L I B RARY 
 
 OF the: 
 
 U N I VERS ITY 
 
 Of ILLl NOIS 
 
 823 
 
 G87i 
 
 Vol- 
 
THE 
 
 INVASION. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 ''THE COLLEGIANS," &c. 
 
 One foot on sea, and one on shore, 
 
 To one thing constant never. Shakspeare. 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SOUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 
 183^. 
 

 B. HfiNSLKY, PRlNIfcR, ANDOVtR. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It would be dealing unjustly both by 
 reader and author to suffer the former 
 to take up these volumes under the 
 idea that he is about to peruse a histo- 
 rical novel. That branch of literature 
 has, within our own day, attained a 
 rank in which, we are sensible, the pre- 
 sent performance could not, for an in- 
 stant, maintain its ground. To the ab- 
 sorbing interest excited by deep pas- 
 sion, dramatic dialogue, and highly 
 wrought narrative, these volumes have 
 not a pretension. Their most ambi- 
 tious aim is that of presenting a correct 
 
 a 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 picture of the surface of society in part 
 of England, in Ireland, and in northern 
 Europe, at an obscure period of the 
 history of mankind ; and offering at 
 the same time a slight sketch of in- 
 dividual character in the two persons 
 whose story forms the connecting fea- 
 ture of the work. 
 
 The accuracy which we have en- 
 deavoured to use in the delineation of 
 manners could hardly be extended to 
 the necessary historical allusions, for 
 not only is the chronology of the pe- 
 riod exceedingly confused, but many 
 of the persons and events alluded to 
 are so much a subject of antiquarian 
 controversy, as to leave their very ex- 
 istence problematical. This remark 
 refers particularly to the scene of the 
 Roilich na Riogh, or the Sepulchre of 
 Kings, which, as the observant reader 
 
PREFACE, Vll 
 
 will immediately perceive, has been 
 introduced, not with the view of as- 
 suming the authenticity of those works 
 in which the reigns of the different 
 monarchs are recorded, but for the pur- 
 pose of presenting a general sketch of 
 the early progress of the isle in the 
 arts of war and peace. With respect 
 to the time embraced by the work 
 itself, we may aver, without fear of any 
 antiquary's censure, that there is no 
 historical event introduced into the 
 narrative which did not at least occur 
 within a few years of the period to 
 which it is referred ; and this, con- 
 sidering the remoteness of the time, 
 may be deemed sufficient for a work 
 of fiction. 
 
 There is another class of readers to 
 whom likewise some apology may be 
 due, for the absence of many venerable 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 attractions which they have been ac- 
 customed to meet in those works of ima- 
 gination whose authors have already 
 chosen to treat of the manners of the 
 middle ages : '' ces temps,'' says the ac- 
 complished Sismondi, ''que le plus grand 
 kistorien de nos jours a appeles les sie- 
 cles du merite ignored We allude to 
 that numerous body, the sum of whose 
 historical knowledge is derived from 
 the circulating library and the minor 
 theatre, and who will no doubt be sur- 
 prised to meet, perhaps for the first 
 time in a tale of the Carlovingian days, 
 a chieftain whose limbs do not clank at 
 every motion in a suit of Dr. Meyrick's 
 genuine antiques ; who seeks to im- 
 prove his people by the arts of peace, 
 and to strengthen their power by means 
 somewhat more reputable than those of 
 a Freney or O'Hanlon ; a convent which 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 does not in all points resemble an ec- 
 centric club, in which the public en- 
 trance is at least as much in request as 
 the postern gate, and in which there 
 is not even a hint of a subterranean 
 passage ; an abbot, whose contour is 
 somewhat less than civic ; monks who 
 are not at all times absorbed in the 
 joys of the larder and the wine-cel- 
 lar; hermits who have not all been 
 crossed in love before thev took the 
 vows, and nuns who do not invari- 
 ably listen to serenades at night, and 
 elope with young light-horsemen. To 
 such readers how will it excuse us 
 that, in venturing to dispense with 
 those long-established and inexhausti- 
 ble sources of mirth and wit, we have 
 endeavoured to substitute actual for fic- 
 titious manners, that from the form of a 
 government to the shape of a mantle, we 
 
 a 3 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 have sought to ground what we advance 
 upon authentic sources ; and that, in- 
 stead of presenting a romance of love, 
 of magic, of highway-robbery, or of 
 knight-errantry, we have endeavoured 
 to lay before the reader a tale of real 
 life of the middle ages ? a task perhaps 
 more arduous, as it is more new, than 
 a work of a purely imaginative cha- 
 racter. 
 
 To those who, like the mechanical 
 citizen in Zeluco, can only relish that 
 to which they are accustomed, the very 
 novelty, which many consider an at- 
 traction, may appear a disadvantage, 
 and that which is strange as neces- 
 sarily fictitious. It may thus happen, 
 that in sacrificing effect for the sake of 
 accuracy, we may lose credit even for 
 the humble merit which we claim. To 
 readers of this class we can only say. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 that from the really well-informed we 
 fear nothing ; from the ignorant every 
 thing. So far have we been from suf- 
 fering any national predilections to 
 influence the colouring of the scenes 
 we endeavour to depict, that, in defer- 
 ence to the prepossessions of such 
 readers, we have, generally speaking, 
 subdued them to a standard far below 
 the reality. Let such readers, there- 
 fore, before they undertake to censure, 
 examine, without prejudice, the exist- 
 ing records of those days, and they will 
 find that the truth is strange, stranger 
 than our fiction. 
 
 Thus much we have thought it neces- 
 sary to say, in order to provide against 
 the consequences of critical disappoint- 
 ment in a performance, the materials 
 of which have been collected with 
 no small care and pains, though it is 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 possible they have been used with 
 little force or skill. It was necessary, 
 in appearing at the bar of criticism, 
 that our plea should be correctly un- 
 derstood, lest we might happen to be 
 tried upon a charge which did not 
 enter into the indictment. The tale 
 offers little more, with regard to con- 
 trivance of plot or design, than the fic- 
 titious memoir of a native of England, 
 of Ireland, and of Sweden, during those 
 years which immediately preceded and 
 followed the death of Charlemagne, 
 whose fortunes, together with those of 
 other incidental characters, are involv- 
 ed in the historical event which forms 
 the catastrophe of the work, and from 
 which the tale derives its name. With 
 respect to the event itself, some En- 
 glish chronicles mention a northern 
 chief, named Gurmund, who landed on 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 the Irish coasts, long ere the success- 
 ful invasion of that isle by the Norwe- 
 gian Thorgils ; the Irish annalists like- 
 wise record an invasion previous to 
 that of the Norwegian, on the western 
 coasts of Munster, which was repelled 
 by the promptitude of Air tree, the 
 monarch of Leath Mogha. This un- 
 successful invasion constitutes the event 
 on which the tale is founded, and find- 
 ing no record of the name of its con- 
 ductor, we have used that of Gurmund, 
 leaving the authenticity of those por- 
 tions of the English chronicles, in which 
 his story is related, to the discussion of 
 antiquaries. Some of the characters, 
 such as Duach, Eogan Bel, Ferreis, 
 Yrling, Ailred and his household, &c., 
 are intended slightly to illustrate, in the 
 bud, those national peculiarities which 
 have since become more strikingly de- 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 veloped ; while others, touched with a 
 still lipjhter pencil, bear a more general 
 relation to human nature. 
 
 And now, gentle critic, whether 
 borne in the state carriage of a solemn 
 quarterly, figuring in the elegant pages 
 of a monthly magazine, or in the lighter 
 columns of a weekly journal, we com- 
 mit our volumes to your inspection with 
 one parting charge ; be just, but be 
 candid. Do not, either from indolence 
 or prejudice, decry what has been con- 
 structed with care and study, and re- 
 member that what is uninteresting to 
 one class of readers, may be useful to 
 another. If it appears to you, that we 
 pause too lonp; on questions of law and 
 government, remember that there are 
 Irish readers who may not regret to 
 tind embodied, in a work of imagina- 
 tion, a synopsis of the early constitu- 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 tion, and of the moral history of their 
 native land, and who may regard with 
 an interest more permanent, if not more 
 exciting, than that which addresses 
 itself to the passions, an attempt at 
 tracing, to their remotest origin, some 
 of the influences which have concurred 
 in the formation of the national cha- 
 racter. 
 
THE INVASION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In the reign of Niall Frassach, king of Ireland, 
 the second Ard-righ of that name, and of the 
 Heremonian line, there stood on the shores of 
 Inbhersceine,* not far from the beautiful inlet of 
 Glengariff, the dwelling of O'Haedha, the chief 
 of that Ithian race. He had been contracted 
 early in life to Matha, elder daughter of O'Driscol, 
 
 * Bantry-bay. 
 VOL. 1. B 
 
C THE INVASION. 
 
 the Canfinny, or head of the sept so named, which 
 was another branch of the same Milesian stock. 
 The sun of a summer day had risen over the 
 summit of Sliabh Owen, and the first breeze of 
 morning had brushed the surface of the bay, when 
 almost all the population of the sept of O'Haedha 
 had assembled in the valley of Rath-Aidan. By 
 the gay and eager faces of the multitude, and the 
 frequent jests that passed from lip to lip, it 
 might be judged that the occasion was a festive 
 one. The gates of the Rath stood open, and 
 were guarded by two lines of armed galloglachs, 
 who restrained the crowd, and kept an open 
 .space clear, as if for some expected cavalcade. 
 The sound of the piobh mala, a kind of drone- 
 kss pipe, somewhat resembling the national in- 
 strument of the Scottish highlands, the fuller tone 
 of the ndharcaidh ciuil, or musical horn, and other 
 wind instruments, were heard from various recesses 
 
THE INVASION. 3 
 
 of the valley, and every sight and sound betokened 
 the commencement of some splendid pageant. 
 
 • At length, the long, loud note of a single goU- 
 trompa from the Rath, produced an instant still- 
 ness through the multitude. It was succeeded 
 by a sudden shout so stunning and so universal, 
 that the sea-fowl wheeled and screamed in 
 startled flocks along the shore, and the echo mut- 
 tered like thunder among the distant peaks of 
 Sliabh Miskisk. All eyes were instantly turned 
 on the open gateway. The double line of the 
 course which the procession was expected to 
 take, seemed as if walled on either side, with 
 heads and necks stretched out, with gaping faces, 
 and with staring eyes. Some ran in groups to the 
 summits of surrounding eminences ; some scram- 
 bled to the roofs of the scattered shielings^ and 
 peillices^ of the valley ; and mothers were seen 
 
 * Cottages. t Sheds. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE INVASION. 
 
 lioWinp their infants high above their heads, that 
 the babes might look upon their chieftain, and 
 iM-hoId the spectacle from \>hich they were them- 
 selves shut out. 
 
 After a brief inter\al, the expected procession 
 was seen to issue from the gateway, and was 
 hailed with shouts more loud and stunning than 
 before. First came a troop of fifty marc-sliagh, 
 or ctvalry, headed by the Fear Conihlan Cao- 
 puid, or lieutenant, and the standard-bearer, hold- 
 ing aloft the banner of the sept. Their shining 
 rathbhars and brazen headed spears reflected in 
 lonj; and brilliant fleams the ravs of the arising 
 -ini. Next came a carbudh, highly adorned, and 
 drawn by a pair of the high-spirited Asturcones, 
 a nnti\f» breed, remarkable for fleetness in the 
 chav and ardour iu the combat. The reins were 
 held by O'Hardha (so named by way of em- 
 phaMH), >0io sal alone in the chariot, in the bloom 
 
THE INVASION. O 
 
 of manly beauty, and in all the magnificence of 
 festal costume. The young chieftain wore on 
 his head a barrad, or bonnet, edged with a band 
 of gold, from under which his hair flowed over 
 his neck and shoulders in abundant ringlets. The 
 close-fitting truis, a kind of plaided hose, dis- 
 played the symmetry of his well-shaped limbs ; 
 and a cochal, or short cloak, of a rich green co- 
 lour, was bound upon his breast with a golden 
 brooch. Beside him was an empty seat, ere 
 long to be occupied by the chosen lady of the 
 sept. The remembrance of his ancient lineage, 
 the actions of his ancestry, and his own manly 
 virtues, enkindled the enthusiasm of his people, 
 when they saw him leave his dwelling on this fes- 
 tive occasion, and the shouts of " O'Haedha ! 
 O'Haedha a-bo \" arose like the roar of a tem- 
 pestuous ocean from the vale. The chieftain 
 smiled, and waved his hand in answer to the stormy 
 
THK INVASION. 
 
 greeting:, and moved slowly on, like the command- 
 ing genius of the tumult, while his horses reared 
 ibeir heads, and shook the plumes in the golden 
 headstalU of their bridles, as if they shared the 
 general exultation. 
 
 Hchind the chief rode one who did not meet 
 ihe same devoted welcome from his assembled 
 Lin«»nini. It was Baseg, the brother of the ciiief, 
 and thauist, or lejjal heir to his title and power, 
 though not to his possessions. He was a man of 
 large person, but pale and ill-featured, and with 
 a discontented cast of eye that almost bordered 
 t»n melancholy. His dwelling was in a lonely 
 hold near the foot of Gormadark ; but Conall, 
 ilw* chieftain, who loved him both on account of 
 the nntunil bond, and for his dauntless valour in 
 the 6eld, prevailed on him to take apartments in 
 the Hath, which he was now, however, deter- 
 inmrd to resijfu. 
 
THE INVASION. 7 
 
 Next came, on horseback, with a face of deep 
 solemnity and wisdom, Fighnin, the hereditary 
 physician of the tribe, a man of middle age, fol- 
 lowed by three daltadhs, or pupils, each of whom 
 strove to emulate with all his might the grave 
 and potent aspect of his master. They were fol- 
 lowed by the brehoun, or lawyer of the sept, a 
 man proficient in all the laws of life and property, 
 megbote, manbote, and fredun, thanistry, gavel- 
 kind, musterowne, south, assaut, bode, garty, 
 cean, byenge, slanciagh, shragh, and a thousand 
 other details of the ancient code of Inisfail. 
 Beside him rode Fearchorb, the senachie, a 
 man of powerful memory, who could trace the 
 genealogy of the sept, in all its numerous branches, 
 not only up to Ith, their great Milesian ancestor, 
 but from him, in the clearest manner, to Adam, 
 the father of the human race. Next came, with 
 pleasant countenance and quiet, observing eye. 
 
g THE INVASION. 
 
 the dresbdcartacli, or stor>'- teller, rich in legends 
 of Coiicullioii and the race of Irish giants, fairies, 
 and the Tionn Eirin, the heroes of Irish chivalry 
 •nd romance. He was followed by Conla, the 
 filca, or poet, whose duty it was to attend his chief- 
 tain at the festival, on the march, and even in the 
 field of battle ; to cheer him at evening with songs 
 in praise of his ancestry ; to animate him in the 
 combat by recalling their achievements in his 
 fene ; and to sing the caoine, or death song, at 
 his burial. None was more profoundly skilled than 
 Conia in the hundred modes of verse invented by 
 llic IriJkh bards, or deeper in the mysteries of the 
 Viraiceacht ua yeaigioSf or rules for the poet, in- 
 wnlcd by tlie bard Forchern. Beside the son of 
 •ong, and dressed like him in a canabhas, or robe of 
 ysUiiv, rode llie crolarie, whose clarsech, or harp, 
 sujpcudcd from his neck in trout, gave indication of 
 bis popular callmg. 1 Vw merited better than old 
 
THE INVASION. y 
 
 Diermodh and his companion the praise which was 
 already given to Irish minstrelsy, nor can we deny 
 the isle its tuneful eminence, when we remember 
 that, even earlier than Conla's day, the royal bene- 
 factress of the abbey of Neville in France, supplied 
 its choir from those of Inisfail ; that its poetry 
 captivated the fancy of a Spenser ; and its music 
 drew eloquent applause from the prejudiced lips of 
 
 a Cambrensis. The minstrels were followed by a 
 few tiarnas, or subordinate governors of townships 
 under the chieftain, and the tioseachs, or leaders 
 of his military force. The procession was closed 
 by a troop of fifty hobbelers, or light horse, whose 
 weapons were the brazen-headed javelin, a small 
 bow, not more than three quarters of a yard in 
 length, bent with a hempen string, and a quiver 
 of arrows with heads as slender and almost as 
 sharp as a lancet. By every horseman ran a 
 daltin, dressed in a saffron cota, and armed with 
 
 B 5 
 
10 TIIK INVASION. 
 
 a dart ; tlieir duty it was to attend to the com- 
 forts of the animal, and, at times, to join the 
 romhat. 
 
 Having left the vaUey amid the prolonged 
 and reiterated shouts of the united sept, the gay 
 prooenion directed its course southwards, and 
 urriveti ere noon on the shores of the little pro- 
 montory of Affadown. The isles of Sperkin and 
 Inis.Driscol lay on either hand, their woody 
 <ihorc«» rrflortrd in the tranquil waters, and farther 
 out at St a appeared the sunlit hills of Cleir, 
 where stood the principal dwelling of O'Driscol. 
 A horseman, stniichnir on the shore, blew a long 
 Ma««t nt thr connnand of his chieftain on the trom- 
 pa : it was echoed far along the shore and over 
 the calm mean, which soon was covered at a 
 distance by a fleet of currachs, coities, noevogs, 
 ;«nd ihoHe Mnnil floating cribs invented by Eochaidh 
 tarchca^, for the purpose of landing his troops 
 
THE INVASION. 11 
 
 on stormy and rock-bound coasts. They were 
 manned by hardy fishermen of the sept of O'Dris- 
 col, gaily dressed for the occasion, and dipping 
 their oars to the sound of the pipe, the corn-bean, 
 and the fideog. In the foremost of these festal 
 barges, O'Haedha recognized the figure of 
 O'Driscol Oge, the warlike and accomplished 
 son of the old Canfinny. He sprung on shore 
 almost at the same instant that O'Haedha alighted 
 from his carbudh, and they met with cor- 
 dial and delighted looks. O'Driscol Oge, or, as 
 he was more generally named from an unusual 
 length of arm, Sior-lamh, after rallying the 
 bridegroom on the paleness of his countenance, 
 admitted that he showed more ardour in his 
 movements than his aspect, for none of the 
 expected guests had yet arrived in the island. 
 Before he entered the little barge, O'Haedha 
 handed to the lieutenants a pouch of silver scru- 
 
12 THE INVASION. 
 
 bals (a small coin of the island) to distribute 
 amongst the men, with orders to take back the 
 chariot and the horses of the bridal party, and to 
 celebrate the nuptials at Rath-Aidan with the 
 great body of the sept. 
 
 They put off from shore, and were received 
 with open welcome at the gates of Cleir by the 
 venerable Canfinny and his white-haired spouse, 
 who were arrayed in such attire as became their 
 rank, their years, and the occasion. The chief- 
 tain wore around his neck the golden Jieasgy or 
 torques, which announced his claim to the title of 
 Ridaire, or knight. It was an ornament similar 
 to that used by the Gaulish equites of the period, 
 and which obtained for Manlius Torquatus his 
 memorable agnomen. The aged lady of the 
 sept wore on her head a kind of turban of the 
 finest linen, from which her long white hair hung 
 down in plaited wreaths, and her person, tall and 
 
THE INVASION. 13 
 
 Stately, notwithstanding her great age, had an air 
 of dignity, the effect of high descent, and of ha- 
 bitual command, such as we might imagine of 
 Volumnia. Around this venerable pair stood a 
 crowd of blooming children from the age of six- 
 teen to eight, of both sexes, and all partaking of 
 that princely air which sat so easy on the aged 
 parents, and which was unmingled with the slight- 
 est taint of pride. The elder sisters were yet 
 retired with Matha, the bride, in an inner apart- 
 ment, to which O'Haedha was conducted by her 
 brother soon after his arrival. 
 
 In the course of the day the shores of the 
 islet were crowded by the other leading members 
 of the various Ithian septs. O'Baire, O'Ciaran, 
 Mac Crothan, O'Breogan, OTlanarda, O'Ker- 
 wic, O'Deada, Mac Craith, O'Kowig, O'Leary, 
 O'Ceily, and other chiefs of the race, displayed 
 their banners in honour of the occasion, from the 
 
J4 THE INVASION. 
 
 earthen ramparts of the Canfinny^s hold. To 
 these, in friendly alliance, were added the dreaded 
 banners of the race of the unhappy Eogan, whose 
 descendants ruled that portion of Dheas Muim- 
 hean * which was not in the possession of the 
 Ithians. Mac Carthy More, O'Sullivan of the 
 Glens, O'Donoghue, the lord of fair Loch Lene,t 
 O'Connel, O'Mahonie, Mac AulifFe, and other 
 
 Eoganacht chiefs, too numerous to name. From 
 far and near, great princes and nobility were 
 met to honour the espousals, and (according to 
 a custom then prevalent in Ireland, as it was 
 amongst the Franks and Germans) to make their 
 splendid offerings to the bride. 
 
 The ceremony was performed by the bishop 
 of Ross Ailithri,f himself an Ithian, and one of 
 the twelve suffragan dignitaries under the see of 
 
 * South Munster, aftervcr.ls De-;mouJ. 
 t Killaruey. ; Kcss. 
 
THE INVASION. 15 
 
 Caisil."*^ The bride, having received the mar- 
 riage dowry from her husband, vi^as with grief 
 resigned to his care by the good Canfinny. 
 
 *' I part with thee," he said, " as with a score 
 of the years yet left me. May you be long lived, 
 happy, and prosperous. May your hall be ever 
 full, and your cairn be like a mountain when you 
 die." 
 
 The guests soon after came forward with 
 their offerings. The chieftain of the Glens pre- 
 sented to the bride a cross of emeralds, a pair of 
 topaz armlets, a mantle of the richest crimson 
 dye that the moss of Dheas Muimhean could 
 furnish, and bound at the shoulder by an ame- 
 thyst set in gold. O'Donoghue added to these 
 a ring set with one of the finest pearls that had 
 been ever found in the waters of Lough Lene,-!* 
 and bracelets adorned with the glittering chrys- 
 
 * Ca^hel. tKillarney. 
 
l6 THE INVASION. 
 
 tals of Ciar."*^ The chieftain of the Reeks made 
 his offering of a pair of buskins of the red deer 
 hide, together with four milk-white hobbies, reared 
 in the steep recesses of the Coom Collee ; and 
 other guests contributed their portions of the 
 marriage dowry according to their wealth and 
 inclination. 
 
 Seated in rings through the extensive building, 
 on beds of rushes, the company of higher rank 
 partook of the festive fare that w as prepared for 
 their refreshment. Before them were placed a 
 number of three-legged tables, covered with food 
 of various kinds, bread baked on a griddle, milk- 
 meats in sundry forms, the many species offish and 
 flesh which the coasts, the hills, and woods of 
 Dairinne could afford, among which might be 
 mentioned as the most delicious, the smelt, the 
 gourder, and the cock of the wood. Attendants, 
 
 • Kerry. 
 
THE INVASION. 17 
 
 ill the meantime, handed round beverages of va- 
 rious kinds in vessels more or less costly, accord- 
 ing to the quality of the guests. While the Can- 
 finny drank his wine in a cup of gold or silver, 
 the lesser chieftain was content to receive his 
 curmi, a kind of ale, in a vessel of horn or brass. 
 The miodh, a drink resembling the English mead, 
 and the mil-tion, a simple beverage of diluted 
 honey, was circulated among the kernes and gal- 
 loglachs in cups of ash or sycamore. 
 
 The harp, the song, the dance, gave anima- 
 tion to the scene of pleasure. The sun had sunk 
 beyond the western ocean, and rushen torches of 
 prodigious size supplied the absence of his light. 
 The youths and maidens of the surrounding septs 
 glided gracefully through all the tortuous mazes 
 of the national dance, the venerable rinceadh 
 fadha. The crotaries, in a corner of the spa- 
 cious building, delighted the assembly by a har- 
 
18 THE INVASION. 
 
 monious concert of instruments, of which the 
 names alone have reached the ears of their de- 
 scendants. The mighty clarsech resounded be- 
 neath the shrivelled but nimble fingers of a grey- 
 haired minstrel ; the crotalum, a little bell of silver, 
 tingled in the hand of a fair-faced boy ; the warb- 
 ling cruit, an instrument between the harp and 
 lute, poured forth its sweet but shrilly symphony ; 
 the many-stringed kiernine gave echo to the flying 
 fingers of a white-robed musician ; the golden 
 crotalin, or cymbal, flew gleaming with a noisy 
 
 melody around the head and person of a youthful 
 bard ; here rolled the tiompan, or kettle-drum, 
 there rose the tenor of the cionan, or ten-stringed 
 violin, while the deep-toned murmur of the cream- 
 thine added its harmonious bass to the merry mea- 
 sure of the gea?itraighe, the festive mode which 
 the minstrels had selected for the bridal eve. 
 
 On the green without the building the kernes 
 
THE INVASION. 19 
 
 and galloglachs, the neighbouring fuidirs, or cot- 
 tagers, and other guests, old and young, of both 
 sexes, and of humbler rank, pursued their mirth 
 with greater freedom, though with lesser splendour, 
 and danced as merrily, though to the sound of 
 coarser minstrelsy. The rising moon gave light 
 to their festivity, and the chorus of wind instru- 
 ments (the horror of the fine-eared crotaries and 
 educated harpers) inspired their vigorous move- 
 ments. The wild stuic sent its blast over the 
 tranquil waters ; the winding adharcaidh ciuil, a 
 kind of hautboy, awoke the echoes of the shore ; 
 the shrill piob-mala, or droneless bagpipe, con- 
 tributed its monotonous treble ; the dudog, the 
 lonloingean, the adharc, the cuisleigh ciuil, the 
 fideog, the corn-bean, and other instruments of 
 wind music, some played with the readan, or 
 mouth-piece, and some without, all joined in 
 loud and mirthful chorus, resounding far away 
 
£0 THE INVASION. 
 
 among the hills and through the breathless 
 woods. 
 
 Late at night, when the dancers made a pause, 
 the aged ard-filea, or chief bard of the sept of 
 O'Driscol, was invited to fill up the interval in 
 the evening's pleasures. Taking a sweet-toned 
 cruit, the principal crotarie prepared to accom- 
 pany him in his song. The bard chose for his 
 subject the ancient achievements of the stock from 
 which they were descended. He sang of the 
 invasion of Ith, and of the unhappy fate of that 
 adventurer ; of the treacherous hospitality of the 
 three sons of Cearmada ; of the fearful retaliation 
 of his Galician brethren ; and of the subsequent 
 achievements of the sons of the murdered Milesian. 
 He then changed the style of his eulogy, and in 
 
 a voice and language of the most expressive sweet- 
 ness, described the recent progress of the isle in 
 the arts of peace, of science, and of industry. 
 
THE INVASION. 21 
 
 The fame, he said, of the chiefs of Inisfail, in 
 order to be immortal, no longer needed to be en- 
 rolled in characters of blood ; virtue, and not 
 power, had become the object of their emulation. 
 Their glory not diminished, their honour still un- 
 stained, the spirit of arms not quenched but puri- 
 fied in its motive, they had begun to prefer inde- 
 pendence to dominion, and charity to discord. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 There was a chieftain present who did not join 
 in the praises that were bestowed on the song of 
 the filea, nor in the gifts which he received from 
 the assembled chiefs. It had also been observed 
 that he did not kneel with the guests during the 
 short prayer which they offered up immediately 
 after the conclusion of the marriage ceremony, 
 nor add his voice to the general response at its 
 termination. To those who enquired into the 
 cause of this singularity it was intimated that the 
 stranger was' neither an Eoganacht nor Ithian, 
 
THE INVASION. 23 
 
 but the chieftain of the Hooded People, a Druid 
 race, so named from a singular costume adopted 
 from their brethren of Conacht, who still pre- 
 served, among the mountains in the interior of the 
 country, their ancient rites and customs, and that 
 he acted both as their civil governor and Ard- 
 Draithe, or chief Druid. This was a sufficient 
 explanation of what would otherwise have excited 
 high and indignant feelings ; but O'Haedha, the 
 groom, who was naturally warm-tempered, did 
 not esteem it a good reason for the shght thus 
 offered to O'Driscol's bard. 
 
