, at least as regarded himself.
As he stood thus at bay, two figures, a man and a woman, detached themselves from the crowd, two faces were directed towards him and his sister with absorbing interest. They were of a different type to any Baithene had seen before: the man’s forehead was lofty though somewhat narrow, and further contracted by lines which seemed rather grooves worn by care than fruitful furrows of thought; the eyes were dark and deep-set, with flashes like the flicker of a fire in the depths of a cavern; the lips were prominent and expressive; the nose was aquiline, yet the whole countenance, if in any way eagle-like, was like an eagle’s in the eager intensity of its penetrating gaze, rather than in any look of power and command; and from time to time a pathetic and kindly expression passed over his face, especially when he turned toward the woman beside him, in response to any word or look from her. Her face, though of the same type as his, was softened into a refined beauty: the brow was in proportion wider; the eyes, though deep-set, were full of a gracious and tender light; the mouth, varying in expression, though not moulded into the Greek curves of Cupid’s bow, had in its greater fullness and longer lines a power and sweetness which did not need a smile to make you feel its sympathetic response. She made Baithene think of his own mother, and of the Mother they had learnt to think of as the type of all true maidenhood and motherhood combined. The complexion of both was darker than Baithene had seen, with a darkness that seemed to belong to the fire of more southern suns than he had known; not the mere fading or dimming as of the fair faces of the North, but rich with an original and mellow colour of its own. Both had hair black as the raven’s wing. Their dress also was slightly different from anything Baithene was accustomed to. Round the man’s head were twisted folds of coloured linen; from the woman’s fell a veil of creamy white gathered gracefully round her throat and shoulders.
As he looked, the two came forward, and at a signal to one of their British captors a conversation began which the brother and sister felt was an eager bargaining for their purchase.
The Briton seemed to be insisting on their being sold in one lot—maiden, youth, and dog. The stranger, on the other hand, seemed to be endeavouring to separate them, apparently saying, not so much “It is nought,” as “I have nought, or at least nothing equivalent to the value of the three together.” Unpleasant at it was to be thus haggled for, Baithene had a sense that the bargaining was more diplomatic than sincere. And at last, when the two dark-haired foreigners were turning away, and the British sailor laid his hands on Baithene and the dog to separate them from the maiden, the two turned back; and between the determination of the deer-hound and the pitifulness of the woman, the bargain was soon completed—Bran having expressed his opinion as to parting from Ethne in a way the British captor, remembering Dewi with “his leg bitten to the bone,” did not care to have repeated; whilst the dark-eyed woman, in a very unbusiness-like way, clasped the hands of both sister and brother appealingly in her own.
So it came about that Ethne, Baithene, and the dog were led away from the slave-market by the two strangers, the British sailor following to receive at their own home the stipulated coins, which the old man would not on any account display in public.
The dwelling of the strangers was in a remote corner of the city, with no appearance of wealth about it; and the purchaser seemed to draw the coins required reluctantly and with difficulty from a very limited store. The purchase, however, was duly completed, to the great relief of the captives, who might have been less reassured if they had heard the last words of the seller, when, after departing, he returned and said in a low voice to the buyer, “Only promise me one thing—that you will not eat these children!”
“Eat them!” was the indignant retort; “we are no Tartar savages.”
“Nevertheless,” was the sceptical reply, “I have heard a terrible story of some countrymen of yours who were driven out of a city in the far east for killing and eating a Christian child at some feast of theirs. If thou wilt solemnly promise me not to eat them,” he added (a spark of conscience suddenly flickering up from the ashes of his faith), “I will give thee back a hundredth part of the price.” And he held out some coins in his hand.
The purchaser made a gesture as if he would have flung the money in the sailor’s face, but the habit of his life gained the victory over his patriotic indignation.
“To reassure thy conscience, dog of a pirate,” he said contemptuously, satisfying at once his patriotism with an Oriental epithet and his ruling passion with the coin, “I promise to deal better with them than thou hast, at the worst.”
So the bargain was effected, and the purchaser re-entered his house. He solaced himself, however, for the insult by saying suddenly to his wife—
“A profitable bargain, truly, thou hast made for me! What are we to do with this Gentile boy and maiden? The lowest Christians will resent our owning or selling one of themselves. And, moreover,” he added, with unfeigned disgust, “what are we to do with this unclean beast? It would be as safe to have a lion in the house, and as pleasant to have one of Samson’s foxes.”