 ** The Ard-Draithe," said he, '^ does not 
 deem the filea's song worth his praise. He has 
 better harping in the Coom na Druid." 
 
 '' The voice is good, and the harping too,'* 
 replied the Druid chief. " The Christain boasts 
 a little ; that is all." 
 
 O'Haedha unfortunately afforded a proof that 
 
24 THE INVASION. 
 
 the Ard-Draithe's words were just. He entered into 
 an altercation with the latter, wliich, but for the 
 interposition of the bishop of Ross Ailithri, and 
 the Canfinny himself, would have ended, even on 
 the spot, in mortal combat. As it was, high taunts 
 were uttered, and high menaces exchanged, and 
 the wrath of the Druid was inflamed to the high- 
 est by a stinging allusion made by O'Haedha to the 
 descent of the former from Cinsellach of the 
 Shameful Head, a warrior who had dishonoured 
 his name and arms by killing a bard on the field 
 of battle. 
 
 *' Thy people," said the Ard-Draithe, '^ will 
 never be content. They have driven us from 
 Tamrach ; they have driven us from Cruachan ; 
 and they envy us our lonely retreat among the 
 hills. Our power is gone, and they would take 
 our name and fame along with it. But let them 
 look to it. If the fire of Bel no longer burn upon 
 
THE INVASION. 25 
 
 the altars of Tlachta, it is still unquenched ; and 
 the time may come when the votaries of bright 
 Samhuin may worship by her light once more 
 within the groves of Uisneach. The chiefs whose 
 praise the bard has sung so well were Ithians, it 
 is true, but they were fire adorers too, and would 
 have blushed to share the sluggish praise of their 
 posterity. But fare thee well, proud chieftain, 
 thou hast taunted me with the blemish of my 
 blood. See that the current of thine own flows 
 undisturbed." 
 
 He departed from the festival, not heeding, or 
 not hearing, an attempt at explanation made by 
 the hasty bridegroom. The unpleasant interrup- 
 tion to the festivities of the evening w as soon for- 
 gotten, and the bridal concluded, as it had begun, 
 in mirth and in good will. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Early on a misty morning, in the following 
 month, the herdsman of O'Driscol was seen with 
 his assistants driving home the calp-an-sprey or 
 marriage cattle, the only dowry which the bride 
 was in any case expected to bring to her husband. 
 They were followed, at no long interval, by the 
 new-married chieftain and his spouse, attended 
 by the united splendour of either sept. Months 
 rolled away in peace and happiness, as perfect, 
 perhaps, as earth can offer to the most blest of 
 
THE INVASION. 27 
 
 Its inhabitants. It was interrupted before the 
 year had ended by a sudden and a fearful acci- 
 dent. 
 
 O'Haedha was seated in front of his dwelling, 
 receiving the tributes of the various holders of his 
 territory in money and in kind. A tiarna, or ruler of 
 a township, handed in his yearly bag of silver bons.* 
 A frank-tenant paid his quarterly sorohen, or sol- 
 dier tax, in quirreens of butter, and in scrones of 
 oatmeal. One carried on his back a cronnog, or 
 hamper lined with sheepskin, in which was con- 
 tained the grain of seven score sheaves of wheat, 
 and a woman followed, bearing on her head a 
 
 meadar, a four-cornered pitcher, hollowed from 
 the trunk of a single sycamore, and containing 
 several gallons of tributary ale, or curmi. 
 
 Suddenly the sound of the buabhal, an 
 alarum trumpet of prodigious size, from a neigh- 
 
 * Groats. 
 C 2 
 
28 THE INVASION. 
 
 bouring eminence aroused the chieftain from his 
 tranquil occupation. He looked up, and beheld 
 a horseman galloping towards the Rath, to let 
 him know that hostile spears were seen upon the 
 border, and that the smoke of one or two shiel- 
 ings already arose into the air. Snatching his 
 spear, his shield, and his cathbhar, or hehiiet, and 
 bidding the people of the Rath not to alarm his 
 wife, the chieftain vaulted on his steed, and gal- 
 loped away in the direction of the invaders, with 
 such bodies of horse and foot as, summoned by 
 the blast of the buabhal, either joined or over- 
 took him on the way. 
 
 Notwithstanding his caution, young Matha 
 heard the din, and came forth upon the ram- 
 parts. While she sat, in emotion strongly con- 
 trolled, awaiting the return of her lord, and 
 listening with a throbbing heart to the distant 
 sounds of conflict, a horseman well accoutre.-^. 
 
THE INVASION. '29 
 
 but looking pale and anxious, appeared at the 
 entrance of the Rath, and seemed to enquire 
 into the causes of the tumult. Matha started on 
 beholding him. 
 
 *' Haste, Baseg, haste ! " she said, waving 
 her hand with a gesture of eager exhortation. 
 ''They are on the borders, andO'Haedha is already 
 in the strife. To the hills, brave Baseg, and as- 
 sist thy kinsman ! " 
 
 The thanist, for it was the same of whom 
 we have already spoken, gave the rein to his 
 horse, and was quickly out of sight. Some time 
 passed away, and a daltin came running back to 
 say that the hostile party were a band of the 
 Hooded People of the Hills, the Druid sept over 
 which the chief presided whom Conall had 
 offended at the feast. A second came to say 
 that they were routed. A third, to tell that 
 Baseg and the Chief, out-stripping all their men, 
 
50 THE INVASION. 
 
 pursued the Druid leader through the Glen of 
 Oaks. There was now a long interval of keen 
 suspense and of anxiety. The next messenger 
 appeared with grief and wild dismay upon his 
 countenance. The chieftain of Rath Aidan had 
 perished. Returning from the pursuit which the 
 fugitives, better skilled in the intricacies of the 
 mountain pass, had rendered fruitless, he had re- 
 ceived a blow on the head from the brazen ball 
 of a kran-tabal, or sling which occasioned instant 
 death ; and, in a few seconds afterwards, the 
 hostile Ard-Draithe was seen turning at full 
 speed a jutting crag at some distance, and shak- 
 ing his hand in defiance at the Itliian group 
 who were employed in assisting their fallen 
 leader. The effect of this disastrous stroke, the 
 first that had disturbed their married life, upon the 
 mind of Matha, was as forcible as it was sudden. 
 She was conveyed in a state of unconsciousness 
 
THE INVASION. ST 
 
 to her apartment, and became in the same day a 
 widow and a mother. 
 
 Baseg, the thanist, who had been pursuing 
 the foe in another direction, and was not with his 
 brother when he fell, overtook the mourning 
 group as they bore his lifeless body toward the 
 Rath, upon their wicker shields. The thanist, 
 though brave in action, was not popular in his 
 sept. He was, however, now the eldest chief of the 
 immediate family of his name, and consequently 
 the legal inheritor of the title and power of the 
 perished Conall, even to the exclusion of the 
 new-born heir to his possessions. The sept, 
 however, did not receive his claim without mur- 
 muring. They remembered that, impatient of 
 his expectant, and in some degree dependent, con- 
 dition, Baseg had been detected more than once in 
 the practise of contrivances against his kinsman's 
 life, and it was generally suspected that he did not 
 
32 THE INVASION. 
 
 regret the chance which removed from his way 
 an obstacle which he could not himself sur- 
 mount. It was true, that Conall with a na- 
 tional mixture of apathy and affection, not only 
 could not be prevailed on at any time to put 
 justice in force against his kinsman, but did 
 not even turn his experience to advantage by 
 taking the slightest precautions for his own 
 security. 
 
 Matha, who had heard nothing of these ru- 
 mours during the life-time of her husband, was 
 horror-struck when first they reached her ear. 
 Alarmed at the dissensions by which the people 
 were distracted, she proposed, however, with an 
 acuteness which was at once acknowledged, that 
 Baseg should for his former attempts upon his 
 kinsman's life, deliver himself up to the legal 
 justice of his country. If he were acquitted, 
 iiis claim would be without objection ; if other- 
 
THE INVASION. 3:> 
 
 wise, the succession would pass in its lineal 
 course to the infant Elim. 
 
 Baseg refused his assent to these conditions, 
 and the sept rejected his demands to be consi- 
 dered as their chief. He complained in bitter 
 terms of the injustice; but, after an ineffectual 
 attempt to enforce his wishes, was obliged to fly 
 the territory, and even lost his own small holding 
 on the lands. To these deep injuries was added, 
 it was said, the recollection of a disappointment of 
 another kind, for Conall, many secretly believed, 
 had been, unknowingly, the successful rival of the 
 thanist in his suit to Matlia. To the astonish- 
 ment of all, the exiled Baseg turned his steps in 
 the direction of the sept of the Ard-Draithe, the 
 reputed slayer of his kinsman, by whom he was 
 received, in their secluded mountain hold, with 
 ready welcome. Resentment it was hardly 
 thought could carry any one so far ; and it was 
 
 c 5 
 
S4 THE INVASION. 
 
 now asserted nith confidence that the slayer of 
 the departed chieftain must have acted under the 
 connivance, at least, if not the instigation, of the 
 thanist. The latter, meanwhile, remained 
 amongst his hooded friends, and, by his untiring 
 instances, so far prevailed on their chief (whose 
 native prejudices and love of quarrel were then 
 inflamed by the recent apostacy of a brother;, 
 tliat he undertook the task of re-instatins: him bv 
 force of arms in what he represented as his right- 
 ful inheritance. To confirm the mountaineers in 
 his interest, Baseg studied their habits, familia- 
 rized himself with their manners, and publicly 
 adopted their belief. The efforts of these new 
 allies, however, were not more successful than 
 his own had been. The Hooded People were 
 discomfited with dreadful loss, and, without 
 serving Baseg, brought infinite calamities on 
 themselves. They were in the end oblis^ed to 
 
THE INVASION. 35 
 
 purchase peace, by excluding the obnoxious 
 Ithian from their dominions, a step to which they 
 compelled their chieftain to accede. Forsaken 
 by his new allies as well as by his former friends, 
 the miserable Baseg soon after disappeared from 
 the neighbourhood of either sept, after declaring 
 his determination to be avenged of the unjust 
 usurpers of his inheritance, and was at lengtli 
 forgotten on his native soil. The Ard-Draithe, 
 likewise, struck with remorse for the miseries 
 which this unhappy contest had brought upon 
 his people, abated something of his zeal for arms, 
 and gave himself to habits of greater tranquillity. 
 The prudence and firmness of Matha, assisted by 
 the experience of O'Driscol, succeeded in pre- 
 serving the fidelity of the sept to her son Elim, 
 and afterwards in maintaining its subordination, 
 and even its warlike character. 
 
S6 THE INVASION. 
 
 Such were the stormy circumstances that 
 preceded and ushered in the birih of the young 
 Ithian chief, the hero of our tale. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Soon after the re -establishment of peace, a 
 day was appointed for conferring on the infant 
 O^Haedha the name which he afterwards dis- 
 tinguished by his virtues. Matha only waited 
 the return of health to convey the child to Ross 
 Ailithri, near the southern coast, where Fachan, 
 a few centuries before, had founded an academy, 
 ere long to be the centre^ of a flourishing town. 
 
 Before noon on the appointed day, the towns- 
 men were surprized by an unusual spectacle. At 
 
38 THE INVASION. 
 
 the northern gate appeared a party of marc- 
 sliadh, preceding a carbudh drawn by a pair of 
 milkwhite hobbies, which were led by two fleet- 
 footed daltins, and in which sat Matha dressed in 
 a cloak of crimson bound with a golden fibula 
 upon her bosom, while the infant chieftain rested 
 in her arms. Her hair was no longer tied up, as 
 at her bridal, with azure fillets, and fastened on 
 the crown with a golden bodkin, but hung plaited, 
 in matron fashion, from beneath the snowy folds 
 of a turbaned head-dress. Her sister, Melcha, 
 veiled in the manner of unwedded females, oc- 
 cupied the seat beside her. The venerable 
 O'Driscol and his spouse came after in a second 
 carbudh, and the Sior-Lamh brought up the rear 
 on horseback with a body of the well-accoutred 
 hobbelers of Dairinne.* 
 
 O'Driscol and his venerable helpmate had 
 * Carbery. 
 
THE INVASION*. 3® 
 
 both declined the office of answering for the 
 )oung Ithian at the baptismal font. The circle 
 of life, they said, for them was almost closed, nor 
 was it likely they should live to execute the 
 duties to which they would be pledged by such a 
 ceremony. The dignity of sponsors was there- 
 fore transferred to the Sior Lamh and to his sister 
 Melcha. Holding the infant in their arms before 
 the marble font, they answered for the child that 
 he would lead a virtuous life, and made them- 
 selves responsible for his fidelity to the contract, 
 so far as their exertions could avail. The cere- 
 mony ended, young Elim was placed once more 
 in the arms of Matha, and the party prepared to 
 return to Inbhersceine in the same order in which 
 it came. 
 
 While Matha prepared to re-ascend the car- 
 budh, a Danaan ceanuighe, or merchant, who had 
 long paid tribute to her father, approached, and 
 
40 THE INVASION. 
 
 found an opportunity of letting her know that 
 Baseg lingered still among the sea-ports of 
 Dairinne, and that he had been heard to intimate 
 a determination to make some attempt upon the 
 person of the child. Matha, who well knew the 
 ferocious obstinacy of his disposition, laid up the 
 warning in her mind, not doubting that the 
 thanist would be glad to possess himself of so 
 desirable a hostage for enforcing on the sept a 
 compliance with his demands. 
 
 On its approach to Rath-Aidan, where it was 
 intended that the occasion should be celebrated 
 by a joyous festival, the cavalcade was encreased 
 to a prodigious extent by the addition of numer- 
 ous groups of the surrounding families on horse- 
 back and on foot. One of those new comers, as 
 the procession reached the entrance of the valley, 
 was observed to turn aside from the rest, and take 
 tlie way which led to the lonely inlet of Glen- 
 
THE INVASION. 41 
 
 garifF. It was Clothra, the wife of a neighbour- 
 ing Flath, a person in some authority, and holding 
 land under O'Haedha, for which he paid in ser- 
 vice and in kind. She rode a small dark mon- 
 grel hobbie, which was led by her son Moyel, a 
 fair-faced youth of little more than a dozen years. 
 Directing her course through the crag and wood- 
 land of Glengariff, she passed from beneath the 
 branches of a pathway closely embowered into 
 an open space before a building of moderate 
 extent. A lofty screen of ash, oak, hazel, the 
 tree called Indian pine, witch elm, and other 
 tenants of the forest, enclosed the green nearly 
 on all sides, leaving open that alone which com- 
 manded a view of the beautiful bay, with the 
 island, at that time garrisoned only by some wan- 
 dering kine, but from which at present a Mar- 
 tello tower frowns sternly down upon the scene 
 of beauty. 
 
42 THE INVASION. 
 
 The song of the wood-lark, which, like the 
 cuckoo, warbled on the wing, and the varied 
 strain of the song-thrush, gave additional sweet- 
 ness to the beautiful retreat, and the view of a 
 fishing currach in the bay, abounding in former 
 times with pilchard, plaice, and gurnet, gave cor- 
 responding interest to the sea-ward scene. One 
 circumstance alone appeared not in accordance 
 with the place. It was a row of bare ash-stumps, 
 newly cut, which, as Clothra well remembered, had 
 formed a desirable screen on the water side of 
 the building, and for which its owner had a par- 
 ticular regard. 
 
 Before the wooden dwelling, on which the 
 noon-tide sun shone down at present with an op- 
 pressive splendour, three figures sat motionless 
 upon the grass, their solemn visages presenting a 
 monumental contrast to the verdure with which 
 they were surrounded. They were the same who 
 
THE INVASION. 4,$ 
 
 had followed the physician as his daltadhs in the 
 bridal procession, and they now seemed occupied 
 in watching some simples which were drying in 
 the sunshine. Passing these solemn disciples of 
 Esculapius, Clothra advanced to the entrance of 
 the dwelling, and, committing the hobbie to the 
 care of Moyel, made bold to enter with the usual 
 benediction. She found the man of medicine 
 surrounded by the customary paraphernalia of 
 his science, and attired in his dark filleadh, 
 birrede, and ring. His countenance appeared 
 perplexed and indignant, and his eyes were fixed 
 with much interest upon the brehoun, or lawyer, 
 who sat upon a tripod opposite, contemplating 
 with deliberate scrutiny a broad roll of parch- 
 ment which was displayed before him. In a 
 corner by the ample fire-place sat Meibhe, wife 
 to Fihgnin, brewing some mixtures in a copper 
 cauldron, over a low and flameless fire. She was 
 
44 THE INVASION. 
 
 useful to her husband not only in his household 
 and in preparing his receipts, but acted in his 
 place amongst the neighbouring families, at those 
 
 times when Lucina, and not Esculapius, was the 
 power to be invoked. Beckoning Clothra to her 
 side, and bestowing on her the *^ cead falta," or 
 " hundred welcomes, " which Fihgnin was too 
 much occupied to give, she let the former under- 
 stand that the Feath-glic, meaning the learned 
 and skilful, for such was the title which her hus- 
 band bore in the sept, was sorely annoyed at an 
 accident which had occurred that morning. On 
 walking out to enjoy the fresh morning breeze, 
 which was his custom after rising, he discovered 
 with dismay that a row^ of his fine ashes bad been 
 cut by some youths of the neighbourhood, for the 
 purpose of forming arches to celebrate the christ- 
 ening of dieir young chieftain. It happened a 
 short time before that the brehoun, Mac Firbis, 
 
THE INVASION. 45 
 
 arrived at the dwelling, in order to consult the 
 Feath-glic with regard to a constitutional ailment, 
 and the latter was now indemnifying himself for 
 his advice by obtaining that of the brehoun with 
 respect to the trespass which had been com- 
 mitted. 
 
 The expounder of the law, having slowly 
 folded up his great manuscript, remained for 
 some time deliberating the matter in his mind, 
 and then laid down the case to his client in a 
 solemn manner, extending one hand and touching 
 it occasionally with the roll of parchment as he 
 spoke, as one beats time to music. 
 
 " Learned and dexterous enemy of disease," 
 said he, " I see not how thou canst be indemni- 
 fied for this disaster. By the code of Roigne, 
 named Rosgathach, or the learned in song, son 
 of Jughaine the Great, as well as by the Breatha 
 Nimhe, or Celestial Judgments of the Ollamhs, 
 
46 THE INVASION. 
 
 Forcbern, Neid, and Atharni, the only trees 
 protected under the laws of Inisfail are of four 
 classes, or kinds ; the airighy or royal timber, 
 
 comprizing the oak, the hazel, the holly, the yew, 
 the pine, and the apple ; the athar wood, em- 
 bracing the alder, willow, hawthorn, quickbeam, 
 birch, and the witch-hazel ; the fog/a wood, com- 
 prehending the blackthorn, elder, spindle-tree, 
 white-hazel, and the quivering-aspen ; and, to con- 
 clude, the losa, or fire wood, including fern, 
 furze, briar, heath, ivy, reeds, and thorn-bush. 
 Under none of which heads do I find mention 
 made of the ash, which seems to have been the 
 sufferer in the case before us." 
 
 The man of medicine received this announce- 
 ment with chagrin. He arose from his seat, and 
 walking toward the open entrance, said in a 
 harsh tone : 
 
 " It is not them I blame, nor their dishonest 
 
THE INVASION. 47 
 
 merriment. It is you," he added, shaking his 
 clenched hand at the three daltadhs who gazed on 
 one another as he spoke, with looks of deeper 
 solemnity than ever ; ** Unworthy disciples of an 
 art whose foundation stone is vigilance, is it bj 
 negligence like this you hope to rival the cele- 
 brity of our great ancestor, who saved the life of 
 king Connor of Uladh, by making the grand dis- 
 covery that the skull of man may be penetrated 
 without injury to the brain ? Ah, but the monarch's 
 head was more penetrable than yours \" 
 
 The brehoun having received his medicine, 
 took his departure, and Clothra unfolded the ob- 
 ject of her visit, which was that the Feath-glic 
 might recommend her to Matha as a fosterer to 
 the infant chief, in consideration of which dignity 
 she empowered him to say that she was w illing to 
 add a hundred sheep to the flocks that browzed 
 in the valley of Rath-Aidan. Her proposal was 
 
48 THE INVASION. 
 
 communicated and accepted, less for its liberality 
 than for her gentle character. 
 
 In three years after this arrangement had been 
 made, Clothra was seated at evening in the open 
 
 door of her peillice, which looked upon the bay, 
 when a currach approached the shore, and a 
 stranger, having the appearance of a merchant, 
 landed and approached the dwelling. He greeted 
 Clothra and enquired for Moyel, her husband, 
 who he understood had got some of those beau- 
 tiful ger-falcons which were indigenous only to 
 Inisfail and *Fuar Lochlon. Clothra, who knew 
 her husband had the birds, arose, and requesting 
 the stranger to look to Elim, who was playing on 
 the ground at her feet, made haste to seek him. 
 Scarcely, however, had she lost sight of the child, 
 when a sudden feeling of distrust awoke in her 
 mind, and she hurried back, accusing herself of 
 
 * Norway. 
 
THE INVASION. 49 
 
 an act of imprudence. She found the stranger 
 abeady moving toward the shore, with Elim laugh- 
 ing and exulting in his arms. He restored the 
 infant, with an expression of countenance which 
 Clothra could not penetrate ; and, refusing to wait 
 for the completion of his business, pushed quickly 
 off from shore and disappeared. The woman 
 feared to communicate the circumstance to Matha, 
 but from the whole conduct of the stranger, and 
 something inexplicable in his demeanour that 
 seemed to indicate suppressed anxiety, she made 
 no doubt that the whole proceeding was an at- 
 tempt to obtain possession of the infant. In- 
 capable, however, of preserving so important a 
 matter in her own mind, she mentioned the cir- 
 cumstance to her husband, who was not long in 
 laying it before the widowed mother. Thence- 
 forward Clothra was not permitted to convey the 
 child without the precincts of the Rath. 
 VOL. I. D 
 
60 THE INVASION. 
 
 Almost from his infancy, young Elim gave 
 indications of a generous nature, and of that 
 constancy of temper, the reverse of obstinacy, 
 which, if it be not virtue, is one of its most dis- 
 tinguished quahties. Strong in thought, quick 
 and tender in affection, and cheerful and sweet 
 in manner, his very childhood seemed to the whole 
 sept to give promise of future good government. 
 In the mean time his little frame was not neg- 
 lected. O'Driscol Oge, who assisted Matha in 
 her government, took a pleasure in teaching him 
 the ordinary field exercises, while Melcha in- 
 structed him at morn and evening in the rudi- 
 ments of his religious duties. Before he had 
 reached his tenth year, he knew how to rein a 
 hobbie, to drive a carbudh two in hand, to whirl 
 the kran tabal, to dart the javelin, to wield the biail 
 with force and precision, and to use the gen and 
 skiagh with dexterity. 
 
THE INVASION. 51 
 
 An incident occurred about this period, 
 which, as it affords a glimpse into the character 
 of both mother and son, may be here inserted 
 with advantage to our history. 
 
 In the course of acquiring the accomplish- 
 ments above enumerated, Elim was necessarily 
 much without the circle of his mother's observa- 
 tion. One morning, observing him alone on 
 the platform of the Rath, she went out to enjoy 
 the pleasure of sitting in the shade, and observ- 
 ing his amusements. Elim was too closely oc- 
 cupied to perceive her approaching. He was 
 engaged at the instant in shooting at a leathern 
 target, with one of those small Scythian bows 
 which, in succeeding ages, were found so galling 
 to the harnessed soldiers of Plantagenet. He 
 seemed so much absorbed in his amusement that 
 his mother paused a moment, unwilling to disturb 
 him. 
 
 p 3 
 
 
52 THE INVASION. 
 
 ^' There's Conraoi, the Ard-Draithe ! " he 
 exclaimed, as he shot an arrow at the target, uot 
 supposing that he was overheard, '*No; it is 
 in the outer ring , 'tis but a hooded kern. 
 There's Conraoi ! '* (as he shot another) ; ^* no ; — 
 'tis quite a miss. — Ha! there's a galloglach ! 
 And there's a tioseach in the second ring. Now 
 for the Ard-Draithe ! Thou liooded chief, why 
 didst thou murder Conall ? Take that ! No ! no ! 
 Farrah ! farrah ! O'Haedha a-bo I 'Tis in the 
 centre of the field ! 'Tis Baseg ! "»s uoilt iiJni 
 ^♦^In the height of his exultation, happening to 
 catch his mother's eye, he made a sudden pause 
 and lowered his bow with a bashful air. 
 
 "" Come hither, Elim," said Matha, beckon- 
 ing the young archer to her side. *' At whom 
 hast thou been shooting ? " 
 
 '* At the Hooded People," answered Elim. 
 " And why, my child ? " 
 
THE INVASION. 03 
 
 *' Because Moyel told me that their chieftain 
 killed my father.*' 
 
 *^ And thou fanciedst to thyself, when tliou 
 hadst shot thine arrow, that it struck the Ard- 
 Draithe of the Hooded People ? " 
 
 ** No, no ! " said Elim, " I aimed at the Ard- 
 Draithe, but I shot the thanist, Baseg. I placed 
 him in the centre, for he deserves it more than 
 Conraoi." 
 
 ** Well, hear me, now, my boy. If thou livest 
 until thou art as old as the senachie," said 
 Matha, fixing her eye reprovingly, yet affec- 
 tionately on his, and raising a finger with an air 
 of admonition, ^^ let me never hear thee utter 
 words like these again. The Hooded People are 
 our friends. My dear boy," she continued, 
 taking him into her lap, and pressing him ten- 
 derly to her bosom, " I cannot too soon impress 
 it on thee that the Hooded People were not in 
 
54 THE INVASION. 
 
 truth the slayers of thy father, and the destroyers 
 of all my hopes of earthly happiness. It is the 
 miserable spirit of disunion which exists among 
 the princes of our isle, that has truly wrought 
 our ruin. If thou shouldst live to be a man, 
 my boy, exert thyself to make thy country- 
 men united, and thou wilt do better than by 
 taking solitary vengeance on the Hooded Peo- 
 ple.'^ 
 
 So saying, she again embraced her child with 
 tenderness, and retired to her apartment. ' Elim, 
 who was surprised at her emotion, brooded deeply 
 on her words, while he proceeded with his sport 
 in silence. The incident led Matha to consider 
 on the means of procuring her child an education. 
 There w^as no alternative but that of leaving him 
 ignorant, or parting with him during the period 
 of his instruction. After some keen delibera- 
 tion with herself, she at length resolved to leave him 
 
THE INVASION. 55, 
 
 at Muingharidh,* a famous abbey on the shores 
 of the Senan,t and the superior of which was a 
 relative of her own, until he should become pro- 
 ficient in the knowledge of his duties, and the 
 learning of the day. The unprotected condition 
 of the sept rendered it impossible for her to be 
 his companion on the way. She determined 
 therefore to commit the precious charge to the 
 guardianship of her brother O' Driscol, and the 
 escort of a troop of horse. When all was ready, 
 on the eve of his departure, she went herself to 
 announce the resolution to her son. She found 
 him, as before, occupied on the platform in what 
 seemed his favourite amusement. His arrows flew 
 as nimbly as before, but the quarry was of in- 
 ferior head. 
 
 " Now for the osprey ! " she heard him say, 
 as he raised the bended weapon to his eye ; '' is 
 * Mangret. f Shannon. 
 
56 THE INVASION. 
 
 he hit? 'Tis but a putock ! Come, again! Now 
 for him ! Ha ! there goes a heron winged ! 
 Again, Farrah ! The osprey has it fast." 
 