“These creatures sell for their weight in gold, the sailor said, to the nobles of Ravenna or Constantinople, for the chase. They are afraid of nothing, and will bring down any wild beast, stag, or wolf, or bear.”
“The Unutterable grant he do not bring us down first,” he replied, encountering with much uneasiness the pricked-back ears and fully-displayed teeth of the deer-hound, emphasized as these were by a low growl, decidedly trying to the hospitality of the master of the house.
But Ethne’s arm was instantly around the dog and her hand on his head; and the wistful eyes looked up to her with a tender recognition of her tenderness, though accompanied by an evident distrust of her experience of the world.
Of his hostess Bran showed no such disapproval. He even suffered her to lay her hand gently on his mistress’s shoulder. There was little communication possible at first between them, except by such touches and looks, the imperfect Latin of the captives not being very comprehensible; whilst the language of the strangers, though possessing gutturals, nasals, and lispings not unlike their own, had no real resemblance to it.
The woman soon began to spread a meal for them at two separate tables, both carefully laid, with basins of water for washing the hands, and a towel, and well-prepared though simple food—bread and fruit, and wine of the country.
A sense came over the brother and sister of being welcomed once more in a home, and recognized as human creatures, not mere chattels; and they partook of the simple fare with the enjoyment of welcome guests and hungry children. There was a lifting up of hands and eyes in prayer and benediction before and after the meal.
When it was finished, the hostess cleared the tables, spread them again with food and drink, and made everything ready for the night in the sleeping-rooms. Then she carefully unpacked from the chest a silver candlestick with seven branches, and filled the seven lamps with oil, which when the sun set she lighted and set on their own table, the only decoration of the house. After this she sat down and elaborately did nothing, in a way which was evidently significant of some rite or festivity. Then after a time they stood up, and the host said prayers in the strange, deep-sounding language, whilst the captives watched their proceedings with much wonder and interest. It seemed to Ethne they must have fallen among some new variety of Christians. And yet with all the compassionate kindness of their hostess, they were evidently considered as apart from all these religious ceremonials, as well as excluded from sitting at the same table, whether as slaves and inferiors, or as of another race, or as in some way excommunicate, they could not quite determine.
It was a relief to them both when they were allowed to go into a walled orchard at the back of the house, where, for the first time since the memorable evening in the cave, by the many-chambered cavern, before the reading of Patrick’s letter, they were once more alone together.
They discussed their mysterious purchasers in low tones, but could arrive at no clear conclusion. Of one thing, however, they felt more and more clear, from what Dewi had told them, from chance words that had dropped from the other sailors, and the recurrence of the magic name “Roma,” as the only intelligible word in the conversation of their hosts—they were on their way to Rome.
They slept the sound sleep of youth on the clean straw couches spread for them in one of the sleeping-chambers. When they awoke it had long been daylight, and their hosts were sitting in the eating-room, again elaborately doing nothing, with a seriousness which made Ethne and Baithene feel the immobility and stillness in some mysterious way part of a sacred ritual. Their only occupation was the reading aloud of their host from a manuscript wrapped in silken covers, with occasional responses from their hostess.
They were courteously bidden to take their places at the meal set on their own table. But when they had finished they felt they would be better out of the way in the orchard, to which they gladly retired, enjoying the sunshine and rest.
Whilst they were there, from within the house came frequently the sound of the monotonous reading or chanting, in that same strange language, with its deep guttural or nasal sounds.
“Are we not in a Christian country?” said Baithene at last; “and can this be our sacred day, Sunday, the day of our Lord?”
They tried to count back from that day to the day when they had heard the bell from the cavern, and had seen the Christian congregation gather and disperse at the little church on the sandy hill. But they could not make the sevens count right. They seemed always landed in the last day before the sacred first day of the week.
“And there are no bells,” said Ethne meditatively. “Perhaps we are not in a Christian country after all.”
“There seem to be so many kinds of men and races and languages in the world,” replied Baithene; “and also,” he added, “so many kinds of Christians; it is very difficult to understand.”