 Smiling at the aheration, Matha summoned 
 the boy into her own apartment, and acquainted 
 him with the projected journey. Tlie grief of 
 Elim was keen, and his feelings amounted to 
 dismay when he was given to understand that his 
 free and sportive sea-side life must be exchanged 
 for the retirement and discipline of a convent. 
 The remainder of the day was spent in taking a 
 long leave of his old friends and favourite amuse- 
 ments. He made Conla, the old filea, sing all 
 his songs, and tired the harpstrings of the 
 crotarie. He visited Clothra at her cottage, and 
 resigned his puny arms to Moyel's keeping. In 
 the morning, arising from a sleepless bed, he was 
 summoned to his mother's room, \^ here he received 
 her parting counsel, and her benediction. She 
 
THE INVASION. 57 
 
 pressed him to her bosom, kissed, and resigned 
 him to his uncle's care. With a keenness of 
 anguish new to his nature, Elim,' escorted by the 
 mounted galloglachs, beheld the fair shores of 
 Inbhersceine, and the still lovelier crag and wood- 
 land of GlengarifF, fade behind him, until they 
 were shut out from his view by an intervening 
 mountain. Towards noon, however, new sights 
 and scenes began to occupy his mind, and restore 
 his spirits to their usual buoyancy. ^^"^^-^^"^ J^^ 
 .. i^tuJiiJ III jn^qa 6^n (i:u jiij i^j 'innnmuji t. 
 3«jjmB 9}iiiJo/Bl bne ghnsiil bio eid^o svb^I g.i^ 
 He finh eBsIft bfo adJ ^bIuoD abcin sH .zUi^l 
 » ^f'fj'rJgqifiri adj baih has j?§no?! 
 
 If 
 ^mq »'*^ ^/I oi RmiB vnuq eiil bsHL' 
 
 i-rr ed ^bsd ggslq^ole b raoil i^nigiiB ,^almo«J - 
 
 D 5 
 
!xo hnr ng-^b sr! 
 
 CHAPTER V. , 
 
 They travelled for some days through a long 
 tract of country, distinguished by scenery of al- 
 ternate barrenness and beauty ; spending one 
 night at the castle of a friendly chief, where Elim 
 was received with high distinction ; another in the 
 dwelling of a beatach (one of those houses of free 
 entertainment at that time common throughout 
 Europe) ; and another in a monastery near the 
 road. 
 
 About noon oa the fourth day of their jour- 
 ney, Elim beheld, for the first time, the br^ad 
 
THE INVASION. 59 
 
 and gleaming face of the Senan, the queen of 
 Irish rivers, and the deep and extensive woods 
 which environed the distant seat of letters and 
 religion. The strange prospect of the place, ren- 
 dered more impressive by the tolling of a bell 
 from the adjoining abbey, cast a new damp on 
 the spirits of the young Ithian, and he alighted 
 at the college gate with a face as serious as if 
 death were the least he expected on his entrance. 
 O'Driscol conveyed him to the gate of the 
 building. Over the sculptured archway was the 
 figure of a religious having the clerical tunic and 
 bonnet, and holding the crosier and episcopal 
 garments of a prelate lying dead before him. 
 Being the time of study, the court was deserted, 
 except by the hoary porter, and four or five 
 monks, who were walking along to and fro under 
 the shadow of a line of beeches, and reading in 
 silence. Passing this stilly scene, Elim was con- 
 
60 THE INVASION. 
 
 ducted to the apartment of the abbot. But, 
 before we proceed farther with his history, let 
 us say something of the phice which was for 
 many years to be the scene of his education ; and 
 perhaps tlie reader will forgive us, if, before we 
 penetrate farther into the history of this founda- 
 tion, we glance for an instant at that of the land 
 in which it rose. 
 
 For some centuries before the birth of Elim, 
 its situation was pecuHar among the states of 
 Euroj)e. While the coasts of Italy were darkened 
 by the Saracen invasions, v\ hile Germany became 
 a waste before the arrows of the Hungarians, and 
 the hoofs of the Lombard horse were trampling 
 on the vineyards of the south, Ireland lay far away 
 amongst the breakers of the Atlantic, an island 
 devoted to the cultivation of reliuion and the 
 peaceful sciences, the school of Christian letters, 
 and the nursery of Christian virtues. Not many 
 
THE INVASION. 6l 
 
 centuries had passed away since even this distant 
 isle had been itself, as it has since once more be- 
 come, the scene of fierce and lawless violence. 
 From the remotest period of its colonization, 
 down to that when first the svmbol of Christianity 
 appeared upon its shores, it had been the fate of 
 Ireland to nurse within its bosom the seeds of 
 civil strife and enmity. The lonely Hyperborean 
 isle, the theme alike of bardic and historic fiction, 
 Its shores, though tiot unseen, were long un- 
 touched by the enquiring navigators of the south. 
 The Phoenician trader beheld its wooded hills 
 from his galley-poop at sea, but the zeal of traffic, 
 his only stimulus, tempted' him *^not so far from 
 his appointed course. A few curious geogra- 
 phers at length descended on the coasts, and time 
 hands down to us the meagre charts of a Pto- 
 lemy and a Nennius. The Roman conqueror 
 saw, from the shores of Mona, the mist-like 
 
&i THE INVASION. 
 
 vision of its mountains ; but the zeal of conquest 
 did no more with him than the zeal of gain with 
 the Phoenician. The isle was left untouched, 
 while a Celtic people wandered in her woods 
 and dwelt in her caverns, without laws and with- 
 out learning ; simple in their customs, and limited 
 in their desires. f 
 
 Time rolled away, and the picture changed 
 in figure and in hue. The peaceful Celts depart- 
 ed, and a varied race, driven hither as to a calm 
 retreat by the convulsions of their native coun- 
 tries, brought with them to the isle the linea- 
 ments and character of German, Spanish, and of 
 Gallic origin. The fields became more popu- 
 lous, the Brehoun lawgiver sat, scroll in hand, with- 
 in the earthen walls of his roofless court, and 
 gave judgment on the violated compacts of so- 
 ciety. Small villages, with wicker dwellings, 
 and a simple palisade for their defence, were 
 
THE INVASION. 63 
 
 srattered throughout the plains and vallies. A 
 form of monarchical government, perhaps unique 
 in its kind, united for a time the bonds of social 
 interest throughout the island. The Ard-righ 
 sat in his wooden palace at Tara, and took coun- 
 sel with the provincial sovereigns of the king^iom 
 for its better government. A form of worship, 
 which seems to have been a compound of the 
 superstition of Zoroaster, and the Scandinavian 
 idolatry, but bloodless in its rites, was established 
 throughout the country. The ploughshare al- 
 ready pierced the bosom of the soil, and the hus- 
 bandman addressed his devotions to the lu- 
 minary that prospered his exertions. The 
 keyriaght,^ like the Arab, fed his flock from 
 plain to plain ; the herds of cattle browzed along 
 the streams, and the music of the harp resounded 
 at evening in the bawn, or under the shadow of a 
 
 * Herdsman. 
 
64 THE INVASION. 
 
 Druid grove. The sound of the great buabhal 
 was heard in the calm sunset from the summit of 
 the lofty round tower, proclaiming the quarters 
 of the moon, and the changes of the seasons, the 
 only marks which science here had yet engraved 
 upon the wheels of time. The spirit of poetry 
 and music visited the islanders, but the demon of 
 war soon also waved his torch amid the woods, 
 and the numbers of voluptuous love were blended 
 with the sounds of pain and violence. The 
 tioseach, seated at night upon his rushen couch, 
 with his three-legged table before him, laid out 
 with a dish of shamrock and a cup of mead, 
 heard, from the poet of his race, the actions 
 of his fathers, and the deeds of his own arm 
 in the battle. The stones of the earth were 
 fashioned into weapons of destruction ; the bra- 
 zen sword-blade shone in the grasp of the gal- 
 loglach ; the sling, the arrow, and the javelin, 
 
THE INVASION. 65 
 
 made the ways unsafe to the lonely hobbeler, 
 and his barefooted daltin ; the island was di- 
 vided between licentiousness and war; and the 
 steel of Sparta glimmered in the bowers of 
 Cyprus. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 vrffOQ if9ib ->nf>infrr nr b^rrfriooo too 
 
 Thus stood the isle, when once agam a sudden 
 change reclaimed it. The weapons of the Dal 
 Cassian and the Eoganacht, of the Damaan and 
 the Her^hionian, of the Heberian and the Er- 
 nain, of the Firbolg, the Irian, and many other 
 septs of the divided colonists, clashed in mur- 
 derous and untiring conflict from year to year 
 throughout the country. The slightest or the 
 weightiest occasion, a disputed claim to the im- 
 perial succession, or a miserable point of eti- 
 quette, were sufficient to embroil whole provinces 
 
THE INVASION. 6? 
 
 in war. An unhappy system of inheritance, and 
 ill-adjusted laws of property, together with a 
 thirst of false glory, violent in proportion to the 
 natural fervour of the people, had banished secu- 
 rity from all parts of the island, and peace from 
 the minds of the inhabitants. Their monarchs, 
 when not occupied in making their power felt 
 by the princes of their own nation, are said to 
 have employed themselves in foreign wars, in 
 aiding the natives of the adjoining island against 
 the Roman colonists, and even to have carried 
 the weapons of Erin to the foot of the Alps. 
 The event, which brought to pass the important 
 change above alluded to, forms a striking feature 
 in the annals of the isle, and may constitute a 
 fitting prelude to the tale of the young chieftain^s 
 education. 
 
 The Druids of Meath had received, with 
 funej al honours, on the shores of Coige Laigean,* 
 
 * Leinster. 
 
68 THE INVASION. 
 
 the body of their perished monarch Daithi, who 
 was killed by lightning in the Gallic wars ; and 
 conducted it, accompanied by his nephew Laog- 
 haire, and the returning banners of his army, to 
 the royal sepulchre at Roiligh na Righ. They 
 spoke his praise, they sung his caoine, they bu- 
 ried him with his horse and armour, and Laog- 
 haire was placed in his stead in the throne of 
 Tamrach. He is commemorated as a prince of 
 warlike talents and of civil energy, which, how- 
 ever, appear to have contributed more to his own 
 fame than to the peace or happiness of his neigh- 
 bours. In order to do honour to the Druids, 
 whose worship he befriended, he attended at the 
 great festival of Bel, at the famous temple of 
 Uisneach in Meath, accompanied by the queen, 
 and the estates of Tamrach. It was the custom, 
 on the eve of this festival, to extinguish all the 
 fires throughout the kingdom, in order that they 
 
THE INVASION. 69 
 
 might be re-illumined from one kindled for the 
 purpose by the hand of the Chief Druid. 
 
 The sun had already sunk, the pile of fagots 
 was raised before the temple, and the Ard-righ 
 and his royal retinue, surrounded by a multitude 
 of people, silently awaited the moment when the 
 chief Druid was to light up the fire. Before the time, 
 however, had arrived, and while all was yet dark, 
 silent, and expectant, a light was suddenly seen to 
 rise at some distance from the temple. The 
 Druids exclaimed aloud against this profanation 
 of their rites, and demanded of the monarch that 
 the extreme punishment appointed by the laws 
 should be inflicted on this hardy wretch, whoever 
 he might be, by whom the festival of Bel was 
 violated. The monarch gave orders that the 
 transgressor should be brought before him, and 
 his messengers returned, bringing with them Pa- 
 trick, the Apostle of Ireland. 
 
70 THE INVASION. 
 
 The great missionary defended the act of 
 which he was accused, by announcing to the as- 
 sembly the truths of Christianity. A long and 
 laborious life was afterwards spent in completing 
 that alteration in the national worship of which 
 this was almost the commencing stroke. The 
 peaceful revolution was effected without meeting 
 any opposition, save that of the ineffectual dispu- 
 tation of the Druids, and it spread with fervour 
 and rapidity. Princes gave up their lands and 
 dwellings to the service of religion and of charitv. 
 Kings frequently resigned the asion of empire, 
 and took the monastic habit within the walls of 
 Ardmacha, or of Huy ; churches and seminaries 
 sprung up in every district, monasteries were en- 
 dowed and crowded with religious to an extent 
 that seems hardly credible, even on all the con- 
 current testimonies of the day. So great was the 
 zeal of religion, that a modern historian com- 
 
THE INVASION. 71 
 
 plains of the negligence evinced by the national 
 annalists, for a long time after, in affairs of mili- 
 tary interest, and charges them with paying more 
 attention to the building of a church than to the 
 fighting of a battle. There was scarce a district 
 without its religious foundations ; scarce an islet, 
 or lone retreat throughout the country that did 
 not harbour some religious penitent ; or a desert 
 rock that had not been at some lime sanctified by 
 the spirit of devotion and of self-denial. 
 
 Unlike many of the religious foundations of 
 that period, which were constructed, after the 
 national manner, of wood, the college of Muing- 
 haridh was a damliag, or stone building, and its 
 grouted fragments, diffused at this day over an 
 extensive tract of ground, demonstrate the ma- 
 sonic skill of its founders. The religious, who 
 were of the order of Saint Munchen, the founder 
 of the abbey, and of prodigious number, had, as 
 
72 THE INVASION. 
 
 is usual in such establishments, their various 
 duties appointed to them. Some devoted them- 
 selves wholly to a life of contemplation, and of 
 manual labour. Others employed themselves in 
 the care of the sick, the entertaining of strangers, 
 the giving of alms, and the instruction of the nu- 
 merous youth who flocked hitherward in great 
 numbers from different parts of the island, from 
 the shores of Inismore, and even from those of 
 some continental nations. Those who were 
 skilled in psalmody succeeded each other in the 
 choir, which, night and day, for many a century, 
 sent forth its never ceasing iiarmony of praise ; 
 while far the greater number were employed in 
 cultivating, with their own hands, the extensive 
 tracts of ground which lay around the convent, 
 and the neighbouring city. Morn after morn, 
 regular as the dawn itself, the tolling of the con- 
 vent bell, over the spreading woods which then 
 
THE INVASION. 73 
 
 enriched the neighbourhood, awoke the tenants 
 of the termon-lands, warning them that its clois- 
 tered inhabitants had commenced their daily rule, 
 and reminding them also of that eternal destiny 
 which was seldom absent from the minds of the 
 former. The religious, answering to the summons, 
 resumed their customary round of duties. Some 
 aided the almoner in receiving the applications 
 of the poor, and attending to their wants. Some 
 assisted the chamberlain in refitting the deserted 
 dormitory. Some were appointed to help the in- 
 firmarian in the hospital. Some aided the pit- 
 tancer and cellarer in preparing the daily re- 
 fection, as well for the numerous members of 
 the confraternity, as for the visitors, for whose 
 accommodation a separate refectory was fur- 
 nished ; and after the solemn rite of the morn- 
 ing, at which all assisted, had been conclud- 
 ed, the great body of the monks departed to 
 Vol. r. e 
 
74 THE INVASION. 
 
 their daily labour on the adjoining tillage and pas- 
 ture lands. 
 
 Sometimes, at this early hour, the more in- 
 firm and aged, as well as the more pious, of the 
 neighbouring peasantry, were seen thridding their 
 way along the woodland paths, to mingle in the 
 morning devotions of the religious. The peasant, 
 as he trotted by on his karr, laden with the pro- 
 duce of the season, paused for an instant to hear 
 the matin hymn, and added a prayer that heaven 
 might sanctify his toil. The fisherman, whose cur- 
 racli glided rapidly along the broad surface of 
 the river, rested on his oars at the same solemn 
 strain, and resumed his labour with a more mea- 
 sured stroke and a less eager spirit. The son of 
 war and rapine, who gallopped by the place, re- 
 turning with sated passions from some nocturnal 
 havoc, reined up his hobbie at the peaceful 
 sounds, and yielded his mind unconsciously to an 
 
THE INVASION. 7^ 
 
 interval of mercy and remorse. The oppressive 
 chieftain and his noisy retinue, not yet recovered 
 from the dissipation of some country coshering,* 
 hushed for a time their unseemly mirth as they 
 passed the holy dwelling, and yielded in reve- 
 rence the debt which they could not pay in sym- 
 pathy. To many an ear the sounds of the orison 
 arrived, and to none without a wholesome and 
 awakening influence. 
 
 Not far remote, amid the trees, arose the 
 wooden dwelling of the Comorban, a kind of lay 
 prior, who divided with the Erenach the care of 
 the termon lands, the duties of hospitality to 
 strangers, of preserving the fabric of the college 
 and protecting its revenues. These two orders, 
 which were peculiar to ancient Ireland, by reliev- 
 ing the professed religious of all merely temporal 
 cares, left them at liberty for the undivided pur- 
 
 * Feast. 
 £ 2 
 
76 THE INVASION. 
 
 suit of their more essential duties. Besides the 
 Master Regent, the college had its readers and 
 prelectors ; and the liberality of those princes of 
 Leath Mogha, by whom it had been originally 
 endowed, enabled the religious, in addition to 
 their other offices of charity, to supply the 
 students* gfafcitously, not only with food and 
 raiment, but with lodging and books for their 
 instruction, a precious article in those times, 
 when profane literature, long exanimate in 
 Europe, was beginning to struggle into life. 
 
 The small city of Deochain Assain, which, 
 like the modern Gottingen, was intended chiefly 
 for the accommodation of the numerous students 
 at the adjoining seminary, had already begun to 
 raise its wooden peillices and low-eaved roofs 
 between that building and the river side. Here, 
 through the dreary winter months, the rushlights 
 gleamed from the studious windows of the well- 
 
THE INVASION. 77 
 
 born natives and strangers, as well as of their 
 poorer condisciples, whom either the national 
 love of letters, or a desire of participating in the 
 state privileges attached to the literary character, 
 had tempted to avail themselves of the gratuitous 
 instruction of the religious. At long intervals 
 appeared the shop of some Danaan dealer in 
 forest skins, or vender of dyed stuffs, while 
 the ringing anvil of some Fearbolgan arti- 
 ficer in iron work mingled its sound with the 
 eternal choir of the distant abbey. By night, 
 and with the light of rush torches, the religious 
 gave their instructions in the college. By day, 
 the greater portion of the body w as sent abroad, 
 to pursue their customary toil, till night recalled 
 them to this hive of holiness and industry. In the 
 summer months their literary tasks were laid 
 aside for more secluded exercises, and the stu* 
 dents were dispersed, the wealthy to their owu 
 
78 THE INVASION. 
 
 friends, while the strangers and the poor were 
 maintained by the college, amply supported for 
 the purpose by its original endowments, as well 
 as by the labour of the monks. 
 
 Bounding in the western prospect from the 
 college gate, and overlooking with its rugged 
 brows the spreading sheet of silver which the 
 Senan rolled along its base, appeared the Candle 
 Rock, as yet uncrowned by its forbidding bat- 
 tlements, and only graced by the distant cluster- 
 ing foliage. On tranquil days, the convent toll 
 was answered from the churches in Luimneach 
 na Luingas,* the City of Ships, which reared 
 its water-girt walls above the parted flood at the 
 distance of a few miles up the river. Southward 
 appeared the uneven summit of Knocfierna, and 
 on the east arose the rounded heights which 
 divided this principality from that of Shior Mu- 
 
 * Limerick. 
 
THE INVASION. 79 
 
 imhean, the possession of the children of Cian. 
 On the further side of the river, softened in the 
 haze of distance, the eye rested on the wooded 
 hills and cultured vales of Claire, where the 
 wreathing smoke arose in various places, from 
 some concealed Heberian brugh, or rustic village. 
 Scattered through the woods by which the 
 college and city were surrounded, appeared many 
 a secluded peillice, or skin-thatched cottage of 
 wood, the dwelling of some humble tiller of the 
 termon lands, whose healthy figure and mantle of 
 decent frieze, unlike the lean and beaten aspect 
 of those who dwelt upon the secular townships, 
 proclaimed him the dependent of no harsh and 
 griping landlord. The simple life of the reli- 
 gious limited their wants to a circle easily filled, 
 and their extensive possessions vested in them for 
 the common good, left ample means of charity 
 at their disposal. Nor was the exercise of public 
 
80 THE INVASION. 
 
 hospitality, in those days, when places of hired 
 refreshment were unknown, confined to the reli- 
 gious orders. On a crossway, which, at the dis- 
 tance of a few miles, divided the great road 
 leading to the antique city of Athdair, appeared 
 the open dwelling of the Brughnibh, or Beatach, 
 which, as it had been endowed before the college, 
 for that purpose, by the civil authorities, now shared 
 with that establishment the honour of affording 
 rest and refection to the pilgrim and the stranger. 
 Thus, whatever tumults agitated the quiet of 
 surrounding townships, benevolence and peace 
 reigned always undisturbed in those districts de- 
 dicated to religious seclusion ; and few instances 
 occur, through all the troubled course of Irish 
 history, in which these sanctified retreats were 
 profaned by civil violence, — a circumstance so un- 
 usual amongst contemporary nations. The causes 
 already assigned had banished peace and security 
 
THE INVASION. 81 
 
 from all parts of the island, except those which 
 were devoted by common consent to the service 
 of religion and of learning ; but it was enough to 
 bear this character to ensure respect and forbear- 
 ance, even from the most licentious. Few, in- 
 deed, were the instances of mercy and of quiet to 
 those who tilled the soil of secular proprietors. 
 In their holdings, the ravaged corn field and the 
 driven herd made famine a frequent, and poverty 
 a constant guest, nor did violence leave to in- 
 dustry any other mode of compensation than the 
 fatal instruction which she gave, and which was 
 too often bettered in the learning'. But the voice 
 of war sounded not in the convent shades ; the 
 houses of the Brughnibh and the Erenach were 
 always open, and none envied the calm which all 
 were invited to partake. 
 
 Such was the college of Muingharidh, such 
 was the land in which it stood, and the train of 
 
 t5 
 
82 THE INVASION. 
 
 events from which it derived its origin. Such 
 was the scenery by which it was surrounded, and 
 such the character of its possessors, of its depend- 
 ents, and of its neighbours. If worldly pleasure 
 were excluded from its precincts, its share of 
 happiness was yet not small. The even and re- 
 collected cheerfulness, which illumined the man- 
 ners of the religious, gave a brightness to their 
 austerity, and made virtue attractive in the eyes 
 of their disciples. The voice of authority, though 
 not forgotten, was rarely exercised ; and love re- 
 moved its sharpness from restraint, and its weari- 
 ness from duty. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Having passed the extensive court of the build- 
 ing, the Sior Lamh and his bewildered nephew 
 arrived at the door which opened to that part of the 
 building occupied by the superior and the princi- 
 pal officers of the confraternity. A porter show- 
 ed them to an apartment phiinly furnished, in 
 which Elim saw an old man dressed in a white 
 cassock, with a black cloak and hood thrown 
 back on his shoulders. His head was bald, but 
 a long white beard descended in waves of silver 
 on his breast. O'Driscol, whom he recognized 
 
84 THE INVASION. 
 
 with the air of a relative, having declared the 
 principal object of his journey, the old man 
 beckoned Elim to his side, and pressed the little 
 trembling hand within his own, using at the same 
 time some cheering expressions to remove the 
 sense of overpowering awe with which the youth- 
 ful Ithian was oppressed. 
 
 " Young as thou art,'' said he, " thou hast 
 the steady eye of an O'Haedha. Thou dost not 
 know me, Elim. I am an Ithian, too. Take 
 courage, child ; we are not going to make a monk 
 of thee." 
 
 Elim smiled, but still cast awful looks around 
 him, and seemed as if he had his own opinion 
 upon ihese assurances. In consideration of his 
 rank, it was decided that he should not be sent, 
 like the generality of the students, to occupy 
 lodgings in the adjoining town, but remain for 
 the present in the apartments of the precentor, 
 
THE INVASION, 85 
 
 the person who had the chief direction of the 
 choir service. 
 
 "The precentor," said the abbot, "is a fa- 
 vourite with the students ; thou wilt like him much 
 for a companion, Elim." 
 
 The Sior Lamh, to his nephew's great delight, 
 remained for the night at the abbey, and Elim 
 was permitted to occupy the same apartment. 
 At midnight, hearing a bell toll, and supposing 
 it was the signal for rising, he got up and put on 
 his little truis and cota. Opening the door of 
 the apartment without waking his uncle, and 
 passing into a long hall which led to the cells 
 of the religious, he met one of the confra- 
 ternity leaving his apartment, with a rosary 
 and a burning taper of twisted rushes in his 
 hand. 
 
 "Thou art early up, my little friend," he 
 said, " what makes thee restless ? " 
 
86 THE INVASION. 
 
 '^ I heard the bell/' said Elim, in a timid 
 tone, '' and I thought it was for waking." 
 
 *' Thou mayest go back to thy couch/' said 
 the religious, smiling. ^' We are not going to 
 put thee to so severe a discipline. It is only the 
 monks who rise at midnight." 
 
 At day break, the precentor came to awaken 
 him. The abbot had truly said, that Elim would 
 find pleasure in his company. He was a man of 
 middle age, the son of a neighbouring Dal Cas- 
 sion chief, who had at an early period devoted 
 himself to religion, and displayed an extraordinary 
 genius for music and poetry. He spent the 
 greater part of the day in showing Elim over the 
 foundation and through the neighbourhood, and 
 in discoursing cheerfully of their mode of life, the 
 country and employments of the students, and 
 the nature of their studies. Passing along a 
 winding path which led from the abbey through 
 
THE INVASION. 87 
 
 an extensive thicket, a scene of singular novelty 
 and animation burst upon the eyes of the young 
 Ithian. They passed from beneath the boughs 
 of the closely-woven oak and alder trees, and sud- 
 denly entered on a wade tract of highly cultivated 
 land, of more than half a mile in extent, and 
 bounded by a well-built wall, on which above a 
 thousand monks, in their conventual attire, were 
 busy in the work of harvest. Some reaped and 
 bound the corn, some piled it into stooks, and 
 some conveyed it home on karrs. Some plied 
 the scythe, the rake, and the fork, on the adjoining 
 meadow lands, while others formed the hay al- 
 ready saved into stacks and ricks. Here rose 
 a barn, in which resounded the strokes of a hun- 
 dred flails ; while a corresponding number of re- 
 ligious labourers, winnowed the grain abroad 
 in the light autumn wind. The noise of grating 
 quern-stones sounded from a building on their 
 
88 THE INVASION. 
 
 left, through the open doors of which Elim per- 
 ceived a number of monks at work in sifting and 
 preparing the flour. Far away on the right ap- 
 peared a gently undulating plain, dotted with tufts 
 of ash and birch trees, on which fed numerous 
 herds and flocks, under the superintendence of 
 religious shepherds and religious herdsmen. A 
 calm autumnal sunshine rested on the extensive 
 scene of labour, and the effect of what he saw, 
 combined with the view of the river and its nu- 
 merous shipping ; together with the murmur of 
 the town and of the distant city ; appeared to Elim 
 to constitute the most beautiful and animating 
 sight he had ever witnessed in his life. 
 
 The precentor next conducted him through 
 the town of Deochain Assain. It was at present 
 somewhat deserted, for no public instructions 
 were given in the convent during the months of 
 summer and autumn. At their return to the 
 
THE INVASION. 89 
 
 abbey, as Eliin passed the court-yard, he saw 
 about a dozen youths at play, who were, as the 
 precentor told him, the only pupils at present in 
 the college, being the sons of distant chieftains 
 and Airighs. They got into groups as Elim 
 came in sight, and, by their smiling and gazing, 
 showed that he was the subject of their conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 On the following morning, Elim was intro- 
 duced to his classfellows, and before the opening 
 of the winter season, when the town and college 
 were crowded with multitudes of students, had 
 already made a considerable progress in the 
 course of education which the times afforded. 
 It was severe, for in those days learning itself 
 was esteemed a matter of secondary importance 
 to the habits of self-constraint and vigorous ap- 
 plication which were acquired in its pursuit. 
 Elim, however, did not shrink from labour. He 
 
90 THE INVASION. 
 
 studied with diligence, obeyed with alacrity, and 
 observed the convent rule with a devout exactness. 
 A love of practical science, a temper at the same 
 time firm and docile, an open simplicity of mind, 
 an unpresuming courage, and generosity of spirit, 
 rendered him dear to his instructors and his 
 schoolfellows. There are few communities, per- 
 haps, in which some bright characters are not 
 found, unconsciously possessing the love and ad- 
 miration of the whole ; and it might be said of 
 Elim, to tell his character in one sentence, that, 
 without knowing it himself, he was the general 
 favourite of the college of Muingharidh. 
 