At eventide there was another ceremonial, which seemed to close the day, as the lighting of the lamps had begun it.
The hostess took out of the chest another evidently sacred and cherished treasure, a perforated silver box of sweet, fragrant spices, which they smelt, and with this they perfumed the room. The sweet aromatic scent reached to where the captives were among the fruit-trees. After that the silver treasures are again carefully wrapped up and packed into the chest with the parchment manuscripts, folded in costly, gold-embroidered Oriental silks.
Then the hostess came and bade the youth and maiden inside, and prepared for them an abundant and tempting meal, such as it was long since they had tasted; and the host went out into the city.
Her manner became much more frank and cordial when she was alone with her guests. All day, whenever they were together, Ethne had noticed the soft, dark eyes following her with an intense expression of wistful inquiry; and when the old man came back and took Baithene out with him, the hostess laid her head on Ethne’s shoulder and burst into tears, sobbing out one name, “My Rachel! my Rachel!”
And so it came about, that between broken Latin and Irish, and the universal human speech of sorrow and pity, through eyes and tender touches (how neither of them could ever explain), the two women came to understand that one had lost a daughter as the other a mother, and that each had much need of the other, and both would try, in such measure as they could, to comfort one another.
The dog also understood and accepted the hostess as a clanswoman, and was ready to lavish on her more attentions of caressing tongue and paws than for some reason not comprehended by him or by Ethne she felt free to accept.
To Baithene’s surprise and pleasure, he found himself, as he followed his purchaser through the lanes and streets of the little Armorican seaport at the mouth of the Loire, frequently catching words and sounds familiar to him. The people were Celts, Bretons, and though their dialect differed from that of the O’Neills, he understood enough to know what they were talking about. In the course of the morning’s walk he was able to be of much use to his master by interpreting for him in the bargains which he was always endeavouring to make for skins, garments, gold and silver vessels and ornaments, or viands for the table, always apparently himself on the verge of bankruptcy, yet always contriving by some means to secure the best to be had.
Baithene did not enjoy this haggling, and not seldom threw in a word in aid of the seller, but nevertheless his pleasant face and frank good-humour assisted the old man, so that they became quite confidential and friendly.
In the course of these commercial arrangements which absorbed his companion, Baithene became gradually aware of a weight of terror and apprehension brooding like a thunder-cloud over the town.
“Let the old fellow have it for what he will,” one of the sellers grumbled, as he took the coin for a splendid purple-bordered mantle which must have belonged to some Roman of rank, “coin is easier to carry than raiment, and we are all on the march. Who knows how soon these savage Huns will be upon us!”
“At all events,” muttered another dressed like a peasant, “Roman purple will not be worth anything much longer here. It is better to be dashed about by these wild Huns, than to be ground down steadily under the heavy chariot-wheels of the Roman tax-gatherers. We, ‘the Bagaudæ,’[1] the mob, as the proud patricians call us, shall have our revenge at last.”
“What do you say?” replied an armed Goth, angrily. “Do you mean that the reports are true that the Bagaudæ, the rebel peasants, called in the Huns?”
“How do I know?” was the reply. “Eudoxius, the good Roman physician, certainly had pity on our wrongs, and went, it is said, to Attila’s camp. And Attila is here.”
“Here!” was the retort; “scarcely here yet, nor likely to be, if Aetius the great General, and Theodoric the Ostrogoth, make up their quarrel and fight the Huns.”
“I know little,” was the sullen answer; “but what does it matter to us? Whoever wins, in all the battles we are still the mob, to die and starve, and be driven and beaten. One thing, however,” he concluded, “we will not do; we will not fight for any of them.”