 On the day before the opening of the public 
 lecture-room, which occurred soon after the fes- 
 tival of Michaelmas, the young chieftain and tb.e 
 precentor entered the room in which preparations 
 had been already made for the commencing sea- 
 son. The chair of the lecturer was decorated 
 
THE INVASION. 91 
 
 with the last boughs of autumn, and benches 
 were placed for the accommodation of some 
 thousands of scholars. As the lectures were al- 
 ways given at night, a number of torch-stands 
 encircled the vast apartment, in each of which 
 was placed a flambeau, composed of twisted 
 rushes, dipped in oil. I*^ either for these prepa- 
 rations, nor for any other art of manufacture or 
 of husbandry, had the community occasion to go 
 beyond the precincts of their own domain ; their 
 custom being to alternate the labour of the 
 mind with the exertion of the frame, in all the 
 departments of science and of art. 
 
 One of the choristers was employed in 
 stringing a cruit of a new invention ; and Elim 
 urged him to put it to the proof, by accom- 
 panying his own rich voice in some little me- 
 lody. He readily complied, and made the ex- 
 tensive building re-echo to the following words, 
 
go, THE INVASION. 
 
 of what happened to be a favourite song of 
 Elhn's ; 
 
 I. 
 
 Like the oak by the fountain, 
 
 In sunshine and storm ; 
 Like the rock on the mountain, 
 
 Unchanging in form ; 
 Like the course of the river. 
 
 Through ages the same ; 
 Like the mist, mounting ever 
 
 To heaven, whence it came. 
 
 II. 
 
 So firm be thy merit, 
 
 So changeless thy soul. 
 So constant thy spirit. 
 
 While seasons shall roll ; 
 The fancy that ranges 
 
 Ends where it began. 
 But the mind that ne'er changes 
 
 Brings glory to man. 
 
 Scarce was the song concluded, when one of 
 the young students came running at full speed 
 into the lecture-room, and exclaiming : 
 
 " Elim ! Elim ! there is a new scholar from 
 Inismore ! "* 
 
 * Great Britain. 
 
. -,»1^. THE INVASION. 95 
 
 Perceiving the precentor, he made a sud- 
 den pause, and lowered his head. Ehm smiled, 
 and went with him to the yard, where he beheld 
 two figures that struck him forcibly by their fea- 
 tures and their strange attire. The first was an 
 old man, thin, and sharp- visaged, with a stern- 
 ness in the eye and brow that amounted to 
 harshness. He wore a cap like the ancient 
 Phrygian bonnet, the Anglo-Saxon tunic and gir- 
 dle, in which was stuck a knife called a handsec, 
 and on his feet the blackened buskin and striped 
 stocking of his country. But the second figure 
 attracted most of Elim's observation. It was 
 that of a boy, about his own age, but slightly 
 formed, and with a piercing and somewhat sullen 
 expression of countenance. His attire was gay, 
 even to frivolousness. His head was bare, but 
 the hair around his crown was so c!iriously plait- 
 ed as to resemble a close cap ; his tunic, of the 
 
94 THE INVASION. 
 
 finest linen, open on the bosom and adorned with 
 a border, and his girdle highly ornamented. A 
 similar taste pervaded the rest of his attire, and 
 he gazed on the group of boyish scholars that ga- 
 thered together to whisper and look at the new 
 comer, with a glance that was at the same time 
 proud and shy. At the moment when Elim arri- 
 ved, the old man was in the act of resigning him 
 into the hands of the master regent, and prepar- 
 ing to depart : 
 
 '' I give him to thee, " said he, '' to make of 
 him what I could not, a scholar. Kenric, fare- 
 well ! " he shook his hand ; " Here thou must 
 apply ; here thou wilt be compelled to know 
 that perseverance is the road of learning. There 
 will be no Domnona here to screen thee." 
 
 He departed, and the young Anglo-Saxon 
 gazed after him, with features of dismay and 
 grief. The master regent took his hand. 
 
 I 
 
THE INVASION. 95 
 
 '^Take courage, Kenric, " he said, ^'thou 
 wilt not find us so severe as thine uncle thinks." 
 
 He led the new pupil into the abbey, and the 
 students went to their play. Before we mention 
 in what way the Anglo-Saxon was disposed of, it 
 is necessary to relate the story of his childhood 
 anl extraction. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 In the kingdom of the Northumbers, and not far 
 from the banks of the Ouse, stood the castle of 
 the duke Elfwin, a descendant of one of those 
 old heratoches by whom this portion of the Hep- 
 tarchy was governed, ere Ida formed it into a 
 single kingdom. The castle, in order that its 
 oaken walls might be protected from the violent 
 winds, was situate, after the fashion of the time, 
 in a valley, or dene, called the Dene of Ouse. 
 The building, both for beauty and extent, was the 
 wonder of the surrounding neighbourhood. It 
 
THE INVASION. 97 
 
 was framed throughout of hedge oak of the 
 hardest gram, and stood in the centre of a 
 princely frank chase, or unenclosed domain, com- 
 prehending many miles of park and forest. The 
 chase was one of the finest in the seven king- 
 doms. The extensive wald, or woodland, 
 abounded in foxes, boars, and wolves for the 
 chase ; the park, in coneys, as fat as those of Meal 
 or Disnege, in hares, in martins, and in red and 
 fallow deer, of every quality, from the fawn to 
 the buck, and from the calf to the hart. The 
 river, and a small lake that skirted the wald, were 
 frequented by store of birds. The crane, the 
 bittern, the heron, and the duck, either stalked 
 along the shore, or dived among the reeds, while 
 the pewit wheeled overhead, and the wild swan 
 built her nest amid the sedge, or breasted the 
 wavelets of the lake. 
 
 The Dene was allotted to sundry tenants, to 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
98 THE INVASION. 
 
 be held, as was the Saxon custom, by copy of 
 court roll ; and these rolls were committed by 
 mutual consent to the keeping of Ailred, a dis- 
 tant relative of the duke, and a thriving citizen 
 of the adjoining town. It was a beautiful vale, 
 chiefly laid out in pasturage ; the uplands stocked 
 with herds of kine and fine-fleeced sheep, while 
 the bottoms, near the river, derived such fertility 
 from the occasional overflowings of the Ouse, 
 that, as Ailred often boasted, if a rod were laid on 
 the field overnight, it would be hidden by the 
 grass at morning. The town, which stood near 
 the borders of the river, consisted of about six or 
 seven score of wooden houses, not framed of oak, 
 like that of duke Elfwin, but slenderly put toge- 
 ther of sallow, plumb-tree, hard-beam, or elm, 
 and in some instances of wicker, plastered with 
 clay. The inhabitants were pincipally the hus- 
 bandmen and shepherds of the Dene (who, like 
 
THE INVASION. 99 
 
 the vintagers of Spain, combined the characters of 
 rustic and of citizen), besides a few artizans, a 
 clergyman, and a schoolmaster. 
 
 i\djoining the town was a bridge, crossing the 
 Ouse, and leading to an extensive common, where 
 a multitude of poor dependents on the bounty 
 of the great proprietor maintained their little 
 holdings free of charge. On the centre of the 
 bridge was an inscription, in the Saxon dialect, 
 which, with little alteration, might run thus : 
 
 " I am free march, as passengers may ken, 
 To Scots, to Britons, and to Englishmen," 
 
 The remoteness of the place protected it, in 
 a great degree, from suffering in the frequent 
 agitations which disturbed the kingdoms of the 
 Heptarchy ; and the character of the duke him- 
 self, who was of a tranquil and studious turn of 
 mind, promoted, in a high degree, the prosperity 
 
 of his dependents. 
 
 F 2 
 
100 THE INVASION. 
 
 The largest, and most commodious, of the 
 dwellings in the town was that of Ailred, already 
 mentioned, who rented a large portion of the 
 Dene; and, on the score of his relationship to the 
 duke, possessed a considerable portion of his pa- 
 tronage. The house contained, not only the ne- 
 cessary apartments for human inmates, but also 
 comprehended, under the same low roof, a dairy, 
 stable, and all other offices. The principal 
 apartments were impanelled with clay of various 
 colours, white, red, and blue, and Ailred, though 
 now compelled to admit the light through panels 
 of horn, did not despair of seeing the time arrive 
 when the sun should shine upon his humble floor, 
 as on that of his ducal relative, tlirough a lattice 
 glazed with chrystal, or perhaps with panes of 
 beryl. lie had much increased his wealth by 
 his marriage with Domnona, the daughter of one 
 of those wandering graziers, who, from the 
 
THE INVASION. 101 
 
 earliest times (like the Irish Keyriaght), fed their 
 flocks and herds in companies, from place to 
 place. This patriarchal mode of life was now, 
 however, almost extinct, and confined to the 
 remotest districts. On the occasion of their mar- 
 riage, the display of wealth on both sides was 
 such as formed the wonder of the Dene, more espe- 
 cially as Ailred was known to be a man of harsh 
 manners, and more addicted to the pursiut, than 
 the parade, of riches. His dress on this occasion 
 shone with ornaments of coral, Berwick jet, the 
 erne stone, and other native gems ; nor did that 
 of Domnona fall behind him in magnificence. 
 To her charge was committed the care of tlie 
 dairy, the principal produce of which consisted of 
 hinds' milk and cheese, while Ailred continued 
 his superintendence of the tillage and pasture 
 lands, and his indefatigable attention to the wishes 
 of his patron. 
 
102 THE INVASION. 
 
 Returning one morning from the castle of 
 the duke, in less than a year after his marriage, 
 Ailred was met in the main street of the little 
 town by a female neighbour, wrapped in the 
 discreet attire of the Anglo-Saxon matrons. As 
 she encountered Ailred, she put aside the ker- 
 chief from before her face, and said : 
 
 '* Son of Aldeswold, I give thee joy.'' 
 
 **What! Is Domnona well?" returned the 
 husband. 
 
 " Home with thee," said the matron, '* and 
 thou shalt see a sight to make thee a happy 
 man." 
 
 As he proceeded, Ailred was met by Oswy, 
 the goose-herd, sent officially to announce what 
 had been intimated to him by his female neigh- 
 bour. Before he had reached his door, he found 
 that the whole town were aware of his good 
 hap ; and a number of interested neighbours were 
 
THE INVASION. 103 
 
 approaching and departing from his threshold, 
 some making, and some satisfying enquiries. The 
 outer room was crowded with kerchiefed matrons, 
 and with the smiling faces of substantial citizens. 
 All gave place with a buzz of congratulation 
 when xlilred made his way through the midst, 
 and it was his severe and learned, but fortuneless 
 brother, Vuscfraea that placed in his arms the 
 dearest burthen parent ever bore, his first born 
 child, a fair and healthy boy. 
 
 To please the duke, whose wife and only child 
 had died some years before, the son of Ail red re- 
 ceived the name of Kenric, which was that of his 
 patron's child. By the mother's side, he claim- 
 ed some connexion with the island of Inisfail, 
 wdiere he was now sent to receive his education. 
 Native historians tell us that, as early as the 
 reign of Heremon (the founder of one of the 
 great rival dynasties of ancient Ireland), a body of 
 
104 THE INVASION. 
 
 Picts landed in the harbour of Inbher Slainge 
 (the present Wexford), and were successfully em- 
 ployed by Criomthan, the Fearbolg, then governor 
 of Coige Laighean, against the Danaan exiles who 
 were accustomed to annoy the coasts from the 
 opposite shores of Britain. In consequence of 
 this service, they sought from Heremon a per- 
 manent settlement in the country, but the wary 
 Ardrigh, suspecting that such useful friends 
 might prove as formidable enemies, instead 
 of complying with their request, procured them 
 possessions on the shores of Inismore, with an 
 agreement that, in all future intermarriages, the 
 children of Irishwomen should inherit without 
 regard to primogeniture. And, from this 
 half Hibernian race, was descended the wife 
 of Ailred, the Anglo-Saxon, and the mother of 
 Kenric. 
 
 Kenric inherited from his mother that fairness 
 
THE INVASION. 105 
 
 of complexion, and delicacy of form, which at- 
 tracted the admiration of Gregory the Great in 
 the slave-mart at Rome ; but what was beauty 
 in Domnona was weakness and effeminacy in her 
 son. As years rolled on, it became evident that 
 the mind of the young Northumbrian was not 
 free from the soft and feminine turn which dis- 
 figured his person ; and, unfortunately, his early 
 habits of life, combined with the temper of his 
 superiors, tended to confirm this fatal defect both 
 in the one and in the other. His mind, as is 
 generally the case with such natures, was sharp 
 and suspicious, and his feelings keen and sen- 
 sitive, and not a little selfish, whenever it was 
 necessary to accompany the effort of generosity 
 with one of self-denial. 
 
 These seeds of unhappiness were counter- 
 balanced by an imagination ardent, active and 
 
 capacious, and such as, if supplied with proper 
 
 F 5 
 
106 THE INVASION. 
 
 food, and properly directed, might have led to the 
 formation of an useful and a thinking character. 
 As it was, he was left to such material as chance, 
 or the impulse of his own objectless curiosity, 
 brought in his way. Domnona was incapable of 
 instructing him ; x\ilred despised learning; and 
 Kenric was yet too young to join his father in his 
 agricultural pursuits, and too delicate, as Dom- 
 nona believed, for the stern discipline of Vusc- 
 fraea's school. In consequence of these dif- 
 ficulties, he was left to dispose of his idle time 
 according to his pleasure. Sometimes, he stole 
 off at school hours to his uncle's house, where, 
 seated by the rercdosse in the hall (for the luxury 
 of a chimney was in these days unknown), he lis- 
 tened to the tales of Webba, Vuscfraea's only ser- 
 vant. Holding the fair-faced boy between his 
 knees, he would relate, in a low, drowsy, tone, long 
 legends of British chivalry and romance ; of the 
 
THE INVASION. JO? 
 
 giant Albion ; of the wars of Brute, and the fall of 
 Gogmagog at Dover ; of the unhappy Lear and 
 his ungrateful daughters ; and other narratives, 
 such as to V\ ebba seemed but toys and pastime, 
 but which, combined with his habits of mental 
 indolence, were full of future injury to the sen- 
 sitive and fanciful mind of his young hearer. 
 In this position he would stay, gazing on the 
 wood embers, and listening to Webba, until the 
 shouting and running of children by the door 
 announced the termination of the school hour, and 
 the speedy approach of his rigid uncle. At these 
 dreaded sounds he would hie through the back- 
 door, across the adjoining gardens, which lay be- 
 hind the town, and arrive at his father's house 
 in time for the afternoon meal. Sometimes, 
 when Webba could not afford time for his 
 amusement, he would accompany Oswy, the 
 little goose-herd, into the fields, and retail for 
 
108 THE INVASION. 
 
 his instruction the histories which he had already 
 stored up, in a memory remarkably tenacious of 
 fictitious incident, and graced with all the exu- 
 berance of his own insatiable fancy. Sometimes, 
 when the geese, manifesting an unusual degree of 
 insubordination, demanded the exclusive attention 
 of his auditor, he would sit in the sunshine, near 
 the wald, watching the squirrels in the boughs, 
 or listening for hours to the sound of the wind in 
 the trees, or the rushing of the wandering Ouse. 
 Sometimes he would spend good part of a moon- 
 light night at the window of his sleeping-room, to 
 hear the melancholv song of the nightinsfale in 
 the thickets of the silent Dene ; and at noon he 
 would often lie stretched at length upon the river 
 bank, watching his own airy fancies as they rose 
 and faded, like one on the sea shore, contem- 
 plating the irises that arise from the billows as they 
 fall and break in mist and foam upon the strand. 
 
THE INVASION. 109 
 
 This life of idleness and of romantic luxury 
 laid the foundation of another great deficiency in 
 the character of Kenric. It produced the same 
 effect that satiety of enjoyment is said to do in 
 the licentious ; it gave him fitful and unsettled 
 habits, and added, to his natural weakness of 
 resolve, a perpetual incertitude and irresolution 
 of mind, and an incessant change of purpose ; 
 this was not heeded by his guardians, because 
 it was only apparent in his amusements, and 
 his pursuits were too frivolous in their eyes to 
 allow the evil at any time to be attended with 
 important consequences. Sometimes Domnona, 
 while busy at her dairy, heard Kenric's voice 
 in the yard, summoning the dogs of the house, 
 limmers, harriers, band-dogs, and all, to look for 
 badgers in the sandy ground and amongst the 
 brush wood ; and, in half an hour after, going out 
 to visit Vuscfraea, she would find him seated by 
 
] 10 THE INVASION. 
 
 the reredosse, leaning on Webba's lap, and listen- 
 ing to the story of Locrine. 
 
 Nor were the parents of Kenric the persons 
 best calculated, either by precept or example, 
 to rectify these defects in their son. It is true 
 the manners of the Anglo-Saxons were pure and 
 simple, for they had not yet been tainted by the 
 influence of those habits of living and feeling 
 which were afterwards introduced by their north- 
 ern conquerors ; and the mind of Kenric un- 
 folded itself in the midst of a modest and pious 
 
 community. But Ailred and Domnona were 
 
 •J 
 
 not, in the opinion of their neighbours, the most 
 exemplary beings in the Dene of Ouse. Dom- 
 nona was fond of her child, afraid of her husband, 
 and a little vain of herself. She was not one 
 of those muffled specimens of Anglo-Saxon 
 womanhood, whom the industrious Strutt com- 
 mends with a patriotic delight for their becoming 
 
THE INVASION. Ill 
 
 closeness of attire. The good advice which they 
 were accustomed to hear, week after week, from 
 the lips of the successors of Aidan, did not 
 hinder the wife of Ailred from using curling 
 irons, painting her face with stibium, and figuring 
 at the assemblies of the place in a golden head- 
 band and vermiculated necklace, all which were 
 practices confessedly beyond the Anglo-Saxon 
 notions of moderation in apparel. In the mean 
 time Ailred, when not employed for the advantage 
 or the pleasure of his patron, was apt to steal out 
 privately, to enjoy his nightly draught of ale, and 
 game of toefl, at one of the prohibited places of 
 entertainment in the town. 
 
 Between them both, young Kenric profited 
 little. If Ailred at any time took notice of his 
 child, it was only to teach him by what 
 signs he should discover to a nicety how much a 
 fal ox might bring to the butcher in retail, or 
 
1 12 THE INVASION. 
 
 to place him on his knee and sing the old 
 couplet : 
 
 " When the sand doth serve the clay, 
 Then we may sing, Well away ! 
 But when the clay doth serve the sand, 
 Then it is merry with England." 
 
 Domnona, on the other hand, when at leisure, 
 taught him how to hang his little sagum with the 
 courtliest air, and to dispose the beah, on festal 
 occasions, with the best effect. 
 
 To end this life of idleness, rather than from 
 any faith in the utility of letters, Ailred at length 
 consented to have Kenric placed at the school of 
 his morose and rigid uncle, and Domnona, who 
 began to be ashamed of Kenric's ignorance, ac- 
 corded a slow consent. Early at morn when 
 their first meal was ended, and Ailred had de- 
 parted to the Dene, Domnona, wrapping her 
 slight figure in a loose walking dress, and taking 
 
THE INVASION. 113 
 
 the reluctant Kenric by the hand, left home 
 with a heavy heart for the dwelling of Vusc- 
 fraea. 
 
 The building stood near the bridge already 
 mentioned. As Domnona, holding the deli- 
 cate Kenric at her side, glided by the open 
 street doors, returning the frequent greet- 
 ings of the inmates, and almost fearful of 
 committing her fragile toy to hands so harsh as 
 his uncle's, she was met by Alfrida, the same 
 matron who had announced the birth of Ken- 
 ric to his father. The worthy housewife was, 
 in like manner, accompanied by her son, a 
 round-faced boy. The following conversation 
 passed between the neighbours at their meet- 
 
 ing : 
 
 " Good day, good neighbour." 
 " Give ye good day, Alfrida." 
 ^'So Ailred sold the kine ? " 
 
114 THE INVASION. 
 
 " Aye, hath he ; they are on the Gwethelin* 
 for Cair Lud."f 
 
 " And for how much ? " 
 
 *' Five rings a piece the oxen, and three for 
 the heighfers.'' 
 
 ''Aihed's a thriving man. The year has 
 fallen out ill with Eanfrid. The wild bulls in 
 the Wald have gored the kine, and the wolves 
 been at the sheep, and the drought has left the 
 Ouse low, and the bottoms bare. Why were ye 
 not at the dance the other even? Yet it was 
 poor in mirth, for thou knowest tliat Oswald ever 
 was a niggard. I had my rings of jet, and a new 
 white coral cross. Is this thy boy ? He grows. 
 Dost know me, Kenric ? " 
 
 Kenric held down his head, ashamed ; to 
 Domnona's mortification, and the amusement of 
 Alfrida. 
 
 * A highway. t London. 
 
THE INVASION. \\5 
 
 *' He does not thrive so well as thine, Al- 
 frida. How dost, my fair-faced Eldred ? " 
 
 "How dost, Domnona?" said the boy, 
 unabashed. 
 
 " Aye," said Alfrida, " thanks to Vuscfraea 
 and Vuscfraea's rod, the child has manners and a 
 spice of Latin. Canst tell," she said, addressing 
 Kenric, " the division of the year? " 
 
 Kenric was mute. 
 
 '' What sayest thou, Eldred ? '* 
 
 Eldred cast an eye of conscious superiority 
 on Kenric, and turning up the side of his broad 
 moon-face, repeated in a loud singing tone the 
 well known words : 
 
 "Junius, ApriliSj Septemque, Novemque tricenos, 
 *' Unum plus relique, Februs tenet octo vicenos, 
 " At si hissextus fuerit superadditur unus.'' 
 
 " He is a wo'idrous boy," said Domnona, in 
 a mournful tone. 
 
1 \6 THE INVASION. 
 
 '* Aye, he has got a memory. But I must 
 hasten home. Good day, Domnona." 
 
 " Give ye good day, Alfrida." 
 
 They passed each other, on their several 
 errands. The resolution of Domnona, which had 
 been shaken by the mention of ihe rod, received 
 
 a further shock when she approached the school- 
 house, and heard, w ithin, the murmur of the small 
 community, and the iron tones of Vuscfraea at in- 
 tervals, commanding silence, or calling up a class. 
 The recollection, however, of the shining supe- 
 riority of Alfrida's boy overcame her maternal 
 fears, and she entered the dwelling. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 She found Vuscfraea in the little school-room, 
 through which, the instant she appeared, a sud- 
 den hush prevailed. All eyes were turned on 
 the new comer with the curiosity manifested by 
 the inmates of an aviary at the entrance of a 
 new captive. While Kenric hardly dared to look 
 around, or raise his eyes to the hardly chiselled 
 visage of the unimaginative Vuscfraea, Domnona, 
 in a gentle voice, made known her husband's 
 wishes to his brother, and formally committed 
 Kenric to his care. Vuscfraea heard her with 
 
118 THE INVASION. 
 
 satisfaction, and appointed his nephew a solitary 
 tripod, at a little distance from his own chair. 
 As she was about to depart, Domnona, slightly 
 confused, bade Vuscfraea follow her into the pas- 
 sage leading to the street, and said : 
 
 *' Thou must deal gently with my boy, Vusc- 
 fraea. His poor thin frame could never bear 
 hard usage. He had a fever-fit with his last 
 teeth, and his little strength has never since re- 
 turned. Besides, his disposition is so gentle, 
 that a word to him is more than the rod to 
 another boy." 
 
 Vuscfraea heard her with a stern brow, his 
 eyes fixed hard upon the ground, and one ear 
 slightly turned towards Donnona, as if to give 
 her a fair hearing. When she had ended, he 
 replied, in a tone that made her tremble : 
 
 " I will make thy boy a scholar ; I have no 
 pets, no favourites, no darlings. There is no 
 
THE INVASION. 119 
 
 Cyprus, woman, on my map. Vuscfraea makes not 
 sybarites, but men." 
 
 '^Thou knowest best," said Domnona, in a 
 deprecating tone. 
 
 " Let Ailred keep his boy," continued the 
 monarch of the pigmies, 'Mf I am to be thwarted 
 in my discipline. If fondling and dandling be 
 the education he desires for him, let him keep 
 his boy at home. Let him keep him to feed 
 kine, and fatten on the produce of the Dene, 
 but leave letters to those who know how to en- 
 dure and labour. Take off thy boy, take him 
 oflf!" 
 
 ''I pray thee," said Domnona, " say no more. 
 Thou knowest best. I hope thou wilt not let 
 Ailred know aught of this folly, Vuscfraea. It 
 was entirely my own motion." 
 
 So saying, and recommending her boy to the 
 care of Providence, she left the house, while 
 
120 THE INVASION. 
 
 Vuscfiaea compressed his lips, and, pausing for a 
 time, repeated in a severe tone : 
 
 '* Thy motion ! And I might have judged it 
 so. Ye are proper guides for youth. Ye must 
 have feasts and revels, jet from the hills, and 
 coral from the coasts, your erne stones, muscle 
 pearls, and chains of gold, your comforters and 
 fisting hounds to carry in your bosoms. Nay, 
 nay, Vuscfraea's rod shall uot bud and blossom 
 for lack of use, I promise thee. Thy motion, 
 sayest thou ? I'll make that motion vain." 
 
 Nothwithstanding this stern resolve, Vusc- 
 fraja spared to Kenric the dernier punishment in 
 such communities, but unfortunately made up in 
 severity of manner what was omitted in corpo- 
 real discipline, and visited on his feelings the 
 infliction which he spared his frame. All who 
 have undergone that fearful ordeal, the first day 
 at school, may imagine something of Kenric's 
 
THE INVASION. 121 
 
 feelings after the departure of Domnona, and 
 during the whole lonesome afternoon. Few of 
 his schoolfellows were of more than his own age, 
 for Vuscfraea only professed to prepare his pupils 
 for the more expensive seminaries of Cair Grant 
 or Inisfail. They were for the greater part of 
 the day busy in humming over their tasks, so that 
 an occasional glance, or whispered jest, was all 
 the notice that the new scholar received through- 
 
 o 
 
 out the day ; and he sat in contemplative silence, 
 the loneliest spectacle in all the Dene. Towards 
 evening, when Vuscfrasa went to order some 
 household business, those who had ended their 
 literary toil, began to acknowledge their new 
 companion in the usual manner, by gathering 
 around his chair, and asking him sundry witty 
 questions, such as — ^' what kind of a man was 
 his grandame ? " " how many feathers in a band- 
 dog's tail V '< what would he give a yard for 
 
 VOL. I, G 
 
122 THE INVASION. 
 
 the noise of a wheelbarrow ? '' &c. At length, 
 growing more familiar, some took the liberty of 
 pulling his hair, some tapped him on the head, some 
 twitched him by the nose, and by divers sleights 
 and jests so lowered him in his own esteem, that 
 he looked upon them all as beings of a superior 
 order. One boy, in particular, something above 
 his own size, excited general amusement by taking 
 Kenric under the arm, as if for the purpose of 
 protection ; but, while in a voice of ironical 
 sternness, he commanded the others to forbear, 
 he adroitly inflicted, under the mask of friend- 
 ship, some severe corporeal chastisement behind ; 
 an insult of which Kenric, for prudential reasons, 
 did not take any notice. 
 
 Kenric's softness of disposition rendered him, 
 for an unusual length of time, a subject for such 
 intellectual sport as the above, and this, com- 
 bined with the rigid manner of Vuscfraea, made 
 
THE INVASION. 123 
 
 school no place of pleasure. His only consola- 
 tion through the day was looking forward to the 
 hour of breaking up, and his sunny stroll by the 
 river-side, or through the shady wald, with such 
 of his schoolfellows as by a little assistance at 
 their tasks, or by other means, he was able to 
 bring into his interest. But the pleasantest hours 
 which he passed, while at his uncle's school, 
 were those which he spent at evening, near the 
 little bridge which spanned their native river, in 
 listening to the wild tales of King Arthur and his 
 brave Silures, sung to the sound of horse-hair 
 harpstrings, by some wandering minstrel, the 
 wonder of a gaping crowd. In returning home 
 by moonlight, after spending whole hours in 
 this manner, Kenric would often employ the 
 knowledge he had acquired, in laying down 
 plans for his own future life, which it may be 
 well imagined were none of the driest or most 
 
 G 2 
 
124 THE INVASION. 
 
 common-place. He often privately determined 
 with himself, on suffering some rebuke for his 
 remissness, that, after having conquered all the 
 dragons, and slain all the magicians by which he 
 understood Europe was then infested, when he 
 should return at the head of a large army to his 
 native town, the case would be different with 
 some of its inhabitants who now exercised autho- 
 rity over him. Towards his father, all rigid as 
 he was, he proposed acting with filial and heroic 
 forgiveness, but as for his uncle, the schoolmas- 
 ter, he privately determined to make an example 
 of him. 
 