And the peasant turned away among his companions. But the merchant was deep in an especially keen bit of bargaining, so that Baithene had leisure to continue listening to what these Celtic peasants of his own race were saying to each other. And in all their talk two names were perpetually recurring, entirely new to him—“the Huns” and “Attila.” The Huns were spoken of as a fierce horde of savages, to whom all the other barbarians were as men to wild beasts; fierce heathen all of them, although more bent on plunder than on persecution; however, they had occasionally proved their heathenism by burning alive in a mass those who refused to worship their idols. Moreover, they were said to be ugly as monkeys, with small, deep-set, piercing eyes, wide mouths, and flattened snub noses; short of stature and hunch-backed; from infancy accustomed to be on horseback, till they became a kind of monstrous centaurs. In short, they were thought by many not to be men at all, not descended from Adam, or Odin, but from demons and witches. With no houses or homes, they were a nation of vagabonds, a horde of warriors, always travelling on horseback or in wagons, men, women, and children, making and building nothing, only ravaging and destroying. This was the multitude which was rushing like a sand-storm over all the land. And now this wild mob had been organized into a terrible machine of destruction in the hands of a king whose name was uttered in a terrified whisper, as if he could hear everywhere and see every one, as the name of a mighty demon, or dark god of the under-world: Attila, king of the Huns.
He had laid waste the Belgic land and Northern Gaul, ravaged the fertile fields into a desert, taken what food he needed for his hosts, and then destroyed the rest; taken what plunder he could from the cities, and then massacred the people and burned the towns to the ground. From Worms, Cologne, Trèves, Metz, Cambrai, Rheims, came the cry of ruin. The fugitives crowded all the old Roman roads, and hid in the forests. And now it was rumoured that he was sweeping on to their own river, the Loire, and threatening to destroy Orleans.
It became evident to Baithene that he and Ethne were not the only wronged and plundered creatures in the world. The whole world seemed a chaos, no one safe, no one at rest, none trusting or helping another.
When the merchant’s last bargain was accomplished, Baithene returned to Ethne with a heart full of wonder and horror, and yet with a kind of sustaining sense of being rather a soldier on a universal battle-field than a solitary fugitive, hunted homeless through a world of homes.
There was much to tell Ethne when they were once more alone together on their couches of heather and hay, in their own little sleeping-chamber.
“The heather is sweet,” said Ethne, always finding something pleasant to speak of. “It smells like our Ireland, like home.”
“There is no home,” sighed Baithene; “there are no homes in the world. It is all a desert, a ruin, a wreck.”
“Patrick’s people always told us we were only on a journey here on earth,” Ethne replied. “‘Pilgrims’ they called us; but that must mean that we are travelling to a temple, that there is a home somewhere.”
Baithene unfolded to her all his tidings of the miseries of the world; of the exacting Roman tax-gatherers; the oppressed rebel peasants; of Attila and the Huns. “And,” he concluded, “we are to be hunted about through it all as the slaves of an old miser, who would bargain for a crust with a starving beggar in a burning city.”
But Ethne had seen the world and the old man and woman from a very different point of view that day, and was full of pity and hope.
She must have found her Latin vocabulary more extensive than she thought, or the hostess must have had some secret stock of Celtic,—she had lived amongst well-nigh every tribe and kindred and nation, and there were Celts, she said, in Asia,—for by some means these two had come to a marvellous amount of comprehension of each other’s histories and characters.
“He is not only a miser, Baithene,” she replied, in refutation of his dark apprehensions, “he was of a princely house like our own, even more ancient it would almost seem, if that could be,” she added, with a loyal faith in her Irish pedigree; “for,” she concluded in a low voice, “I have found out who they are. You remember Patrick always called the sacred books ‘the Testaments of God.’ There are two Testaments of God. There is the Old, and there is the New, which has much better and more glorious things in it because it has the Christ. But these people belong to the Old, which is also from God, and has also certainly excellent things in it; it was this they were reading yesterday in the great roll with the black letters. I remember Patrick’s people told us that our Lord Christ Himself read wonderful things out of it, about healing the broken-hearted, and setting at liberty those that were bound. Perhaps, brother,” she exclaimed, with a sudden flash as of discovery, “it was that they were reading! Certainly my heart was rather broken, and she has been very healing to me. His name is Eleazar; her name is Mariam, or Miriam, like the very best name of all, the name of the Blessed Mother. Perhaps it is the very same,” and her voice lowered, “for they are indeed of a very ancient and honourable race; perhaps, if that were possible, more honourable as well as more ancient than our own. They are of the very nation and people of the Lord Christ Himself.”
“The people of the Lord Christ crucified Him!” replied Baithene, not easily able to believe much good of his bargaining host, “and one of them betrayed and sold Him.”