 These designs, however, he kept profoundly 
 buried in his own mind until he had made himself 
 master (so far as his own indolence and Vuscfraja's 
 over severity permitted) of the course of study which 
 his uncle taught. The time now arrived for trans- 
 mitting him to some more considerable mart of let- 
 
THE INVASION. 125 
 
 ters, in order to complete his education, or else for 
 initiating him into the mysteries of his father's 
 calling. So urgent were Domnona and her 
 brother-in-law to have the former alternative 
 adopted, that Ailred, who cherished himself an 
 open scorn of letters, at length gave way to their 
 persuasions, and agreed, with a reluctant heart, to 
 send his son to Inisfail in pursuit of scholarship. 
 The manner of his education had impressed 
 Kenric with no feelings of prepossession in fa- 
 vour of learning and of virtue ; and, when he 
 parted from his tender mother, he believed that 
 he was giving her up for a whole community of 
 Ailreds and Vuscfraeas. Travelling with his 
 uncle, who kindly undertook the charge of his 
 pupil on the way, in one of those square bodied 
 carriages used by the Anglo-Saxons of the pe- 
 riod, they arrived at Cair Kyby,* whence they 
 embarked in a vessel like the war-ships used 
 * Holyhead. 
 
12G THE INVASION. 
 
 in the time of Ecbert, and on the following day 
 cast anchor in the bay which opened from the 
 city of Hurdles.* Travelling at a rapid rate 
 through the territories of Laighean,f of Leis, J of 
 Ossruidhe,§ of Shior, Muimhean, and finally, pass- 
 ing the Dal Cassian frontier, they drove at length 
 
 by the great city or Luimneach na JLuingas, and 
 penetrated the solitudes of Munigharidh. The 
 multitude and strangeness of the objects he had 
 seen, and the places he had passed, the deep and 
 
 - , ... Brit tu\ ^'J.'i , . , - imm -^ 
 
 lonely woods by which the convent was sur- 
 rounded, the strange attire of its inmates, and 
 the sense of living, for the first time, in a country 
 not his own, encreased the apprehensions of the 
 young Northumbrian, and made him dread the 
 change still more as he proceeded. But as the 
 woodland opened on their view, disclosing an 
 
 • Dublin. t Leinster. 
 
 $ Queen's County. $ Ossory. 
 
THE INVASION, 127 
 
 autumnal scene of industry and peace, and the 
 ceaseless harmonies of the eternal choir resounded 
 in the tranquil groves, he could not forbear 
 joining in the exclamations of delight with 
 which Vuscfrasa looked upon the celebrated 
 scene. 
 
 Such were the principal circumstances that 
 had distinguished the life of Kenric, ere Elim saw 
 him first within the convent gate. On the evening 
 after his admission, the Ithian again beheld him 
 in the lecture room at its opening for the season. 
 The spectacle presented on the occasion was 
 one of uncommon splendour. The circle of 
 massy torches which surrounded the apartment 
 was lighted up, and shone on the faces and 
 forms of more than two thousand pupils, of 
 every degree. The lecturer who delivered the 
 opening address, discharged his task to the de- 
 light of Elim, and the satisfaction of his entire 
 
1£8 THE INVASION. 
 
 auditory. He painted, in language so eloquent, 
 the utility of science, and dwelt with so much 
 force upon its pleasures and advantages, that the 
 minds of all his hearers were stimulated to its 
 pursuit, and even the wavering fancy of the 
 Northumbrian was for the moment fixed and 
 elevated with a thirst of useful knowledge and 
 of active virtue. On the following day the 
 studies of the season commenced, and Kenric 
 entered on his course, in company with Elim and 
 those of his own age. The classic tongues, the 
 imperfect systems of history, geography, astro- 
 nomy, and other sciences then extant, constituted 
 the general course laid down for the great body 
 of the students ; while a few, intending to devote 
 themselves to particular professions, were in- 
 structed in genealogy, in medicine, or in the 
 composition of poetry ; for in those days, when 
 all history, whether domestic or national, was 
 
THE INVASION. ] Q9 
 
 preserved in verse, the art last named was an 
 important and essential branch of study. 
 
 Kenric was placed in a small apartment at 
 no great distance from the young Ithian, where 
 he was provided with a table, a stool^ and such 
 books as he required. About noon, hearing a 
 bell ring, he went to the door, and perceived by 
 the snatching of caps, tumultuous voices, leaping 
 and hurrying out of doors, that it was the time of 
 recreation. Closing the door of his apartment, 
 he followed the tiny crowd, but was ashamed to 
 thrust himself into their sports, and all were too 
 busy in the pursuit of their own pleasures to take 
 notice of the stranger. Oppressed by the scene of 
 joy from which he was §h4||; ,out, he walked 
 slowly away towards the side of the little stream 
 which flowed by the abbey, and, sitting at 
 the foot of a thick ash, began to think of the 
 Dene of Ouse, until the tears came plentifully 
 
 G 5 
 
130 THE INVASION. 
 
 down his cheeks . In this situation he was found 
 by three of the students who had come hither to 
 spend their time of recreation in angling. The 
 first was the son of a Fearbolgian chief from the 
 Province of Spears, the second a young Danaan 
 from Conacht, and the third was the Ithian chief 
 Mho pursued his sport at a little distance behind. 
 
 '* What fish is here ? " said the Danaan, as 
 he put aside a thick bough of weeping ash, and 
 suddenly discovered Kenric musing at the other 
 side of it. The latter turned quickly away, and 
 hid his face. 
 
 "Let him alone," said the Fearbolg, " it is 
 the Saxon burgher's son, that would have been a 
 duke's if he could have chosen his own father." 
 
 ''Not yet done weeping after the Northum- 
 brian fire-logs and four meals a day," added the 
 the Danaan, while he cast out his line, and passed 
 the spot where Kenric was sitting. 
 
THE INVASION. 131 
 
 Elim^ who listened to these speeches in silence, 
 kept his eye fixed on the trembling line in the 
 water, while the students strolled down the bank 
 pursuing their sport, without taking farther notice 
 of the stranger. He looked from time to time at 
 the friendless Anglo Saxon, until the bell sounded 
 for the hour of study. As he rolled up his line 
 and prepared to depart, he said aloud to Kenric : 
 
 ^' Thou shouldest not heed these jeering 
 rogues, good Saxon. 'Tis the sport of those 
 youths to see thee vexed, but if thou wouldst only 
 laugh when they jest at thee, they would shortly 
 give thee peace." 
 
 '* If thou wert so far from home as 1 am," 
 said Kenric, " thou wouldst not like to be jeered 
 at by strangers. " 
 
 " Nor did I, in truth," said Elim. " It was 
 so with me when first I came to Muingharidh, but 
 they soon ceased when I took all in jest, for I 
 
132 THE INVASION. 
 
 spoiled their mirth when I began to turn it on 
 my own side. But thou hast best come this 
 way to the college, for the bell has rung/' 
 
 They walked together to their lodgings, Elim, 
 as he strolled along, assuming the patron, and 
 letting the respectful Northumbrian into the 
 college politics, acquainting him with their mode 
 of life, their sports, and habits, and making en- 
 quiries of a similar nature with respect to Kenric's 
 native place. The latter, by degrees, grew fa- 
 miliar and confiding, and before they separated 
 it was agreed that Elim should call for Kenric in 
 his room on the following day, that he might ac- 
 company him to the play-ground. At the night 
 lecture and examination, they met again, with 
 increased good will ; and Kenric went to rest with 
 recovered spirits, happy in the thought of having 
 already made a friend at Muingharidh. 
 
 Scarce had the bell tolled the first signal note 
 
THE INVASION. 133 
 
 of recreation on the following day, when Elim 
 thrust in the door of the Northumbrian's room. 
 
 " Up books, and play !" he said ^^ Come out, 
 come out, come out ! " 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon seized his barrad and they 
 went out together. Elim introduced him at the 
 ground by exclaiming aloud : 
 
 '^ Here's one at last to tell us how the Anglo- 
 Saxons play the Base."" 
 
 The friend of Elim was sure to attract 
 attention, and the students left their venerable 
 games of picky, goal, and other youthful sports, 
 to gaze on the new comer, and hear his speech. 
 Kenric readily entered on the explanation that was 
 required, initiating his hearers into all the amusing 
 mysteries of the prisoner's bars, base, homey &c., 
 and illustrating his lecture as he ended, by going 
 through the principal manoeuvres of the game. 
 With the young, as with the old, those are most cer- 
 
134 THE INVASION. 
 
 tain of applause and favour who can contribute to 
 their interest or pleasure. The aim of Elim was 
 entirely gained, and the Northumbrian, ere he left 
 the ground, had the satisfaction of hearing the 
 name of '* Kenric" familiar in almost every 
 mouth. 
 
 From this time forward Kenric^s time flowed 
 pleasantly enough. His studies, it is true, were 
 severe, but the hours of relaxation were propor- 
 tionately delightful. In some days after, while 
 they were all at play, Kenric happened to take 
 off his barrad, in order to suffer the cool wind to 
 play on his head. One of the students, the same 
 who first had found him weeping on the bank, 
 observing the curious fashion of his hair, plaited 
 on the crown, and cropped close behind, instead of 
 flowing down upon the neck and shoulders, after 
 the manner of the celebrated Irish coolun, said, as 
 he leaned upon his spwack and gazed on Kenric : 
 
THE INVASION. 13.5 
 
 ** Anglo-Saxon, if the Praelector sees thee 
 with that short crop, he will not leave thee long 
 in the enjoyment of it. He'll make an Irishman 
 of thee, in that respect." 
 
 Kenric, who had by this time recovered his 
 natural spirits, replied with readiness : 
 
 *' Neither head nor foot, shall thy Praelector 
 ever make an Irishman of me. An Anglo-Saxon 
 I was born, and an Anglo-Saxon J will die." 
 
 "Aye," said the other, looking back, "if thy 
 father do not sell thee to some ceanuighe* of 
 Port Lairge f for a load of peltry and an Irish 
 hound." 
 
 Kenric blushed deeply at this allusion to a 
 disgraceful species of traffic at that time carried 
 on between the islands. 
 
 " Thou mightest have spared," he said, " a 
 reproach that but half reaches me. If there be 
 • Merchant. t Waterford. 
 
136 THE INVASION. 
 
 sellers in England, there are buyers in Inisfail, so 
 the shame is even betwixt us." 
 
 ''Well spoken, Anglo-Saxon!" said several 
 voices. " It is no matter," said the other speaker, 
 " the Praelector will make thee wear the coolun, 
 after all." 
 
 '' Thou shalt see," replied Kenric, " if he 
 will not be wiser than to meddle with my 
 
 head." 
 
 *' How ! meddle ! Hear ye this for disobe- 
 dience!" cried the other, "methinks it is his busi- 
 ness to meddle with it." 
 
 '' With the inside it may," said Kenric, '' but 
 not with the outside." 
 
 " In good truth," said his opponent, " thou 
 needest not grudge the fashioning of thy hair 
 to him who has the moulding of thy brains. It 
 is apparent on which of the two the Anglo-Saxons 
 set most valuCj since tliou leavest him the one 
 
THE INVASION. 137 
 
 without murmuring, and fightest so stoutly for 
 the other." 
 
 '^ It was not I gave him my brains to mould," 
 said Kenric, '' and even if I had, the moulding 
 of people's brains is his business, and not the 
 cutting of their hair. So let him leave my head 
 alone, I would advise. I'll wear it after the 
 Northumbrian mode, although it be the only 
 Saxon head at college." 
 
 Saying this, he turned away, humming a 
 verse of a song. 
 
 " The Praelector will make that youth turn a 
 different tune," said the Danaan, as he continued 
 his play with his companions. " He'll show him 
 that he has a right to meddle with his head and 
 with his ears too, if he does not change his 
 manners." 
 
 The Praelector, however, did not manifest 
 any hostility to the Northumbrian mode of hair 
 
138 THE INVASION. 
 
 dressing. Both Kenric and the Danaan were 
 admonished for the altercation which, by some 
 means unknown, soon reached the ears of their 
 superiors ; but this circumstance and his growing 
 popularity prevented the recurrence of any taunt- 
 ing remarks on Kenric's country or extraction. 
 In the mean time, his friendship with the young 
 Ithian acquired daily strength. Both were diligent, 
 fervent, and emulous. While Kenric learned 
 steadiness and regularity from the Ithian, the 
 very task of instruction was for the latter in itself 
 an additional stimulus to exertion. Both ex- 
 celled in their studies, though the capacity which 
 they displayed was different in its kind. The 
 strength and force of Elim's intellect, his sound 
 judgment, and love of his race, led him no 
 less by inclination than necessity to the study of 
 the more solid departments of literature, such as 
 history, genealogy (which the peculiar constitu- 
 
THE INVASION. 139 
 
 tion of his country rendered an important branch 
 of knowledge,) and the walks of practical science. 
 Kenric's imagination, and some remains of an 
 habitual love of pleasure, though they did not 
 hinder his proficiency in science, directed his 
 taste more readily to the cultivation of lighter 
 studies. Both however proceeded in their career 
 with general distinction, and both were likewise 
 remarkable for a quality, not always the con- 
 comitant of shining abilities, a fervent and un- 
 obtrusive piety. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 During the festival of Ullog, the students 
 enjoyed a relaxation from their studies, and 
 many parties were formed for the purpose of 
 making excursions to the frozen lakes of Coola- 
 pish and Guir, whose mountain barrier looked 
 stateliest in the iron garb of winter ; to Kil Molua, 
 where the still Senan flowed calmly at the base 
 of a clifted mountain, robed in snow and frost, 
 and even to the scattered islets of Lough Ribh, 
 in whose waves the detested Meibhe met her 
 
THE INVASION. 14 
 
 death from the sling of Forbhuidhe. The invi- 
 gorating exercise, which the tourists underwent 
 both on foot and in the horse-skin noevogs in which 
 they ascended the river, prepared them well for 
 the close application of the ensuing spring. 
 The season of Lent soon followed, during which 
 all parties of amusement were suspended, strict 
 silence was maintained, all recreation except 
 such as was absolutely necessary for the health of 
 
 the community laid aside, and the minds of all 
 directed to contemplative seclusion and retreat. A 
 general air of self restraint and seriousness seemed 
 to pervade the college, the town and the adjoining 
 townships, villages and cities, as if at the an- 
 nouncement of some great public calamity ; the 
 joyous shouting of the students at recreation 
 hours was no longer heard ; and men met in the 
 streets, and conversed with thoughtful visages, and 
 in an under tone. After the solemn festival of Easter 
 
142 THE INVASION. 
 
 which was celebrated with magnificent processions, 
 the ringing of bells, vocal and instrumental music, 
 and all the demonstrations of general rejoicing, 
 the labours of the spring began. The cattle 
 were unhoused, the monks were busy in the field 
 with the plough and the spade, and the husbandry 
 of the year commenced in all its departments. 
 On May eve, the gates of the college, the doors 
 of the lecture room, and the lecturer's chair 
 were decorated with green boughs and flowers 
 still more abundantly than at the opening of 
 the season ; the doors and windows of the town 
 of Deochain Assian were wreathed and garlanded 
 and the whole body of students proceeded in 
 regular procession to the general examination 
 and concluding address with which the season 
 was to terminate. The answering both of 
 Elim and of Kenric attracted general applause, 
 and the lecturer concluded the proceedings 
 
THE INVASION. 143 
 
 by pointing out the course of study which it 
 would be proper for all to continue during the 
 period of vacation at their private dwellings. The 
 multitude of students then separated for the 
 summer and autumn, during which the wealthier 
 returned to their friends, with the exception of 
 the few who, like Elim and the Northumbrian, 
 were maintained within the immediate precincts 
 of the Abbey. The poorer students, who had 
 no homes to which they could return, were quar- 
 tered on the surrounding country, and supplied, 
 as usual, with food and attire from the revenues 
 of the convent. 
 
 Sigibert, the son of a native of Tours, who 
 had become one of the confidential secretaries 
 of the celebrated Charlemagne; Rolust, a talented 
 young Scot, from the Dal Reudimh of Albany ; 
 O'Haedha, Kenric, the Danaan, and the Fear- 
 bolg already spoken of, with the spirited young 
 
144 THE INVASION. 
 
 Airtree, the only son of the monarch of that name 
 who at this time held the throne of Leath Mogha, 
 and one of whose palaces was in the adjacent city 
 of Luimneach, were the most distinguished, by 
 rank and talent, of those who remained during 
 the summer months at Muingharidh. Under 
 the charge of one or two members of the com- 
 munity, they w^ere permitted to make excursions to 
 those districts in the neighbourhood which even 
 still continue to attract the admiration of travel- 
 lers : to the winding shores and woody creeks of 
 Ringmoylan, to the sunny isles of the Senan, the 
 groves of Carbre Aodhba, and other summer 
 clad retreats. 
 
 One morn, while they were projecting an ex- 
 cursion on foot to the beautiful woodland and 
 city of Athdair, which lay not farther than a fore- 
 noon's walk toward the south, a guard of gallog- 
 lachs, bearing the Dal Gassian banner, and 
 
THE INVASION. 145 
 
 headed b}? a tioseach, arrived at the college. It 
 was soon understood that they came for the pur- 
 pose of escorting the young prince of Leath 
 Mogha, already mentioned, to the palace of his 
 father. Kenric, enquiring from the Danaan the 
 cause of this unexpected event, was informed 
 that the sister of the monarch had died on the 
 preceding day, and that the prince was sum- 
 moned home tc attend the funereal rites. While 
 they were speaking, the young prince, in tears, 
 and accompanied by the military leader, passed 
 the spot where they were standing. The 
 Danaan continued to inform the Anglo-Saxon 
 that the deceased princess was the wife of the 
 descendant of a Druid race, who was himself 
 the first of his name that had embraced the 
 doctrines of the new religion. He was the 
 brother, he said, of a Druid chief, who still main- 
 tained his ancient habits and belief, in the in- 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
146 THE INVASION. 
 
 terior of the country, and obstinately refused to 
 admit any attempt at innovation on his secluded 
 territory. No Christian was allovved to set foot 
 upon the soil, and although the chieftain made 
 his appearance in regular form at the triennial 
 Feis, or national assembly of Tara, yet he per- 
 sisted in upholding, within his own remote do- 
 minion, the Druid laws, the Druid customs, and 
 the rites of the Druidical belief. This narrative, 
 which he had learned from the young prince 
 himself, the Danaan communicated in a confi- 
 dential tone, while Kenric, devouring its remar- 
 kable details, accompanied him to the convent 
 
 gate. 
 
 The excursion to Athdair took place before 
 the return of Airtree to the college. The party 
 consisted of the young Gaul Sigibert, the 
 Danaan, the Fearbolg, Rolust, the Nortlium- 
 brian, and two monks, who walked apart con- 
 
THE INVASION. 14? 
 
 versing with each other. O'Haedha, whose 
 turn it was to attend in the refectory of strangers, 
 was unable to accompany them in their walk. 
 The old tales of Webba, now so long forgot, 
 came back into the mind of Kenric as he fol- 
 lowed the other students, and thought of the 
 Druid chieftain ; of his brother, who had married 
 the sister of the monarch, and the untimely 
 dissolution of their union. The morning was 
 serene and soft, and the students, after rambling 
 through the city, and satisfying their curiosity 
 by inspecting the shops of the artificers and other 
 places worthy of attention, repaired to the 
 banks of the winding and sallow- fringed Maig, 
 to enjoy the exercise of swimming. Perceiving 
 a great concourse of people around the eastern 
 gate of the little city, they were informed that 
 the funeral of the deceased princess was ex- 
 pected to pass through, on its way to the cele- 
 
 H 2 
 
148 THE INVASION. 
 
 biated abbey of Caisil,'* where it was to be 
 interred. Before they left the place, Kenric had 
 the satisfaction of witnessing the melancholy 
 procession. A party of Dal Gassian gallog- 
 lachs preceded the carbudh which contained the 
 corpse, and which was followed by another, hold- 
 ing the widowed husband and his daughter, who 
 seemed scarcely entered on the age of girlhood. 
 So deeply was the imagination of the Northum- 
 brian impressed by the spectacle, that for nearly 
 a week after Elim observed that he was not the 
 same in his sports and studies. "^""^ tc- rVlf 
 
 On the return of Airtree, Kenric regarded 
 him with an interest such as he had not felt 
 before. It happened that both the prince and 
 the Northumbrian were obliged to attend on the 
 same morning in the refectory of strangers, an 
 apartment in which all travellers were provided 
 
 • Cashel. 
 
THE INVASION. 149 
 
 with refreshment and repose for a day and night. 
 The duties of attending on the strangers, of 
 serving them at meals, providing them with 
 water and napkins for their hands, and w^ashing 
 their feet before they went to rest, were taken 
 in turn by the students in the Abbey, both as an 
 exercise of humility, and a means of accustoming 
 them to the offices of charity. As they entered 
 the refectory, Airtree said to the Northumbrian: 
 
 " Thou wilt have some friends of mine 
 amongst the guests to-day.'' 
 
 " What friends ? " said Kenric. 
 
 " A cousin, and a kind of uncle." 
 
 " Indeed V 
 
 " They are on their way to the mountains in 
 some distant territory, where I shall see no more 
 of them perhaps for years." 
 
 <' What ! leave thy father's court, and the 
 land of the Dal Gas?" 
 
150 THE INVASION. 
 
 " Yes ; and although I had rather lose my 
 hand than lose my cousin, I like her father^s 
 resolution." 
 
 He said no more, and Kenric, though with 
 curiosity highly excited, was unwilling to ask 
 questions. Soon after the brother of the Druid 
 entered with his daughter, and Kenric, while he 
 served them at their morning meal, in company 
 with a number of guests of every description, 
 who were placed according to their rank at table, 
 perused their features and persons with the 
 keenest interest. The father was of a cheerful, 
 though somewhat pale, countenance, with a staid 
 religious expression in his manner and aspect, 
 though unmingled with the least severity or stern- 
 ness. The daughter had the large dark eyes and 
 hair of her country, with that peculiar air of live- 
 liness, affection, and domestic reserve, by which 
 the women of Inisfail appeared to mingle the 
 
THE INVASION. ISi 
 
 vivacity of Sigibert's countrywomen with the 
 sobriety of those of Kenric. After their de- 
 parture, which took place immediately on the 
 termination of the morning meal, Kenric heard 
 it rumoured, amongst the students, that both 
 father and daughter had departed in extreme 
 poverty; that the former had refused to retain 
 any longer the slightest claim to any of those 
 possessions which he had held together with the 
 deceased princess, and was now on the way to 
 his native territory, in the same condition as 
 when he had left it, with the exception of his 
 altered faith and the young companion of his 
 widowhood, whom his Dal Gassian consort had 
 bequeathed him. All these circumstances strongly 
 excited the interest of Kenric. Time, however, 
 rolled by. The severities of study, and the pur- 
 suit of active recreation, checked the ramblings 
 of imagination ; and the tendency to romance. 
 
152 THE INVASION. 
 
 which this story had nearly called forth again 
 within his mind, was checked once more in its 
 commencement. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 At sixteen years of age, Elim, the young 
 Ithian chief, was transferred from the college of 
 Muingharidh, to the military school at Tamrach. 
 On returning from a ramble through Deochain 
 Assain, Kenric was astonished to see a mag- 
 nificent carbudh, attended by a large body of 
 horse drawn up at the gates of the college; but 
 his distress may be imagined when he was given 
 to understand that they were intended to convey 
 his friend Elim from the place, for the space of 
 two whole years. At the expiration of that 
 
 H 5 
 
154 THE INVASION. 
 
 period it was proposed that he should return, in 
 order to complete his education previous to his 
 final return to his native shore of Inbhersceine. 
 
 Having made his adieus, Elim ascended the 
 carbudh, and was driven away, leaving lonesome- 
 ness behind him, with his superiors, his compani- 
 ons, and most of all with Kenric. At the military 
 school he underwent a course of study and of 
 discipline equally severe as at Muingharidh, 
 though different in its kind. The number of 
 pupils was considerable, though not so great as at 
 Muingharidh ; for as it was not only the exercise, 
 but the science of war that was taught in this 
 academy, the disciples were taken solely from the 
 ranks of the royal and the noble. At day-break, 
 the blast of a stuic awoke the active community, 
 within a short time after which, under a stated 
 penalty, the students were compelled to appear 
 dressed and armed on the field, when, after a 
 
THE INVASION. 155 
 
 general inspection of arms and accoutrements, 
 they proceeded to their daily exercise. Some 
 whirled the Kran-tabal, a kind of sling, a weapon 
 of deadly advantage in the ancient wars of the 
 isle, which was laden, not with stones, but 
 with balls, cast for the purpose, of the same 
 brazen matter that was used for the blades of 
 their cutting weapons, and sometimes for the 
 heads of javelins and spears. Others practised 
 at a painted target, with the diminutive hemp- 
 stringed bow and piercing arrow, which, next to 
 the skene, formed the most fatal weapon of the 
 kerne and light-armed horse. Some flung the 
 dart, the javelin, and the spear. Some fenced 
 with the heavy sword and skene, and learned 
 at the same time how to use the wicker skiagh 
 for their own defence, and render it most una- 
 vailing to the safety of their opponent. For some 
 hours, about noon, they studied in their own apart- 
 
lo6 THE INVASION. 
 
 ments the various class-books necessary to their 
 profession, amongst which that of Jonnaruidh of 
 the Stipend, the celebrated Ard-righ, who is said 
 to be the author of the first treatise on military 
 tactics that was ever written, held a chief place. 
 The afternoon was devoted to the management of 
 the horse, and the day concluded, as at Muing- 
 haridh, by public instructions and a general ex- 
 amination. The students were, moreover, initi- 
 ated not only into the use, but the manufacture, 
 of their weapons, and an armourer's forge was 
 erected within the precincts of the college, for 
 the purpose of affording them practice in this 
 laborious branch of their art. They were, more- 
 over, obliged, after the manner of the Roman 
 legionaries, to grind their own flour, and dress 
 their own food, and even to make their own 
 attire ; for the college only supplied them with 
 the raw material of every article of diet and of 
 
THE INVASION. 157 
 
 clothing. EHm, who was not ignorant of those 
 exercises when he left Rath-Aidan, became ere 
 long proficient in the whole. But their course 
 of instruction was extended to a still more com- 
 preLensive scale. 
 
 The college comprised a vast extent of 
 ground of every description, situate on either side 
 of that unhappy stream whose name has since be- 
 come the watch-word of disunion in the luckless 
 isle through which it flows. The land consisted 
 of woodland, crag, and marsh, together with one 
 or two small islets, which lay in the bed of the 
 river. Here the students were made to ex- 
 ercise in mock encounters, and even, at stated 
 seasons, to go through all the manoeuvres and 
 adventures of a regular campaign. Sometimes 
 they were employed in forming duns, or raths, 
 and other fortifications ; and sometimes in at- 
 tacking those of the adverse party. They were 
 
158 THE INVASION. 
 
 accustomed to dress their food on the field; 
 and, on particular occasions, to spend whole 
 nights in the open air, and, in the severest 
 weather; having no other covering than the 
 great frieze mantle which Spenser calls the house 
 of an Irishman. At eighteen years of age, Elim 
 received from the hand of Niall, the Ard-righ, 
 the golden fleasg and collar of the niagh nase, 
 and took the vows which were necessary to his 
 assuming the rank of Curaidhe, or knight. He 
 was next sent to the Lis-laoch-ton, a marine 
 academy on the shores of the Senan, where he 
 learned the management of the helm, the oar, 
 the sail, and the uses of all kinds of shipping, 
 from the small coiti to the single-sailed bark 
 which ventured on the open seas. 
 
 Thus hardened in mind and frame, and fitted 
 for a life of activity and danger, Elim returned, 
 at the close of his nineteenth year, to receive the 
 
THE INVASION. 159 
 
 last instructions of his earliest masters. Pro- 
 ficient in the knowledge of his country's history, 
 its geography, its laws, its resources, and its wants, 
 he had determined, even from boyhood, to devote 
 his life to its improvement ; and this direction of 
 his mind and feelings had already given an air of 
 noble energy and decision to his manner, his 
 speech, and his deportment, which, on their re- 
 union, impressed Kenric with a sentiment of ad- 
 miration, mingled with a painful sense of growing 
 inferiority. The young Northumbrian, it is true, 
 had not suffered the interval to pass away with- 
 out distinction. He had written poems, which 
 attracted the applause of all who read them, and 
 he had also manifested considerable skill in argu- 
 ment and subtlety of intellect on metaphysical 
 subjects ; but his mind was still unoccupied by 
 any steady purpose, and his fancy still unregu- 
 lated. Both friends, at meeting, were struck by 
 
160 THE INVASION. 
 
 the change which the growth of character and 
 time had occasioned. 
 
 Summer, the period of the annual recess at 
 the college, had begun to open, when Elim (al- 
 ready entered on his twentieth year) completed 
 the course of instruction originally laid down 
 for him. On the morning of the young 
 Ithian's departure, Kenric accompanied him 
 through the wood, from the city where, as they 
 advanced in youth, they had taken up their resi- 
 dence, to the convent gate, in order that he 
 might bid farewell to the aged abbot and the 
 regent. The sound of the perpetual choir broke 
 on their ears as they advanced, and at the same 
 time the morning sun darted his first fresh light 
 from the mountains of Shior Muimhean. While 
 they paused, with their faces turned toward Luim- 
 neach, the voices of the religious were heard dis- 
 tinctly chaunting the words of Sedulius, 
 
THE INVASION. l6l 
 
 " A solis ortus cardine j" 
 
 which had for ages before saluted the wakening 
 dawn in many a similar retreat. The young 
 friends looked and listened in silence, enjoying 
 the delicious scene with that exquisite happiness 
 untroubled minds can feel in contemplating the 
 excellence of nature. While they stood thus 
 silent, a troop of the Dal Gassian Marc Sliadh, 
 or armed horsemen, rode by, their brazen wea- 
 pons gleaming in the sunshine, and their sanguine 
 banner waving in the wind. The eye of Kenric 
 followed the bloody hand and boastful motto, 
 until distance had rendered it illegible. 
 
 ^' I could bear parting better," said the North- 
 umbrian, at length breaking silence, '* if there 
 were any hope of our ever meeting again on the 
 same terms as we have done. But we are about 
 to be separated, not only by space, but by con- 
 dition. In the college we were Elim and Kenric 
 
l62 THE INVASION. 
 
 only, but now thou art a prince, and I shrink 
 back again into the son of a Northumbrian 
 grazier. Well, it is vain to talk of that ; but I 
 had rather hold any rank beneath thy banner, than 
 be the richest grazier in the Dene, or the wisest 
 scholar in Cair Grant. I have longed to be a 
 soldier ever since I witnessed the muster at the 
 Feis of Caisil, in my journey hither, with old 
 Vuscfraea for my guide. (It is so long since I 
 have seen him now, I cannot call him rigid as I 
 used.) Up with the sun at morn, sweeping along 
 the boundaries, now lost for days together in 
 trackless woods and lonely fastnesses, now shin- 
 ing among the nobles and protectors of the land 
 in the banquet halls of Tamrach or of Cruachan, 
 now shouting in the field, now hanging on the 
 musical praise of the filea at his evening festival, 
 what life is so delightful, so full of variety and 
 action ? With the example of thy great ancestor. 
 
THE INVASION. l63 
 
 the founder of thy sept before thee, and the hearts 
 and weapons of that sept to aid thee in resem- 
 bling him, what mayest thou not accompHsh ? 
 while I, thanks to my mother and Vuscfraea, must 
 waste my life in study." 
 
 '* Thou entirely deceivest thyself," said Elim, 
 after a- pause, " in supposing, that because the 
 knowledge of arms is necessary to my place it 
 
 shall be the leading theme of my ambition. My 
 views are very different." 
 
 *^ What are they, then ?" asked Kenric. 
 
 Elim seemed for some time absorbed in re- 
 flection, at length, signifying to his friend that 
 they should walk forward, while he spoke, he re- 
 lated to him the scene which had taken place be- 
 tween his mother and himself in his boyhood, 
 and which had made a deep impression on his 
 mind. 
 
 The more I have seen and thought since 
 
 (( 
 
l64 THE INVASION. 
 
 then," he continued, ''the more confirmed have I 
 become in the determination I had formed, almost 
 upon the instant, to obey the words of Matha. 
 Yes, dear unhappy isle,'' he said, bending down, 
 to the surprise of Kenric, and kissing the soil on 
 which they trod, ''I rule but a small portion of 
 thy territory, but from this hour I devote myself, 
 my mind, my knowledge, all that I am, and all 
 that I command, to the welfare and the glory of 
 the whole." 
 
 So saying, Elim hastened to bid farewell to 
 the superiors of the college, while Kenric, hardly 
 knowing whether to smile or to admire, re- 
 mained near the gateway to witness his depar- 
 ture. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A GREAT number of students were assembled to 
 look upon the splendid carbudh and large body 
 of horse, which waited to convey the accomplished 
 Ithiau to his small dominion, and to bid a long 
 farewell to their old schoolfellow. Having re- 
 ceived the benediction of his college superiors, 
 who warmly exhorted him to persevere in his 
 course, while his heart was kindling at their praise, 
 he left the college for the last time, and hastened, 
 an accomplished scholar, to the gateway where 
 his mother's messengers awaited him. The stu- 
 dents pressed upon him with ardent expressions 
 
166 THE INVASION. 
 
 of attachment and regret, and cheered him loudly 
 as he drove away. 
 
 Before he had proceeded far on the road 
 which led towards Inbhersceine, Elim turned for 
 an instant to look upon the sunlit abbey. Since 
 he had received the summons of his parent to re- 
 turn to his paternal roof, the idea of leaving a 
 place where he had led a life so full of occupation 
 and of even-minded diligence, had daily become 
 more painful. Objects before regarded caielessly, 
 as things familiar, grew interesting, now that he 
 was about to lose them. His glance fell nowhere 
 that it was not reminded of some past impression 
 of pleasure ; some lesson of virtue taught ; some 
 word of commendation from his instructors ; some 
 little self-denial, practised for the pleasure of a 
 companion, or in compliance with a cherished 
 principle. The sight of his schoolfellows, at a 
 distance, hastening to and from the abbey, the 
 
THE INVASION. 16? 
 
 view of the remote mountains, the murmur of the 
 little city of letters, the. calm religious stillness of 
 the convent shades, the sound of its eternal choir, 
 now that he was about to part with them all for 
 life, deepened on his affections to a degree that 
 even amounted to anguish. From this mood of 
 reflection, however, he was aroused by the voice 
 of Moyel, reminding him that they must pass the 
 Dal Gassian frontier before night. Resuming 
 the action of the reins, and followed by his troop 
 of galloglachs, who looked at their young chieftain 
 with delight, Elim hastened on his journey without 
 further delay. 
 
 In a few days, Elim passed, with his escort, the 
 lonely and broken Riada that frowned upon the 
 tranquil surface of Loch Lene ; the fair vallies of 
 Glen Fais and of Glen Scota (made interesting 
 by the tombs of the Milesian heroines) ; and en- 
 tered at length on the wild and rocky territories 
 
l68 THE INVASION. 
 
 of the race of Ith. For a long space he now 
 found himself encompassed by scenery of the most 
 rugged and profitless description, mountains with- 
 out sublimity, and vallies without beauty, breaking 
 upon him in dreary succession during the lapse 
 of his last day's journey. Resigning the useless car- 
 budh, he now cheered his sure-footed hobbie across 
 the broken steeps of Esk, a defile of that gloomy 
 range of mountain, not unaptly termed, by some 
 topographers, the Vallis Juncosa. Now he passed 
 a lonely cluster of skin-thatched peillices, which 
 here assumed the title of a brugh, with a few spots 
 of tillage reclaimed from the waste, and herds of 
 sheep and cattle grazing among the crags. Some- 
 times a herring gull, or heron, floating gracefully 
 through the fields of air above his head, indicated 
 his nearer approach to those coasts on which his 
 home was situate, and at intervals the cry of a 
 gannet, winging its way toward its nest in the 
 
THE INVASION. l69 
 
 lonely Skelig, startled the echoes amongst the bar- 
 ren excavations of the mountain. More than once, 
 also, his eye encountered, in the extensive solitude, 
 the solitary figure of a monk, or lonely anchorite, 
 hastening forward on his mission, or tilling the 
 little garden that supplied his hermitage. To- 
 wards evening, as he rode along within sight of 
 the mountains of Sliabh Miskisk, some traces of 
 a kindlier soil, and the scent of more familiar airs, 
 began to greet him on his way. The fir and 
 overgrown buckthorn no longer held solitary do- 
 minion in the wilds. The heath was diversified 
 by the white-blossomed mountain avens, the tor 
 mentil, and other wild flowers. Clusters of the 
 smaller shrubs became more frequent in the 
 clefts of rocks and along the mountain sides. 
 The way ran coiling among broken defiles, pre- 
 senting an intermixture of rock and foliage, of 
 beauty and abruptness. Once more the lake- 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
170 THE INVASION. 
 
 haunting arbutus, which had not visited his sight 
 since he left at morning the shores of the dark 
 Loch Lene, now waved its pointed leaves above 
 him from some overhanging rock, and seemed to 
 welcome him again to a new region of beauty and 
 delight. At length his hobbie, with less laborious 
 step and drooping head, descended an easier road. 
 Here, the sun struck his level light through the 
 top of some old oak, or lofty yew, upon his right, 
 while the evening silence was broken by the full 
 round note of the song-thrush, concealed in some 
 shaded thicket, or by the silvery trill of the wood- 
 lark, which here, like the nightingale, prolonged 
 its music far into the night. A fresher wind soon 
 rustled amid the beeches, and that indescribable 
 murmur, almost inaudible to the sense, yet filling 
 the whole air, which the ocean sends forth in its 
 calmest hours, announced his approach to the 
 sea-side. At length, the leafy screen vanished 
 
THE INVASION. 171 
 
 behind him, and the varied shores, the tufted 
 points and scattered islands of his native place, 
 broke suddenly in all their sunset beauty on his 
 sight. Before him, the bright green waters of 
 the majestic inlet crossed by a glancing light, 
 from the still distant sea, now broke in glittering 
 wavelets on a sunlit beach, and now rolled dark 
 and silent at the foot of some aged rock. Far in 
 the distance, on a wooded hill which overlooked 
 the bay, arose the walls of Rath-Aidan, the patri- 
 monial dwelling of the young Ithian, a building 
 composed in part of stone and part of wood. It 
 was guarded by ramparts of earth and trunks of 
 trees, which, being now covered with a screen of 
 grass and wild flowers, gave the appearance of 
 beauty to what was meant for terror. The emi- 
 nence on which it stood was sequestered in a 
 wooded and rocky glen which opened on the bay 
 of Inbher Sceine. A stream flowed by it, spanned 
 
 1 2 
 
172 THE INVASION. 
 
 by two bridges not far remote from each other, 
 between which the water was dilated into a dark 
 and w^aveless pool. One of those bridges was 
 upheld by a lofty semicircular arch, and being of 
 an old date, was covered with a graceful drapery 
 of ivy, bramble, and other creeping shrubs, which 
 drooped downward to meet their own reflection 
 in the stream. At summer times, such as the 
 present, its battlements were gay with fox-glove, 
 briar-blossoms, and other wild flowers. The 
 other bridge was a ruder structure of wood, 
 serving to connect the main track with a bye- 
 path that led to the foot of Rath-Aidan. 
 
 Such was the home which Elim had left in 
 his boyhood, and to which he now returned. He 
 w^as met at the palisading which surrounded the 
 foot of the hill, by Clothra, the mother of Moyel, 
 and his own nurse, who gave him the first *' cead 
 faltah'^ On his return, and informed him, on their 
 
THE INVASION. 173 
 
 way to the ramparts, that the sails of the Fion 
 Geinte had been seen in the ofling only a few 
 days before. Before Elim could make any ob- 
 servation upon this occurrence, he saw his mother, 
 with a smiling countenance, awaiting him afar 
 upon the threshold of the dwelling. Putting 
 spurs to his horse, he hastened to the gateway, 
 where he alighted with the assistance of a daltin, 
 and advanced through the crowds of armed men 
 who filled the Rath,, to receive the greeting of his 
 only parent. 
 
 Tall, beyond the usual stature of her sex, 
 with the grace of years and the dignity of station 
 mingled in her demeanour, the protectress of the 
 sept of O'Haedha received her long absent child 
 into her arms. While she laid her hand upon 
 his head, and looked in his features, as if tracing 
 in them some indistinct resemblance, Elim did 
 not fail to remark that his mother's hair was grown 
 
174 THE INVASION. 
 
 greyer, and her hand more sinewy than when he 
 had left home. Still, however, there was the 
 same mild firmness of expression in her eye, and 
 calm domestic contentedness of spirit in her smile, 
 which even in his childhood had been to Elim 
 hke continual sunshine. 
 
 " Thou art welcome to us, Elim, and wel- 
 come in a needful time," she said. '^ How tall 
 thou art, my boy, and manly, too ! See, Clothra, 
 see those shoulders." 
 
 " His father's all across/' said Clothra, lift- 
 ing her hand, " his father's brawn and sinew 
 every limb. Let the Fion Geinte look to it ; 
 aye, and the great Dal Gas, for all their bloody 
 hand." 
 
 *^His father's hair, his father's brow and 
 eye," continued Matha. " My honey child ; my 
 Elim ! Let us not enter yet. My brother, 
 O'Driscol, and his chiefs are in the Rath, and 
 
THE INVASION. 175 
 
 nothing there is heard but war and arms. His 
 father's gait, too, Clothra. Such a warrior as he 
 was thou wilt be, Elim ; as brave, as good, as 
 generous, — but wiser." 
 
 As she said these words, Matha laid her 
 hand upon her brow, and lowered her coun- 
 tenance for some moments. Elim, who knew 
 the cause of her dejection, maintained a respect- 
 ful silence until the sudden cloud had left his 
 mother's mind. 
 
 *' The wilj Baseg !" she exclaimed at 
 length. '^ I say forgive him ; may he be for- 
 given ! But his deeds are manifest, and his 
 treason deadly. False to his creed, his country, 
 and his race, he has made it virtue to denounce 
 his name, to mark him out for caution and 
 avoidance. His country and his kin are both well 
 rid of him. But let that subject rest. Moyel !" 
 she continued, turning quickly to the seneschal. 
 
]76 THE INVASION. 
 
 " and you, dear kinsmen, do you not see your 
 chieftain's son returned ? Give Elim the cead 
 millia faltah." 
 
 The kerne and galloglachs, who crowded the 
 Rath, had only been waiting Matha's silence, 
 and now greeted their young chieftain with shouts 
 of welcome. All bared their heads, some flung 
 their skenes and girdles on his path, and greeted 
 him with gestures of the most ardent attachment. 
 Elim, accustomed to the calm and moderated 
 manners of the religious in his convent, was as 
 much surprised as gratified by the eager and untu- 
 tored affection of his kinsmen, and the fury that was 
 in their very joy. He met them, however, in their 
 own manner ; returned their ardent greetings, and 
 felt in the very depths of his heart the glow bene- 
 volence feels when conscious first of power to 
 work its wishes. 
 
 ** His father's child from head to foot,*' said 
 
THE INVASION. 177 
 
 Moyel, as Elim accompained his mother into 
 the Rath, '' only kinder in the eye, like 
 Matha." 
 
 *' The very air of the head/' said ano- 
 ther, " and the fashion of pulling the green 
 bonnet to the left. I would follow him to the 
 world's end." 
 
 " Let him be whose son he will," said a grey- 
 haired gallogiach, '^ and let him lead thee where 
 he will, thou never wert more willing to obey than 
 he is ready and able to command." 
 
 Accompanying his mother into the dwelling, 
 Elim found it crowded with many faces of 
 his kindred, which, though changed by time, he 
 yet remembered well. Amongst those which most 
 directly caught his eye, was that of O'Driscol, 
 his uncle, already mentioned, who was conversing 
 familiarly with some of his more aged officers 
 
 upon the favourite topic of arms. 
 
 I 5 
 
178 THE INVASION. 
 
 At the moment when Elim and Matha made 
 their appearance, several of the young officers had 
 started from their places, on hearing the shouts 
 outside, and were hastening to the doorway. 
 They gave way, however, on perceiving Matha 
 and her son, and suffered them to advance to the 
 Sior Lamh. 
 
 '' What youth is this ?" said O'Driscol, look- 
 ing on Matha as she placed Elim's hand in his ; 
 *^ Is it possible ? Is this my little kinsman, Elim ? 
 My little w arrior, whom I taught to use a javelin 
 almost before his tongue. Those hands and 
 limbs ? that trunk ? Is it possible ? So is it ; so 
 it is ; while we have been wearing our old 
 frames in war, this youth has been shooting up 
 as strong and fast as a young pine. Look 
 hither ! what a chest ! Hut tut, this boy will 
 thrash a score of Dal Gas yet. Dost thou re- 
 member me ? 
 
THE INVASION. 179 
 
 " Surely 1 do, O'Driscol/' answered Elim, 
 *'thee and the javelin too." 
 
 "Ah, but thou comestfrom Muingharidh now, 
 where thou last learned to use thy tongue in 
 preference. Well, that is right. Letters and piety 
 become a soldier. Well, well, the monks are right 
 to make thee learned. Thy brain and heart 
 are now complete in all their exercises. What, 
 Elim ? — Well, but there is something more that 
 thou canst learn of such poor dunces as O'Driscol 
 only. Could the abbot of Muingharidh (with 
 reverence be it spoken) teach thee to dart the spear, 
 or whirl the sling ? Is there a monk in the college 
 (without meaning any slight) who could leave a 
 Dal Gas headless with one sweep of a skene ? 
 For books and rules the monks are very well, 
 but I speak it not in scorn or disrespect, they are 
 better teachers of peace than war, by far." 
 " I found them so, in truth," said Elim. 
 
180 THE IJ^VASION. 
 
 " Aye, didst thou, Elini ? Well, let us not 
 slight the religious for all that. What if this 
 sword be hacked from heel to point against the 
 shields of the Dal Gas, shall I despise the monk 
 for his misfortune ? There's many an honest 
 man that never drew a blow in all his life. 
 What if a monk be ignorant whether he should 
 use the skene or javelin in a close encounter, he 
 may have virtues we know nothing of? But we 
 will teach thee how to use thy limbs. " 
 
 '^ Thou'lt leave him in the Rath to guard the 
 coasts against the Fion Geinte," said Matha. 
 
 " To guard the coasts against the Fion 
 Geinte ! against the fogs and vapours ! " answered 
 the Sior Lamh. *^ What canst thou know 
 of war and government ? To guard the 
 coast ? to prate and idle here with thee by the 
 hearth while the kerne were sleeping underneath 
 their mantles in the sunshine on the ramparts?** 
 
THE INVASION. 181 
 
 " They slept not so, dear brother," said Ma- 
 tha, " when Baseg menaced all the sept with ruin." 
 
 '' I thought we should hear of Baseg," said 
 O'Driscol ; ^^ I had as lief sit yonder with thy 
 distaff in my hand, and teach thy maids to spin, 
 as hear thee meddle in affairs of policy and war • 
 or any of thy sex. Go twirl the wheel ; go card 
 the fleece ; go turn the quern, good sister j but 
 leave discourse of arms and government to those 
 who are able to use and to direct them. A man 
 and woman never yet changed places with dignity 
 or with advantage. " 
 
 " Thou art hard ; thou art somewhat hard, 
 dear brother," said Matha, smiling, ** but thou 
 hast reason. " 
 
 While they sat conversing on topics of arms, 
 or on familiar recollections of days gone by, 
 numbers of the nearer members of the family 
 appeared with their bright-faced congratulations. 
 
182 THE INVASION. 
 
 and the dance and song were shortly added to the 
 amusements of the evening. Among the warmest, 
 as well as the most skilful, Elim recognised the 
 voice and instrument of the grey-haired Conla, 
 the hereditary filea, or bard of the sept, accom- 
 panying himself in the following song of welcome : 
 
 Falta volla ! fait a volla ! welcome to the mountains ! 
 Falta volla ! welcome to your native woods and fountains ! 
 To hear the harper play again — and the shouts that greet thee ; 
 Falta volla ! how it glads the widow's heart to meet thee ! 
 
 Falta volla ! falta volla ! 
 
 Welcome to Rath-Aidan. 
 
 II. 
 
 Shule a volla ! shule a volla ! through our parted island, 
 Many a friend and foe hast ihou in valley and in highland. 
 But whene'er the friends are false — when the foes distress thee, 
 Shule a volla ! here are ready weapons to redress thee. 
 
 Shule a volla ! Shule a volla ! 
 
 Shelter in Rath-Aidan. 
 
 III. 
 
 Ire a volla! ire a volla ! far in Corca's vallies, 
 When around the Bloody Hand the routed Dal Gas rallies ; 
 When the groans of dying friends fill the air above thee, 
 Jre a volla ! there are hands to help and hearts to love thee. 
 
 Ire a volla ! ire a volla / 
 
 Hasten to Rath-Aidan. 
 
THE INVASION. 1B3 
 
 Elim rewarded the minstrel with more than 
 the customary fee, and added to the gift the 
 kindest enquiries for his welfare and that of his 
 household ; reminding him of the evenings in 
 which he had learned from him the use of the 
 cruit, and listened to the songs of his ancestral 
 fame. To these remembrances the old bard 
 listened with a gratified smile, shaking his white 
 hairs, touching with the lightest motion the strings 
 of his clarsech, and saying from time to time 
 " They are gone, agra — he is dead — mayest thou 
 be like them ! " 
 
 After some further converse, Elim was made 
 known to the chiefs of his sept, with whom he 
 was so soon to be associated in arms ; to Kieran, 
 the young master of the horse ; to Carbre, the old 
 and experienced tioseach, and others. He re- 
 visited with a delight that may be easily conceived 
 all parts of the dwelling of his childhood, the 
 
184 THE INVASION. 
 
 hall of strangers, the garden, and the rest ; after 
 which he returned to spend an evening of festivity 
 with his mother and her guests. Thus passed 
 the evening of the young Ithian's return to his 
 home. So joyous an occasion had not visited 
 the dwelling since he had left it years before. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 On closing his five-and-twentieth year, prepa- 
 rations were made for celebrating, in appropriate 
 style, the entrance of Elim on the duties of his 
 government. At an early hour on an appointed 
 day, the valley of Rath-Aidan was crowded with 
 the assembled members of the sept, of every age 
 and condition, clad in their gayest attire, and 
 bearing in their hands the boughs of trees, and 
 banners of various hues. The sides of the un- 
 dulating hills, the bridges, and the borders of the 
 stream, were crowded with festal groups, and 
 
186 THE INVASION. 
 
 music sounded from many an instrument, now 
 obsolete and forgotten as the fingers that awoke 
 them. A council was held within the Rath, con- 
 sisting of the heads of the principal households 
 in the territory, at which the claim of Elim to the 
 government and title of O'Haedha was dis- 
 cussed, and fully established. The gate of the 
 Rath was then thrown open, and Elim, attired in a 
 moss-dyed crimson robe, and with his head bare, 
 appeared amongst the people, on foot, and fol- 
 lowed by the principal officers of his household, 
 who were to be likewise his assistants in the 
 government. These were the aged Mac Firbis, 
 who still retained his post of Ard brehoun, or 
 chief lawyer ; Fearchorb, the seiiachie ; the 
 physician Fihgnin, whose three daltadhs, though 
 long arrived at man's estt*te, still continued to ex- 
 ercise the healing art under the superintendence 
 of their old instructor, and whose solemnity of 
 
THE INVASION. 187 
 
 visage seemed to have increased with their years ; 
 Daithi, the dreshdeartachy or story-teller ; Olliol, 
 the crotarie, or harper ; and Conla, the aged poet 
 of the Rath. Thus accompanied, and followed by 
 the people, Elim proceeded along the valley, 
 until they arrived at a spot where rose a grassy 
 mound, at no great distance from a large though 
 low-roofed church. Here, standing on the sum- 
 mit of the hill, and in the sight of all the people, 
 Elim took the oaths usually administered at the 
 inauguration of the sovereigns of every degree, 
 binding himself to protect religion, the laws, and 
 to administer impartial justice. After the cele- 
 bration of a solemn high mass, a consecrated 
 wand of peeled osier was placed in the hand of 
 the young chieftain by Fearchorb, who, at the 
 same instant, laid his girdle and birrede at his feet, 
 and greeted him with the title of O'Haedha. 
 The word flew from lip to lip, and at length arose 
 
188 THE INVASION. 
 
 from the whole multitude in a shout that made 
 the hills re-echo. Bursts of joyous music broke 
 from the numerous bands that thronged the val- 
 ley, and the chieftain was reconducted to the 
 Rath, amid loud and noisy demonstrations of 
 general rejoicing. The day was enlivened with 
 various amusements, and concluded with an 
 entertainment of the most sumptuous kind. 
 
 Elim did not disappoint the hopes of his in- 
 structors and his friends. On assuming the go- 
 vernment of his sept, he began to put in imme- 
 diate execution those plans for its improvement 
 which he had already formed. He established 
 schools of general education throughout his terri- 
 tory, increasing the number of instructors by di- 
 minishing that of the brehouns, or lawyers. He 
 admitted, to an equal participation in these ad- 
 vantages, the few Druid families residing within 
 his boundaries, well knowing that the surest 
 
THE INVASION. 189 
 
 mode of disarming prejudice, is by acquiring 
 confidence. He enforced the strictest penalties 
 against all dissensions and quarrels between fami- 
 lies, a vice which, perhaps more than any other 
 circumstance, has contributed to the misery, and 
 eventually to the ruin, of the island. Fie punished 
 drunkenness as a felonious offence, holding those 
 in some degree answerable for the worst breach 
 of social order, who voluntarily deprive them- 
 selves of the natural moral safeguards. He took 
 little pains to encourage foreign commerce, but 
 a great deal in the promotion of internal industry, 
 knowing that the one will follow of itself in the 
 footsteps of the other ; and he encouraged and 
 protected religious foundations, being convinced, 
 that, next to intolerance, the worst policy which 
 a goverrmient can adopt is the neglect of reli- 
 gion. 
 
 Nor did Elim, in his immediate circle, fail to 
 
190 THE INVASION. 
 
 secure the love and admiration of his associates. 
 He soon discovered by experience the truth of 
 the axiom, that, of all the means useful for effect- 
 ing a reformation amongst men, personal exam- 
 ple is far the most efficacious : and, though it 
 may sometimes fail of success, without it not 
 even miracles can work the change. He mani- 
 fested, in the discharge of his civil and military 
 duties, the same firmness and alacrity of mind 
 which he had already manifested in his scholastic 
 studies; and became, ere long, as much respected 
 and beloved as he had been at Muingharidh, at 
 Tamrach, and at Lis-laoch-ton. Yet he was not 
 without censurers. His love of peace made the 
 young accuse him of deficiency in spirit, and his 
 changes in the government seemed to the old and 
 prejudiced to augur self-conceit, and a desire of 
 innovation. But Elim proceeded steadily in his 
 course, and the lapse of two years gave, in their 
 
THE INVASION. IQl 
 
 good effects, convincing proof of the wisdom of 
 his measures. 
 