“Patrick said it was the Romans who crucified Him,” said Ethne.
“Perhaps,” he replied; “but His own people sold Him to the Romans, that they might crucify Him, which was baser still, and just what this Eleazar might have done—sold Him for thirty pieces of silver. I can fancy now how Judas counted them out, and rang them on the floor to be sure it was good money.”
“Ah, but, Baithene,” she said, “I know much more about Eleazar. He did not always love money best. They had one dear little girl; Miriam says I remind her of the child. Her eyes were dark, but she says, though mine are grey, they look at her with a look just like her Rachel’s. She was very young when she was taken from them, only twelve years old.”
“But what has that to do with Eleazar’s love of money?” asked Baithene. “If their only child is dead, what is the good of money to these two?”
“That is the point of the whole,” replied Ethne. “Rachel is not dead. That is to say, they are quite sure she is not dead, they have prayed so much for her, that they may meet her again on earth. And Miriam has had visions and dreams of seeing her, has felt the child’s kiss on her lips, and been waked by it more than once. There was a massacre of their people at some city far away in Asia, and Rachel was torn from them and sold into bondage, like ourselves, brother. And they are always travelling all over the world to try and find her. And they are quite sure they will one day, and it is this that makes Miriam so kind to captive maidens, especially to me.”
“But why, after all, does this make Eleazar so fond of money?” said Baithene.
“Oh, don’t you see? he is always heaping it up for his Rachel; that when they find her they may ransom her at any price, and give her dainties and clothes and jewels, and every good thing in the world, to make up to her for all she must have suffered.”
“Poor dear people!” said Baithene, touched to pity at last. “But what a dream and a delusion! how can they ever find her in this great wilderness of a world? or how would they know her if they did, after all these years, or she them? And, besides, what possible use could all this money be to her, or to any one in the midst of all this ruin, and wreck, and battle? The more possessions the more peril. If the Huns knew of all the treasure, they would be sure to torture Eleazar and Miriam till they gave it up, and then to kill them lest they should bargain any of it back again.”
“I know,” replied Ethne gravely, “and so does Miriam, but it would be cruel to undeceive the old man. This money-grubbing and money-heaping is his one link to life and love. It is country to him, and home, and child, and hope.”
Baithene sighed and smiled.
“Little sister,” he exclaimed tenderly, “I believe you would find an excuse for Judas and his thirty pieces of silver!”
She crossed herself.
“There is always the Blessed Lord’s excuse for every one,” she said; “they know not what they do. Perhaps even Judas did not quite.”
“Certainly this poor, mad Eleazar does not,” Baithene replied, with a kind of grim pity, “and you need not fear that I shall try to open his eyes, or to open any one’s eyes to his possessing the treasure.”
“It is hidden away very safely, Miriam says; not even she knows where. Most of it probably in Rome, or some safe place, away from the Huns, where we are going.”
“Is Rome safe from the Huns?” he said doubtfully.
“I do not know about the Huns,” she replied, “that is all so new. The Goths and the Celts seem to be leaving Rome alone just now.”
There was a pause. They were becoming sleepy. But before they settled to slumber Baithene said—
“Do they know anything of the other Testament of God? Do they believe in Christ our Lord?”
“I am afraid not,” she replied sorrowfully, “at all events not Eleazar. You see, it was the Christians who robbed him of his child.”
“But Miriam?” he asked.
“When I spoke to her of Him,” Ethne replied, “she said He seemed to have been very good, not like most Christians. She did even say hesitatingly and timidly, looking round as if she were afraid her husband might hear, that she sometimes wished their people could have understood how good He was, and what He was, in time; it might, she thought, have made everything different; but now it seemed too late for them.”
“It is never too late, in this life, at least. You remember Patrick says so in that letter we heard in the cave; not even for apostate Christians, he said; not even for Coroticus and those wicked pirates, who slew or kidnapped Patrick’s newly-baptized sons and daughters, and us among them.”
“Let us say the Lord’s Prayer together,” said Ethne, “and try to put Coroticus and Eleazar and their trespasses into it, with all the rest.”
They rose and knelt hand in hand, and prayed, and then lay down again and fell asleep.