 The recollection of the inhuman outrage in 
 
 which his father lost his life, pressed frequently 
 
 upon the mind of Elim ; but he rejected, with 
 
 abhorrence, the suggestions of revenge which 
 
 were thrown out from time to time by many of 
 
 the elder warriors of the sept. Notwithstanding 
 
 the strong censure of O'Driscol, who had long 
 
 since returned to his father's residence, Matha's 
 
 desire (no unfrequent occurrence,) was the one 
 
 eventually adopted with regard to the scene of 
 
 the young chieftain's duties. Except, however, 
 
 so far as the preservation of internal discipline 
 
 was concerned, the life which he pursued, was 
 
 untroubled and inactive, and for nearly two years 
 
 after his return, the red deer of the hills were the 
 
 only sufferers to his new accomplishments. 
 
 One forenoon, while he rode with a party of 
 
192 THE INVASION. 
 
 his companions in arms near the foot of the 
 Sliabh Miskisk range, where he had been tracing 
 out the plan of a new road, the conversation 
 turned on the conduct of Moyel, Elim's sene- 
 schal, who, during an incursion upon some pas- 
 ture lands, of which he had the charge some days 
 before, had prudently secreted himself, while the 
 marauders drove the cattle. 
 
 " Did'st thou not cleave his roguish head in 
 two?" said Kieran, the hair-brained young captain 
 of horse, who rode upon the left of Elim. 
 
 ''Poor fellow! why should I do so," answer- 
 ed Elim : '' why should not the poor fellow save 
 his bones from breaking ?" and why should I give 
 a timid shepherd the punishment of a timid sol- 
 dier?" 
 
 '' Thou an O'Haedha," said he on the left, 
 *' and tolerate a coward ?" 
 
 *' I say, hear Elim," said Carbre, the grey- 
 
THE INVASION. ]93 
 
 haired warrior, who rode close behind, " it is a 
 chieftain's praise to save the blood of his sept." 
 
 *' It was not such maxims," said the former 
 speaker, looking back over his shoulder, "that 
 kept up the clash of arms for a year and a day at 
 Fiontragha harbour.'' 
 
 "In good truth," said the elder warrior, 
 "that year and a day was a year at least too 
 long, if it ever passed at all, a matter which I 
 strongly doubt. O'Haedha is no Dara Doun, no 
 Fion Mac Comhal, although he lives not far 
 from Fiontragha. He fights to save life, not to 
 waste it. But, to please thee, good Moyel should 
 have killed the whole troop, single-handed, if not 
 eaten them." 
 
 " Well," said the captain of the hobbelers, 
 " I would that good might come of all this med- 
 dling in peace and policy. Your civil govern- 
 ment is to me the knottiest subject for a ruler ; it 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
194 THE INVASION. 
 
 is SO difficult to keep people united when they 
 are at peace. In war they must stand by each 
 other, and no thanks. I had rather lead a dozen 
 townships in the field than govern one at home." 
 
 " It is therefore I made thee that thou art," 
 said Elim, smiling. 
 
 " And what does O'Haedha hope to effect 
 by peace ?" said Kieran, '^ except to encourage 
 such outrages as this in question.'' 
 
 *' My plan is," said Elim, ^' and I desire 
 your hearty concurrence and favourable construc- 
 tion : first, to confine myself to the defence of my 
 own territory, to strengthen it by improving the 
 character and condition of its inhabitants. Next, 
 to prevail on Airtree, the monarch of Leath 
 Mogha, to use his influence in promoting union 
 amongst the princes of this portion of the isle, 
 by establishing some general system of trade ; and 
 afterwards, when I take my place in the national 
 
THE INVASION. 195 
 
 Feis of Tamrach, to use all my exertions for the 
 amelioration of the laws of property and succes- 
 sion, ofthanistry and gavel-kind. Could I but 
 see these changes once accomplished, I should 
 die contented in the thought of leaving my native 
 land united and secure, and no longer exposed by 
 internal discord to the danger of foreign conquest. 
 If this be accomplished, Inisfail may yet continue 
 prosperous and happy ; if not, she will become 
 the prey of some foreign invader, and never again, 
 perhaps, see sovereigns of her own." 
 
 " Thou designest great things,'' said Kieran. 
 " 1 would they may not play thee false." 
 
 '* Let his people play him true," said Carbre, 
 " and he will soon become more terrible in his 
 love of peace than any of the bardic phantoms of 
 Fiontragha in their thirst of gore and action." 
 
 " Truce to the argument, good captains, both 
 of you," said Elim, '' for yonder comes Moyel, 
 
 K 2 
 
196 THE INVASION. 
 
 shouting with all his force. Hold ! What is that 
 he waves ! A broken spear ! Away, they are 
 returned upon the lands — he points to the hills. 
 Follow — farrah ! Away ! Rouse all the kerne ! — 
 Come with me, galloglachs ! Away!" 
 
 So saying, and reiterating the war cry of his 
 sept till it resounded and was re-echoed on the 
 farther shores of the bay, he gave his horse full 
 rein, and gallopped, followed by the troop of slingers 
 and galloglachs immediately behind him, in the 
 direction of the hill where Moyel stood. Scarce 
 waiting to hear from him an account of the dis- 
 aster which had taken place, he hastened forward 
 on the route of the retreating plunderers, the 
 greater part of whom, on his approach, formed 
 themselves into line in order to receive him, while 
 a small party continued to drive on the captured 
 cattle. The dress and arms of the enemy pro- 
 nounced them strangers, not only to the eye of 
 
THE INVASION. 197 
 
 Elim, but to all his companions. The conflict 
 which ensued was short and fierce. Numbers 
 and place were both in Elim's favour, and, before 
 an hour elapsed, he had either slain or made pri- 
 soners of all the troop but one, a young warrior, 
 better armed and mounted than the rest, who, on 
 seeing the cattle rescued, and his men defeated, 
 quickly gave over the single-handed contest with 
 the young Ithian chief, and fled toward the moun- 
 tains. Elim, accompanied by his two compa- 
 nions already named, pursued him into a long 
 and lonely defile that led to the woody interior of 
 the country. His speed did not diminish when 
 he beheld the stranger, still far apart, approach- 
 ing the Glen of Oaks, on the frontier of his pa- 
 trimonial territory, beyond which his fcjiher had 
 fallen a victim to the Hooded People. He still 
 gave a loose rein to his horse, nor did he slacken 
 speed until, after gradually gaining ground on his 
 
198 THE INVASION. 
 
 pursuer, tlie stranger disappeared amongst the 
 cliffs at a great distance, and was seen no more. 
 
 By this time Elim found that he likewise had 
 far outstripped his own companions, and rode over 
 a wide stony track of mountain ground with no other 
 companion than a large-limbed hound, which had 
 kept pace with his master during the pursuit. 
 The sun had journied far into the west, and Elim 
 looked back upon the barren gaps and jutting 
 rocks which had passed so swiftly by him in the 
 ardour of the pursuit, but which, now that his 
 time was shortened, seemed as if extended to a 
 weary length. He thought of waiting for his 
 companions, but then he had passed so many 
 clefts and vallies since he left them, that it was as 
 unlikef they could find, as that he could retrace, 
 his way. Proceeding onward, he found himself 
 ere long ascending a rocky pass which separated 
 two stupendous mountains. Osgur, the hound, 
 
THE INVASION. 199 
 
 was Standing on the side of a craggy steep, on 
 which might be discerned the traces of a broken 
 pathway. The dog looked back from the height, 
 and wagged his tail invitingly ; but the ascent was 
 too steep even for the mountain-bred hobbie which 
 Elim rode. As the sun sunk, the shadows slowly 
 covered the eastern side of the wild pass, and 
 EUm, making fast his hobbie where he stood, as- 
 covered the path already mentioned, in order to 
 command a more extensive view of his position. The 
 dog, which seemed only to await this movement 
 of compliance, bounded gaily up the steep, and, 
 after some time, disappeared upon the other side. 
 As Elim, after a toilsome ascent, approached the 
 sunlit summit of the crag, the sweet air which 
 arose from the other side seemed to announce a 
 scene of softer character than those which he had 
 passed, and so indeed it proved. Standing on 
 the summit of the craggy height, he beheld be» 
 
200 THE INVASION. 
 
 neath him a deep coom,orvalley, environed by three 
 gigantic mountains. That on which he stood 
 was broken, craggy, and in some places precipi- 
 tous. On his right arose another, less rocky, but 
 gloomier, loftier, and grander in its character. 
 Between these and the third, which extended at 
 greater length on the opposite side, the wooded 
 vale lay tranquil and beautiful, cherishing with its 
 luxuriant verdure the feet of its gigantic guardians. 
 The mountain pass upon his right was intersected 
 by a river which, running into the vale, formed in 
 the midst a wide and stilly lake. At the far ex- 
 tremity of the recess appeared an outlet to the 
 open country, through which the stream, after 
 resting in the quiet bosom of the vale, recom- 
 menced its broken course, and disappeared amid 
 the windings of the crag and woodland. The 
 feature which chiefly fixed the attention of the 
 young chieftain was a spot of land almost sur- 
 
THE INVASION. 201 
 
 rounded by the waters of the lake, and only con- 
 nected with the opposite shore by a narrow strip 
 of ground; which never rose sufficiently high above 
 the surface of the water to break the insular cha- 
 racter of the little spot. Here, from a dense and 
 lofty grove of oak issued several broad and beaten 
 pathways, some leading to the water's edge, where 
 some currachs were fastened to the shore, and 
 some to the neck of land already described. In 
 the midst of this grove arose the dark and shrub- 
 covered roof of some apparently extensive build- 
 ing ; but what it might be the distance and the in- 
 tervening foliage prevented Elim from discerning 
 with distinctness. There appeared no other dwel- 
 ling within his view, nor did he lose much time 
 in looking for any. An object of more quicken- 
 ing interest to him had already arrested his atten- 
 tion, for the height afforded him an extensive view 
 of the tract of country he had crossed. Perceiving 
 
 K 5 
 
202 THE INVASION. 
 
 that he might more speedily regain his own fron- 
 tier by following the track of the river, crossing 
 the valley, and issuing forth at the outlet already 
 mentioned, he hastily returned to the place where 
 he had left the animal. The time appeared just 
 sufficient to enable him to reach his home by day- 
 lijiht, and he had no cause to know that the land 
 on which he stood was the territory of any avowed 
 or suspected enemy of his house. Leading his 
 hobbie down the steep, he remounted and rode 
 along the borders of the lake at a slow pace, for 
 the animal was already weary. The beauty of the 
 place seemed still more exquisite as he entered 
 the immediate precincts of the retreat. The 
 trees seemed alive with various singing birds, and 
 although the wind was high and loud upon the 
 mountain top, and the heat of the sun's rays 
 distressing, though at evening, the air within the 
 vale was cool, delicious, and refreshing. Not- 
 
THE INVASION. 203 
 
 withstanding his haste, he had curiosity enough 
 to enter the little islet already mentioned, and to 
 explore its woody recesses. As he approached 
 the oaken grove, he saw in the centre an open 
 space before the unbarred gateway of a build- 
 ing which had somewhat the character of a place 
 of worship, though not such as Elim was accus- 
 tomed to frequent. The walls were of oak 
 planks smoothed with the plane, and the roof of 
 reeds. In the centre of a small green on one 
 side, appeared a huge pyre of wood, arranged as 
 if for burning. No human being, however, ap- 
 peared in sight, and this, connected with the still- 
 ness of the place and the lone beauty of the sur- 
 rounding scenery, gave an air of enchantment 
 to the whole that made Elim think of his young 
 Northumbrian schoolfellow. The open gateway 
 as he ventured farther, gave him a view of tlie 
 richly decorated interior of the building. On a 
 
204 THE INVASION. 
 
 small shrine of crystal, far within, were painted 
 the effigies of the sun, moon, and several of the 
 greater stars. These indicated a Druidical tem- 
 ple, and Elim suddenly called to mind that this 
 eve was the first of November, the day of the 
 annual festival of Samhuin, the great goddess of 
 the planet-worshippers. With this remembrance 
 a suspicion of a more startling nature darted on 
 his mind, and feeling involuntarily for his arms, 
 he hurried from the place with more anxiety of 
 mind than he had yet experienced. Riding hastily 
 along the lake, he soon reached and penetrated 
 the outlet before described. But the consequences 
 of the day's adventure were not so soon to ter- 
 minate. 
 
 lie had left the valley more than two miles 
 behind, and now entered a close and wooded 
 pass, which he knew to be at no great distance 
 from his own frontier. Here, while he guided 
 
THE INVASION. 205 
 
 his hobbie with a careful rein over the uneven 
 ground, he was startled by a sudden noise in the 
 hazel bushes which he had passed. Before he 
 could look round a heavy figure had leaped upon 
 the horse behind him, a pair of gaunt and nnis- 
 cular arms had compressed his waist, the reins 
 were snatched from his grasp, and with a violent 
 effort, the new rider turned the frighted horse 
 aside, and sped rapidly away in a different direc- 
 tion from that in which he had been travelling. 
 The Ithian endeavoured to turn and look at least 
 upon this strange assailant, but in vain. The 
 iron embrace that pressed upon his sides made 
 resistance a folly, and he yielded to his fate 
 in silence. Meantime the startled hobbie, with 
 a vigour all renewed by terror, stretched fleetly 
 along the wild, and reached at length what 
 seemed to Elim to be another valley not far from 
 that in which the temple stood, but populous 
 
206 THE INVASION. 
 
 and cultivated. That building was no longer to 
 be seen, but the river with a noisier and more 
 broken current, babbled along the borders of 
 many a little garden and many a low peillice. 
 One dwelling in particular, of a larger size than 
 the rest, attracted his attention. It was built of 
 darkened oak, and roofed with skins of wolves 
 and other animals of the forest. It stood on 
 a small but lofty island, formed by the divided 
 stream, and protected on all sides by a barrier of 
 raised earth, bound firmly together with the trunks 
 of felled trees, and surmounted by a kind of rude 
 palisading, interlaced with woodbine and other 
 wandering shrubs. A wooden drawbridge of un- 
 hewn timber crossed one arm of the parted water, 
 from the entrance of the Dun lo the brink of a 
 small but wild and broken cliff, and was reflected 
 in the darkened stream that flowed more softly 
 underneath the simple fabric. Hither the un- 
 
THE INVASION. 207 
 
 known companion of his headlong journey directed 
 the steps of Elim's hobbie, renewing his pealing 
 shouts of '' Doun Dara go bragh ! Coun Crehir 
 a-bo !" and reined up the obedient animal amongst 
 a crowd of people, who received him with excla- 
 mations of welcome and surprize. Their hooded 
 cloaks, of the dingy saffron dye of the arbutus, 
 beneath which Elim's eye could sometimes catch 
 a glimpse of the green girdle and the secret skene, 
 gave him to understand that he had fallen into the 
 hands of the same sept, a party of whom he had 
 defeated a few hours before. All warrior as he 
 was, it was with a feeling of anxiety that he found 
 himself a prisoner of the Hooded People. 
 
 After addressing a few words to some of the 
 men, in an accent which prevented Elim from 
 distinctly comprehending what they meant, his 
 captor, a man of huge and bony shape, con- 
 ducted him across the bridge, and into the se- 
 
208 THE INVASION. 
 
 questered dun. Casting, as he entered, a look 
 of anxiety back to his ill-treated hobbie, he ob- 
 served that one of the men had flung a cloak over 
 his reeking sides, and was conducting him round 
 the building, as it seemed, to shelter and re- 
 pose. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The domestic picture which was revealed to him 
 as he crossed the threshold had no less of novelty 
 for EHm's eyes than the external features of the 
 building. He found himself in a lofty and ex- 
 tensive room, the walls and ceiling of which were 
 decorated with sculpture not inferior to that with 
 which the mountaineers of Norway and Sweden 
 are accustomed at this day to decorate their 
 houses. A large fire of turf and timber burned 
 at one end, near which, on a beechen tripod, sat 
 an old man, his many coloured garments hanging 
 in numerous and not ungraceful folds around his 
 
210 THE INVASION. 
 
 aged limbs, his grey head slightly drooping, and 
 his beard, which still retained its hardy brown, 
 descending nearly to his girdle. Two or three 
 somewhat less aged figures sat near him, one resthig 
 on a sally framed harp, or clarsech, which stood 
 between his knees, the others silently enjoying 
 the warmth which played upon their sunken fea- 
 tures, and looking towards the door. A young 
 girl knelt near the feet of the old man first men- 
 tioned, cooking some wheaten cakes upon the em- 
 bers, and a copper cauldron of great size was sus- 
 pended over the fire. On the opposite side, 
 seated on a tripod somewhat lower than that of 
 the old man, appeared a maiden veiled, with a 
 silver cross, hanging at her waist, and attended 
 by two handmaids, who stood close behind, ex- 
 amining the prisoner's dress and arms with looks 
 of curiosity and wonder. A number of men 
 and women sat or stood on the rushes which 
 
THE INVASION. 211 
 
 strewed the earthen floor, and hushed their mur- 
 muring converse as the stranger entered. 
 
 Leaving Elim near the threshold, his captor 
 now advanced toward the old man first described. 
 Throwing back his hood, and taking off his 
 skene and girdle, in token of vassalage, he 
 held for a little time a conversation with the Ard- 
 Draithe (for such had Elim already conjectured 
 the old man to be). He was unable to hear its 
 import, but he could judge by the slightly ga- 
 thered brows and reproving head-shake of the 
 old man, and by the disappointed aspect of the 
 younger, that the latter had not met with an ap- 
 proving reception. Returning to Elim, with a 
 discontented brow, he conducted him with no 
 gentle grasp to the feet of the Ard-Draithe, and, 
 resuming his hood and girdle, turned sullenly away. 
 
 It would be difficult to furnish any idea of 
 the feelings which arose in Elim's breast as he 
 
212 THE INVASION. 
 
 gazed on the old man, by whose hand, he made no 
 doubt, his father had been deprived of life in the 
 glow of youth and happiness. Mastering his 
 emotions, however, by a powerful effort, he 
 awaited in fixed silence the first word of his host. 
 
 The aged Druid, after surveying him for 
 some moments with a look of scrutiny, said : 
 
 '' Thou art an Ithian ? " 
 
 '^ I am," said Elim. 
 
 ^' Dost thou know," continued the Ard- 
 Draithe, " what sept it is into whose hands thou 
 hast fallen ? " 
 
 " I have often been taught," said Elim, '^ to 
 beware of the Hooded People of the Hills." 
 
 '^ Thou hast got thy lesson ill then," said the 
 Ard-Draithe, *' to be found journeying through 
 their chief retreat alone, and uninvited. Thou 
 hast the gentle eye of an O'Haedha. Knowest 
 thou what cause we have to love thy race ?" 
 
THE INVASION. 213 
 
 " Not less, at least/' said Elim, ^^ than we 
 to love the Hooded Men, for any recollected good 
 or evil. A murderer's sword once left our house 
 without a ruler, and if justice has been defeated 
 of her victim, we may thank thy tribe that shel- 
 tered the assassin. 
 
 " Thou art as free of thy speech as of thy 
 life," said the Ard-Draithe, ^' to bring the name 
 of Conall to my memory. Between their friend- 
 ship and their enmity, thy tribe has made us 
 suffer grievously. If thou hast so much cause to 
 doubt our sept, why art thou here, through thine 
 own negligence?" 
 
 " J came here," replied Elim, " not by my 
 own knowledge or design, but straying in pur- 
 suit of a runaway carrowe, who would have 
 driven our cattle off the lands." 
 
 The Ard-Draithe now was silent for so long 
 a time, that Elim became weary of his situation. 
 
214 THE INVASION. 
 
 He deemed himself fortunate in the Druid's 
 ignorance of his real rank, but was astonished at 
 the tone and manner in which he spoke of Co- 
 nall. They were rather those of a person wronged 
 and still unredressed, than of one who had wreaked 
 upon his foe the last vengeance that human hatred 
 can inflict. Desirous of effecting his liberation 
 before the return of the single fugitive should 
 render his chance of impunity more doubtful, 
 he demanded his freedom, reminding the old 
 Druid that the septs were not at war. 
 
 *' Whatever cause we had,'' said the Ard- 
 Draithe, " to blame thy race, that now is past 
 away — and for thy creed, it is true that it has 
 wrought our shame and ruin. The nain is silent 
 in our trilithons — the rod of the Draithe no longer 
 tells where springs the living water — the clouds 
 that move in the air no longer shape their masses 
 into piophetic forms, as they were wont to do 
 
THE INVASION. 215 
 
 for the instruction of our fathers ; and the temple 
 of Bel is profaned by Christian worshippers. He 
 numbers now few votaries in Inisfail, but yet the 
 brazen gen was never drawn to work nor to 
 oppose the change. We have but to thank our 
 own defective brethren that we are few in number 
 and feeble in means." 
 
 Elim did not see any use in replying to this 
 speech, with the tone of which he was still more 
 astonished than before, and the Ard-Draithe, 
 after a pause, continued : — 
 
 '' Nevertheless, I cannot change the laws of 
 Coom-na-Druid. Thou hast broken a decree made 
 public in many a Feis, by which thou wert for- 
 bidden to set foot upon our land, on pain of heavy 
 fine. Thou must here remain until thy chieftain 
 sends thine eric. Meantime, be welcome to our 
 board and dance. It is the feast of Samhuin. 
 This night thou art our guest and not our prisoner.*' 
 
216 THE INVASION. 
 
 The first thought of Elim's mind was to reject 
 with scorn and abhorrence the proffered invita- 
 tion : he felt as if his father's shade were watching 
 his decision. Once more, however, commanding 
 his feehngs, in compliance with the necessity of 
 the case, he signified by a low inclination of the 
 head, the acquiescence which he could not speak. 
 
 '^ Thy dog/' said the maiden who sat on the 
 other side the fire-place, '' was wiser than his 
 master when he refused to pass our valley un- 
 refreshed." So saying, she pointed to the hound, 
 which, unheeded by Elim, had been fawning at 
 his feet during the conversation with the old 
 Druid. Elim patted the animal with a smile, 
 and prepared with hopes, indeed but slightly ele- 
 vated, to receive with cheerfulness the hospitable 
 attentions of the Druid household. A long table 
 was placed in the middle of the apartment, which 
 was speedily covered with the contents of the 
 
THE INVASION. 21? 
 
 seething cauldron, consisting of forest fowls, 
 pork, beef, and mutton of unusual richness. Some 
 dishes of the shamrock, or wood sorrel, and cres- 
 ses were interspersed ; and their drink was mead 
 and oel, with a few horns of wine, imported 
 from the Gaulish coasts by merchants who traded 
 here for skins and other articles of commerce. 
 
 When the feast had ended, the Ard-Draithe 
 rose, and, in the presence of the hooded circle, 
 extinguished the tire which burned upon the 
 hearth. At the same instant the sounds of harp 
 and bagpipe, heard without, at a distance, seemed 
 to announce the commencement of the festival. 
 The Ard-Draithe, followed by all his household, 
 proceeded towards the door, and, in a short time, 
 EUm was left alone with the young female already 
 mentioned, and her hand-maids, a single gallo- 
 glach keeping guard outside the door. The 
 thought of disarming the centinel, of flying across 
 VOL. I. L 
 
218 THE INVASION. 
 
 ihe bridge, and escaping, at any hazard, out of the 
 nands of his present captors, was naturally amongst 
 the fiist ideas that arose within the mind of Elim : 
 but while he stood indulging it. a voice, at a little 
 distance, said, as if in answer to his thoughts : 
 
 " Thou hadst better not attempt it, for though 
 there be but one at the door, there are twentv at 
 the bridge." 
 
 '■'■ I will take thy counsel," answered Elim, 
 laughing, " though they say a woman's seldom 
 does a soldier service. And who art thou, my 
 kind and fair adviser?" he added, approaching 
 the young woman, vvith an air of respect and 
 courtesy. ** A prisoner, doubtless, like myself, 
 but of what name or sept I cannot determine." 
 
 Before the person he addressed had time to 
 return an answer, two figures appeared at the 
 threshold. They were those of Duach, Elim's cap- 
 tor, and of a strongly made, well-looking woman. 
 
THE INVASION. 219 
 
 '* Well, Banba, " said the maiden, addressing 
 herself to the latter, *'is the festival begun?" 
 
 *' Not yet, Aithne," was the woman's answer. 
 
 " Samhuin has not arisen," added Duach. 
 
 *' If thou wouldst see a splendid sight, " said 
 Aithne, turning to the Ithian, ^* I can lead thee 
 to a spot from whence thou mayest behold the 
 festival, and thy question shall be answered on 
 the way." 
 
 Elim readily assented, and they left the house, 
 preceded by Duach and Banba, passing through 
 an entrance in the rear of the building, and meet- 
 ing no opposition from a galloglach who kept 
 guard without. While Elim follows his fair 
 guide, it will be important for us to furnish, in 
 fuller detail than that in which it was communi- 
 cated to the young Ithian, the story of the maiden, 
 and the manner in which she had obtained per- 
 manent footing on the forbidden land, 
 
 l2 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Carthan, the father of Aithne (as Elim heard 
 her named by Banba), was the brother of the 
 Ard-Draithe, who has long since appeared in our 
 narrative, at the wedding feast of Conall. One 
 of their ancestors was amongst the Druid dispu- 
 tants who were appointed to contend against the 
 Christian teachers at Cruachan. He and his 
 companions were unsuccessful. It was alleged 
 by their opponents, in canvassing the morality of 
 the Druid doctrines, that their chief error (so far 
 as the present welfare of society was concerned,) 
 
THE INVASION. 221 
 
 lay in the fact that they tended strongly to excite the 
 passions of worldly glory, ambition, and revenge ; 
 and the national character was referred to in proof 
 of this unhappy influence. The hooded chief, how- 
 ever, though defeated, was not convinced, and he 
 returned to the Coom, more strongly prejudiced 
 than ever against the new belief. This feeling 
 was inherited by his successors, and existed in all 
 its force within the mind of the Ard-Draithe who 
 at present governed the sept. It occasioned 
 those exclusive regulations which still prevented 
 all peaceful intercourse with the surrounding ter- 
 ritories, and it led also to an unhappy dissension, 
 which, for a long time, separated the Ard-Draithe 
 and his brother. The latter, having embraced 
 the doctrines of the proscribed religion, experi- 
 enced, in consequence, so much coldness from 
 the Ard-Draithe, that he judged it better to take 
 up his residence elsewhere. Travelling towards 
 
222 THE INVASION. 
 
 the royal domain of Meath, he was fortunate 
 enough to obtain a confidential post in the house- 
 hold of Niall, the Ard-righ, who, till within the 
 last few years, had occupied the throne of Inis- 
 fail. He first attracted the notice of the mo- 
 narch during the progress of the Aonach, or 
 sports of Tailtean, in Meath (famous for the 
 victory of the three sons of Jth, over the Danaan 
 leaders). These sports, we are told, were insti- 
 tuted by the Ard-righ Lughaidh, the long-hand- 
 ed, in honour of Tailte, a Spanish princess, who 
 had instructed him in his youth. They were still 
 held on the same spot, commencing fourteen days 
 before, and continuing fourteen days after, the 
 first of August, during which time a perfect im- 
 munity of person and property was enjoyed by all 
 who attended. They consisted of trials of skill 
 and strength in military exercises, such as the use 
 of the sling, the bow, the javelin, and the battle- 
 
THE INVASION. 223 
 
 axe ; in chariot racing, mock combats on horse 
 and foot, and many other amusements. It was 
 late in the Aonach, when Carthan, accompa- 
 nied by Duach, then a boy, arrived upon the 
 plain. Before him stood the church of Tailte, 
 once a Druid temple, and around were amphi- 
 theatres, erected for the accommodation of spec- 
 tators. The monarch of the isle presided at the 
 games, and distributed the rewards. Carthan, 
 who had received the usual education of a chief- 
 tain, took part in the games, and acquitted him- 
 self sufficiently well to draw the attention, and 
 finally to win the favour, of the monarch. He 
 was received into the palace of Tamrach, where 
 he continued long to hold a post of high trust, 
 and was gradually admitted into the intimate 
 confidence of the Ard-righ. It happened that 
 the Aonach of Tailtean was celebrated for some- 
 thing more than games and exercises. There it 
 
224 THE INVASION. 
 
 was that alliances between noble families were 
 set on foot, arranged, and brought to pass. 
 There it was that Carthan first met the sister of 
 Airtree, the monarch of Leath Mogha, whose 
 hand he afterwards obtained, as well by his own 
 merit, as by the influence of the Ard-righ, to 
 whom he was as devotedly attached as man can 
 be to man. 
 
 Aithne was the first born, and now the only 
 surviving child of this alliance. From her very 
 infancy she was distinguished by the promise of 
 great beauty of person, and a more than feminine 
 strength of mind and feeling. It was not in the 
 common phrase of social flattery that the 
 friends of her parents predicted for their daugh- 
 ther a shining womanhood. Her dispositions, 
 as they were unfolded, presented a character 
 than which, perhaps, none could be imagined 
 more nearly allied to enthusiasm, yet farther from 
 
THE INVASION. 225 
 
 romance. Serious, no less than graceful, in her 
 tastes, deep and practical in her reflections, warm 
 in her attachments, and rational in all her words 
 and actions, there existed in her whole demeanour 
 a silent steady ardour, that made her very appear- 
 ance impressive, and a plenitude of mind that 
 made it seem as if every movement had a mean- 
 ing. Even in youth the studies to which she most 
 adhered were of a grave and useful, rather than 
 amusing kind; and they were for the most part sug- 
 gested by her affections rather than by an ambitious 
 thirst of knowledge, or mere curiosity of mind. 
 Thus the condition and manners of the Druid 
 septs throughout the kingdom, the history of the 
 isle itself, with all its misery, and all its defects, 
 were subjects with which she was familiarly ac- 
 quainted, and on which she deeply felt. Her 
 father, who delighted in the genius and under- 
 standing of his child, was pleased to observe the 
 
 L 5 
 
^2Q6 THE INVASION. 
 
 interest which the monarch took in lier improve- 
 ment, and often indulged in visionary anticipa- 
 tions of the future brilliancy of her career. 
 
 At thirteen years of age, Aithne was placed 
 at the celebrated convent of Kildoir, for the pur- 
 pose of completing her education. It was in the 
 close of autumn, when, accompanied by her fa- 
 ther, she arrived in that ancient city, made illus- 
 trious throughout Europe by the fame of Brid- 
 get. Stopping for the night at the house of a 
 Gailian chief, they rose early on the following 
 morn, and were driven toward the magnificent 
 cathedral. They arrived at the convent just as 
 the portress had opened the outer gate, and 
 were admitted without difficulty, along with many 
 females of the citv, who came to assist at the 
 morning service of the sisterhood. At first the 
 array of dismal attire cast a chill into the breast 
 of Aithne, and indisposed her to feel the truth of 
 
THE INVASION. 227 
 
 what she had so often heard, that happiness could 
 dwell in forms so joyless and vsepulchral. Even 
 after their admission into the reception room, 
 where the sisters were conversing with their 
 friends, their cheerfulness had for some lime a 
 still more depressing effect on Aithne's mind. 
 How it happened that people, shut up for life in 
 these sombre chambers ; obliged to observe a 
 rigid rule of conduct ; surrounded by objects that 
 seemed intended only to keep death continually 
 in their view ; suffered only to sing those solemn 
 strains which she had heard from the choir ; and 
 dressed in garments that seemed better suited 
 for the dead than for the living ; could yet pre- 
 serve the light of an untroubled gaiety in all their 
 manner, was a mystery that Aithne could not 
 solve ; and the sight dejected and perplexed her. 
 By degrees, however, this reserve gave place to 
 increasing familiarity, and she did not feel the 
 
228 THE INVASION. 
 
 same alarm when the young scholars pressed 
 around her with courtesies and questions of 
 child-like simplicity and kindness. One offered 
 her fruits from the convent garden ; another 
 fastened flowers into her girdle ; a third enquired 
 the place of her nativity, and told anecdotes of 
 their convent life, until at length Aithne forgot 
 the cold exterior that had chilled her, and entered 
 freely into their discourse. All seemed interest- 
 ed by her awakened liveliness of mind, no less 
 than by her exceeding beauty of person, and the 
 strangeness of her remarks on what she saw. 
 
 Her time was less at her own disposal here 
 than it had been at Tamrach. The number 
 of scholars, who were chiefly the daughters of 
 princes and chieftains in the neighbourhood, 
 was considerable. They occupied a portion 
 of the building, apart from the sisterhood, of 
 whom two or three only were permitted at a 
 
THE INVASION. 229 
 
 time to mingle with the scholars, for the purposes 
 of giving instruction, preserving order, and enforc- 
 ing silence, the last, though not, in this instance, 
 the least laborious office. They were instructed in 
 such learning as became their sex ; in music, in 
 singing, in the use of the needle ; and there remain 
 some ancient testimonials, to show that even 
 that of the pencil was not unknown amongst 
 them. But, more than all, they were instructed 
 in those duties of piety, of charity, of modesty, 
 and self-command, which give its highest lustre 
 to the feminine character. Here the natural 
 ardour and intensity of Aithne's disposition re- 
 ceived an addition of sweetness that completed 
 its attractions, and made the will to please as 
 apparent as the power. 
 
 One of the sisterhood, named Munig, became, 
 from a similarity of mind and tastes, the close 
 and intimate friend of Aithne, so far as was 
 
230 THE INVASION. 
 
 consistent with the rules of a community in 
 which particular friendships were discouraged. 
 It happened one night that it was her turn to 
 watch beside the perpetual fire of St. Bridget. 
 This emblematical office was a continuation of 
 a very ancient custom. At the time when the 
 country was possessed by the adorers of fire, 
 a Druid grove and temple were standing at 
 Kildoir, on the very spot where now the archi- 
 episcopal cathedral stood. The Senae, or Druid 
 virgins, here watched in turn beside a sacred fire, 
 which was worshipped as a symbol of the sun. 
 On the conversion of the isle, a vestal fire, 
 like this, was still maintained, though with a dif- 
 ferent meaning, by the hands of Christian votaries, 
 who aimed not so much at a change of forms 
 as of principles. Having obtained permission 
 to watch beside her friend, Aithne, late at night, 
 glided from the dormitory, and entered the 
 
THE INVASION. 23) 
 
 deserted aisle. She found the former leaning 
 over the orbicular fencework which surrounded 
 the emblen}atic liame, and lighting it up, when- 
 ever it decayed, with an ample fan, which she 
 bore for the purpose in her hand. The light 
 fell around upon the shrines of Conlath and of 
 Bridget, rich with the offerings of many a pil- 
 grim, and on the altar, from whose polished 
 panels, it was said, the boughs had sprouted forth 
 to attest the purity of its virgin foundress. 
 Around the aisle were paintings commemorative 
 of departed saints, the colours of which were 
 scai'cely revealed in the dim light that reached 
 them from the distant fire. Aithne had now 
 been many years at Kildoir, and the day of her 
 departure was drawing nigh. The place, the 
 employment, and her speedy departure, naturally 
 suggested the tone of the conversation, and Mu- 
 nig, at the desire of her young friend, repeated. 
 
^32 THE INVASION. 
 
 while she fanned the vestal fire, the following 
 verses of a poem, the production of some name- 
 less bard of a preceding age : 
 
 THE ISLE OF SAINTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Far, far amid those lonely seas, 
 
 Where evening leaves her latest smile, 
 
 Where solemn ocean's earliest breeze, 
 Breathes, peaceful, o'er our holy isle. 
 
 II. 
 
 Remote from that distracted world, 
 
 Where sin has reared his gloomy throne, 
 
 With passion's ensign sweetly furl'd. 
 We live and breathe for heaven alone ! 
 
 III. 
 
 For heaven we hope, for heaven we pray, 
 For heaven we look, and long to die, 
 
 For heaven — for heaven, by night, by day, 
 Untiring watch, unceasing sigh ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Here, fann'd by heavenly temper'd winds. 
 Our island lifts her tranquil breast ; 
 
 Oh, come to her, ye wounded minds ! 
 Oh, come and share our holy rest ! 
 
THE INVASION. 233 
 
 V. 
 
 For not to hoard the golden spoil, 
 
 Of earthly mines we bow the knee — 
 Our labour is the saintly toil, 
 
 Whose hire is in eternity, 
 
 VI. 
 
 The mountain wild — the islet fair, 
 
 The corrig bleak, and lonely vale — 
 The bawn that feels the summer air. 
 
 The peak that splits the wintry gale. 
 
 VII. 
 
 From northern Ulladh's column'd shore. 
 
 To distant Cleir's embosom'd nest ; 
 From high Benhedir's summit hoar, 
 
 To Ara in the lonely west. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Through all, the same resounding choir 
 
 Harmonious pours its descant strong. 
 All feel the same adoring fire — 
 
 All rabe the same celestial song. 
 
 IX. 
 
 When sinks the sun beyond the west. 
 
 Our vesper hymn salutes him there j 
 And when he wakes the world from rest, 
 
 We meet his morning light with prayer. 
 
 X. 
 
 The hermit by his holy well. 
 
 The monk within his cloister grey, 
 The virgin in her silent cell, 
 
 The pilgrim on his votive way. 
 
234 THE INVASION. 
 
 XI. 
 
 To all the same returning light, 
 The same returning fervour brings, 
 
 And thoughtful in the dawning bright, 
 
 The spirit spreads her heaven-ward wings. 
 
 XII. 
 
 From hill to hill, from plain to plain, 
 \\ herever falls his fostering ray ; 
 
 Still swells the same aspiring strain, 
 From angel souls in shapes of clay. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The echoes of the tranquil lake. 
 The clifted ocean's cavern'd maze. 
 
 The same untiring music make. 
 The same eternal sound of praise. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Oh, come, and see our Isle of Saints, 
 Ye weary of the ways of strife ; 
 
 Where oft the breath of discord taints 
 The banquet sweets of joyous life. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Ye weary of the lingering woes 
 
 That crowd on Passion's footsteps, pale. 
 
 Oh, come and taste the sweet repose 
 That breathes in distant Inisfail. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Not ours the zeal for pomp — for power — 
 The boastful threat — the bearing vain — 
 
 The mailed host — the haughty tower — 
 The pomp of war's encumbered plain. 
 
THE INVASION. 235 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Our strifes are in the holy walk 
 
 Of love serene and all sincere ; 
 Our converse is the soothing talk 
 
 Of souls that feel like strangers here. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Our armies are the peaceful bands 
 
 Of saints and sages mustering nigh ; 
 Our towers are raised by pious hands 
 
 To point the wanderer's thoughts on high. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The fleeting joys of selfish earth 
 
 We learn to shun with holy scorn ; 
 They cannot quench the inward dearth 
 
 With man's immortal spirit born. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Yet while my heart within me bums, 
 
 To hear that still resounding choir ; 
 To days unborn it fondly turns : — 
 
 When dies that heaven-descended fire 1 
 
 XXI. 
 
 How long shalt thou be thus divine, 
 
 Fair isle of piety and song 1 
 How long shall peace and love be thine. 
 
 Oh, land of peace — how long ? how long ? 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Hark ! echoing from each sainted tomb 
 
 Prophetic voices sternly roll — 
 They wrap my thoughts in sudden gloom, 
 
 Their accents freeze my shuddering soul. 
 
^3d THE INVASION. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Ha ! say ye that triumphant hell 
 Shall riot in these holy grounds 1 
 
 Shield ! shield me from those visions fell, 
 Oh, silent be those fearful sounds ! 
 
 They tell of crime, of contest sharp, 
 
 Of force and fraud, and hate and wrong- 
 No more, no more, my venturous harp. 
 Oh, trembling close thine altered song. 
 
 Oh, let thy thoughtful numbers cease. 
 Ere yet the touch of phienzy taints 
 
 The land of love and letter'd peace, 
 The Isle of Sages and of Saints. 
 
 Their conversation was interrupted by the ex- 
 piration of Munig's watch. Soon after, a circum- 
 stance occurred which deepened on the mind of 
 Aithne the impression made by reading the san- 
 guinary and mournful annals of her native isle. 
 A relative of Munig, who was Righ, or King, of 
 
THE INVASION. 237 
 
 Gailian, was slain in battle with a neighbouring 
 chief, and interred near the ancient cemetery of 
 Roilich-na-riogh, or the Grave of the Kings. It 
 was necessary that the former should be present at 
 the scene of the funeral ceremonies, and Aithne 
 obtained permission to accompany her friend. It 
 was with feelings of veneration, allied to the 
 sublime, that the young princess approached the 
 spot which contained the dust of her country's 
 kings, and on which, in fancy, she had often dwelt. 
 The last portion of the funeral journey was 
 performed by water, and as the day was calm, 
 the river smooth, and the boats numerous, the 
 sight was interesting and impressive. Aithne 
 and Munig sat in a currach not far from that 
 which bore the body of the king. About noon, 
 on a hot summer day, the celebrated resting-place 
 of the kings of Inisfail appeared in sight. The 
 banks of the river were crowded with spectators, 
 
238 THE INVASION. 
 
 and a mournful strain arose as the foremost vessels 
 touched upon the shore. Before them lay a plain, 
 on which stood several buildings, connected with 
 each other by long, low roofed halls. One of 
 these was pointed out to Aithne as contain- 
 ing the crypt in which the remains of a long 
 train of Druid kings were laid. Another had 
 been since erected, for their Christian succes- 
 sors. The other buildings were religious edi- 
 fices of various kinds. The funeral ceremonies 
 being ended, the friends were received into a 
 female monastery on the spot, which was to 
 aiford them shelter and refreshment during their 
 stay. 
 
 At midnight, Aithne was awakened from a 
 deep sleep, and a dream of crowns and tombs, 
 by her companion Munig, who bade her rise and 
 follow her with despatch. The daughter of 
 Carthan hastened to comply, and accompanied 
 
THE INVASION. 239 
 
 her friend through a long passage leading to the 
 cloisters, from which again another passage con- 
 ducted them to the narrow opening of what 
 seemed a subterranean crypt. Here they were 
 received by one of the sisterhood, who admitted 
 them to the recess. Descending, by the light of 
 a lamp, which Munig carried in her hand, a 
 flight of granite steps, the latter suddenly turned 
 to her friend, and said, with a smile : 
 
 *^ Thou hast thy wish at length. We are in 
 the sepulchre of kings." 
 
 Aithne gazed around her with interest of the 
 intensest kind. The apartment was occupied 
 by monuments ranged on each side, and extend- 
 ing to a length that seemed interminable. Over 
 each tomb appeared the sculptuied bust of the 
 perished occupant, and a lamp, suspended from 
 above, gave light to the cold and marble features. 
 The astronomer, who for the first time beholds in 
 
240 THE INVASION. 
 
 his reflector the storied wonders of the heavens 
 made evident to the sight, or the classic enthu- 
 siast, who gazes for the first time upon the rem- 
 nants of the Parthenon, or the Acropolis, may 
 imagine something of the feeling with which 
 Aithne paced from tomb to tomb, and contem- 
 plated the chiselled features of the monarchs, 
 whose names and actions had long been made 
 familiar to her mind, by the annals of her countr}'. 
 Here lay the mouldering monument of the Gre- 
 cian Phartolan, the earliest colonist of Inisfail. 
 The next was that of his successor Neimhidh, 
 whose architectural taste the tomhairaigh of 
 Tor Conning had so much reason to remember. 
 Here Aithne paused at the monument of Slainge, 
 the first who ever bore the title of Ard-righ, and 
 here she gazed upon the silver hand, which had 
 gained the crown for Nuadh, and which was now 
 suspended at his tomb. She passed successively 
 
THE INVASION. 241 
 
 the sepulchres of Lugha, the Long-i\rmed, the 
 celebrated institutor of the sports of Tailtean, 
 and the first who taught the islanders to fight on 
 horseback ; of the three sons of Cearmada, who 
 introduced the idol worship of the sun, the 
 plough share, and a log of wood ; of Irial, the 
 prophet, whose reign was glorious in peace, as 
 well as war ; of Tighermas, his descendant, who 
 made the famous law of Ilbreachta, distinguish- 
 ing the classes of the isle by the number of hues 
 in their attire, and whose terrific end still formed 
 the evening legend of the kerne of Breifne ; of 
 Eochaidh of the Green Edge, in whose reign the 
 art of dying weapon blades was first discovered, 
 and whose own swords and javelins bore the hue 
 which suggested his surname ; of Fiacha, whose 
 government was distinguished by the bursting 
 up of Lough Erne, upon the plains of Maigh 
 Geaneim ; of his son, called Mumho, from his 
 VOL. I. M 
 
242 THE INVASION. 
 
 powerful strength, and from whom the various 
 kmgdoms of Muimhean^ derived their common 
 name ; of Eadhna, who first caused shields and 
 targets, of pure silver, to be fabricated at Airgi- 
 dross, which it was his custom to bestow on the 
 most deserving of his soldiers ; and of Muim- 
 heamhoin, the institutor of the regal order of the 
 golden chain, who, going a step in splendour 
 beyond his predecessor, had armour made and 
 ornamented with pure and ductile gold. A 
 monument of unusual magnificence next met the 
 eyes of Aithne. It was that of Eochaidh the 
 Ollamh Fodhla, who first established the triennial 
 Feis of Tamrach, and who still continues to be 
 the Kaliph Haroun Alraschid of the romance of 
 ethnic Inisfail. Next appeared the tombs of 
 Rotheachta, in whose days the carbudh, or 
 chariot, both for war and peace, was introduced 
 * Afterwards Thomond, Desmond, Ormond, &c. 
 
THE INVASION. 243 
 
 into the isle; of Art Imlioch, or the Pond- Girt, 
 so named from having taught his subjects the 
 use of the moat and drawbridge, and the con- 
 struction of the fortification called a Dun ; of 
 Seadhna Jonnaruidh, or the Stipendiary, famous 
 for being the first who paid his soldiers in money, 
 clothes, and food, and for a written code of mi- 
 litary laws and discipline ; of Eadhna the Red, 
 who first caused money to be coined at Air- 
 gidross; of Eochaidh Uarcheas (of the Bas- 
 kets), so named from his invention of wicker 
 canoes, in which he made descents on stormy 
 coasts ; of Macha, the female usurper, who, 
 in spite of the salique law of Inisfail, kept 
 forcible possession of her husband's throne, and 
 founded the famous palace of Eamhuin, where 
 now the city of Ardmacha stood ; of Jughaine 
 the Great, who divided the island into its five 
 and twenty portions j of Roigne, his son, the author 
 
 M 2 
 
244 THE INVASION. 
 
 of a code of laws ; of Maon, who taught the 
 people of Gailian to use the laighean^ or Gaulish 
 spear, from which their territory afterwards 
 derived its name;^ of Eochaidh the Sorrowful, 
 who divided the kingdom into its five great pro- 
 vinces ; of his successor, of the same name, who 
 nas called Aremh (of the Grave), from his re- 
 gulating the modes of interment, and who reform- 
 ed the 'abuses, and reduced the number, of the 
 bards ; of Fearaidhach, whose reign was adorned 
 by the counsels of Moran, the Aristides of Irish 
 history ; of Tuathal, the Desired, the institutor 
 of the unhappy Boroimhe Laighean, or Leinster 
 tribute, which, for a long period, made a fatal 
 addition to the causes of disunion, already too 
 numerous, in the constitution of the state ; of 
 Feidhlimidh, the lawgiver, who reformed the 
 genius of the national code, by substituting the 
 
 * Coige Laighean, the Province of Spears, now Leinster. 
 
THE INVASION. Q.45 
 
 lex talionis, for the law of eric, or amercement ; 
 of Con, of the hundred fights, in whose days was 
 made the great partition, which divided the isle 
 into the kingdoms of Leath Mogha, and Leath 
 Cuin ; and of many another sovereign, whose 
 names are not so closely interwoven with the 
 progress of the isle in the arts of war and peace. 
 They came at length to the monument of Lug- 
 haidh, the last of the ethnic monarchs of the isle, 
 and Aithne found that she had at the same time 
 reached once more the flight of steps by which 
 they had descended. She turned, as she placed her- 
 foot on the ascent, to gaze on the double line of 
 sepulchres that extended far behind, and left the 
 place in company with her friend. 
 
CHAPTER XVL 
 
 Soon after her return to Kildoir, her father 
 came to take her from the convent. She was re- 
 ceived at Tamrach by her friends with joy, and 
 by the Ardrigh with undiminished kindness. Her 
 extreme beauty, her dignity of mind and person, 
 her liveliness of manner, and her accomplish- 
 ments, soon rendered her the attraction of the 
 festivals of Tamrach, and the theme of discourse 
 amongst surrounding princes. Aithne had many 
 suitors, but none that met her own inclinations, 
 or even her father's wishes. Meantime, she 
 
THE INVASION. 247 
 
 led a cheerful life at the Kempe of Tamrach, 
 making all around her happy by her talents, her 
 piety, and a fervent generosity of disposition. 
 
 The visions which Carthan often indulged, with 
 respect to her future fortunes, were sorely shaken 
 by an unexpected step of the Ard-righ himself. 
 One day the latter called him into his private 
 chamber for the purpose of dictating an oraiun. 
 Carthan entered, with the keenest interest^ for 
 his attention had long been excited by some- 
 thing unusual, yet almost imperceptible, in 
 the conduct of the Ard-righ. Full of learning, 
 full of wisdom, full of kindness for his people, 
 and of care for their welfare, perhaps there 
 seldom wa« a monarch better calculated to fill 
 a throne with safety and advantage to the state. 
 He was distinguished in assemblies by his elo- 
 quence ; in society by his wit ; in war by valour 
 and good tact ; and in peace by a wise and mo- 
 
248 THE INVASION. 
 
 derate government. While Carthan was seated, 
 waiting his commands, the king paced to and fro 
 in a thoughtful manner, as if something pressed 
 upon his mind. At length he said : 
 
 " I am not as merry, Carthan, as I used 
 to be." 
 
 The confidant admitted that he had long 
 observed a change in his demeanour. 
 
 '' I have no cause to be otherwise," said the 
 Ard-righ, *'if power and wealth, and the ready 
 obedience of a willing people can make a mo- 
 narch happy. But the truth is, Carthan, my 
 mind has been occupied by a serious question. 
 I am about to resign the throne of Inisfail." 
 
 Carthan, in astonishment, let the tablet fall, 
 and gazed upon his master. The monarch 
 smiled, but repeated what he had said ; adding 
 that he had resolved on putting his purpose into 
 effect at the approaching Feis of Tamrach. His 
 
THE INVASION. ^249 
 
 intention was, he said, to retire to the lonely 
 island of Huy, or lona,* and there conclude his 
 life in the monastic habit. Carthan, kneeling 
 at his feet, with tears besought him to relinquish 
 his intention. He represented to him the danger 
 of exchanging, at so advanced a period in life, 
 the habits of active commerce with men, and 
 the engrossing cares of government, for duties 
 of so secluded and so arduous a character ; he 
 reminded him of the austerity of the rule which 
 was observed within the monastery of Columba, 
 so formidable, even to the young and vigorous, 
 not to speak of one whose whole life had been 
 spent in the ease and splendour of a court. Not 
 perceiving that he made any impression on the 
 Ard-righ, he at length conjured him to consider 
 the interests of his people, and not, by withdraw- 
 ing from them his talents, his influence, and his 
 
 * Y-colm-kill, near Mull. 
 M 5 
 
*250 THE INVASION. 
 
 experience, sacrifice their welfare to the com- 
 paratively selfish purpose of securing his own 
 religious safety. He urged him, with all the 
 earnestness he could command, to subdue this 
 late desire of solitude, and be true to the ties 
 of affection, of friendship, and of genuine cha- 
 rity. 
 
 *^Thou wilt see, on reflection," said the 
 monarch, after listening with great attention to 
 Carthan's arguments, " that every reason thou 
 hast urged against my purpose, and many far 
 more powerful, must have long since suggested 
 themselves to my own mind. To those which 
 relate to my own welfare, 1 have no answer to 
 make, except to thank thee for thy love. As to 
 my people, I have taken care they shall not suffer 
 by my resignation. Donacha, the Roy-damna,* 
 has almost my years, more than my experience 
 * Heir to the Ard-righ. 
 
THE INVASION. 251 
 
 in affairs of state, and his wisdom, learning, and 
 integrity are well known. For the rest, whether 
 here or at lona, I will never forget my friends." 
 
 Seeing the uselessness of debate, the favourite 
 retired to his apartment penetrated with the 
 deepest concern at what he had heard. The 
 Ard-righ persevered in his resolution, and resigned 
 his crown at the next Feis of the nation. Car- 
 than staid to witness the ceremony, which, though 
 not unprecedented, was yet sufficiently unusual 
 to excite considerable interest and surprize. The 
 monarch came to the Feis arrayed in all the regal 
 splendour, and attended by the pomp, of Tarn- 
 rach ; and, in a few days after, departed in a 
 solitary fishing vessel for the lonely isle which was 
 to be the scene of his voluntary banishment. Car- 
 than, resisting the instances of Donacha, who 
 urged him to continue at Tamrach, took up his 
 residence at the court of Airtree, in the citv of 
 
252 THE INVASION. 
 
 Luimneach, ^^llere he remained until the death 
 of his wife. Aiter this event, nothing could 
 induce him to remain within the kingdom, or to 
 retain the slightest portion of the possessions 
 which she had brought him. He arrived one 
 evening, worn with travel and affliction, accom- 
 panied by his only child, in the valley of her 
 ancestors, which, till then, Aithne never had 
 beheld. The Ard-Draithe's heart was not proof 
 to the sight of his brother returning in sorrow, 
 after years of absence. He received him with 
 forgiving affection, and re-instated him in his small 
 inheritance. Here he lived for two years, over- 
 coming, by his way of life, the bitterness of 
 prejudice which his change of faith had raised 
 against him in his tribe. Dying at length, he 
 commended his orphan child into the hands of 
 the Ard-Draithe, entreating for her his protection, 
 which was readily granted. The gentleness of 
 
THE INVASION. 253 
 
 Aithne's character soon made her generally loved, 
 while her complying and affectionate disposition 
 endeared her so much to the old Ard-Draithe, 
 Conraoi, that many supposed an union between 
 her and his heir, Tuathal, would be the re- 
 sult. The more judicious, however, saw in the 
 character of the latter an effectual bar to this ar- 
 rangement. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The reader may conjecture how much of the 
 foregoing narrative was communicated by its hero- 
 ine to Elim, while they followed Duach and his 
 wife, through a narrow and stony glen leading to 
 that portion of the Coom na Druid which Elim 
 had first seen. The night was bright and starlit, 
 although the shadows of the surrounding mountains 
 prevented their discerning, with any distinctness, 
 what was passing in the vale. Seated on the 
 rocks which lay around, they waited the moment 
 Avhen the gaieties of the annual festival were to 
 
THE INVASION. 255 
 
 commence. Elim was delighted with the man- 
 ner in which i\ithne communicated all that she 
 could of the events just related. 
 
 '' And now, good Ithian," she said, as they 
 were seated, *' thou shalt presently witness some 
 specimen of the manners of the valley. There 
 is not now a spark of fire in all the territories of 
 tlie Hooded people." 
 
 Elim looked down and beheld, in the dim 
 light, a multitude of people thronging the shores 
 of the lake, the strip of land already mentioned, 
 and the isle on which the temple stood. The 
 deepest silence prevailed, as if all were hushed 
 in expectation of some portentous event, and 
 although the moon had not yet arisen, the 
 cloudless sky around was all illumined with her 
 light. 
 
 Suddenly a deep murmur, like the beat of 
 waves upon the shore, arose from the assembled 
 
256 THE INVASION. 
 
 people ; and Elim, looking toward the summit 
 of the mountains, beheld the golden rim of the 
 full harvest moon appearing slowly in the hea- 
 vens. The burst of a thousand voices and a 
 thousand instruments ascended from the valley. 
 The multitude, with renewed murmurs of devo- 
 tion, prostrated themselves upon the earth, while 
 the goddess of the night arose, and looked on 
 her adorers. At the same instant the islet was 
 illumined by a fire which was suddenly kindled 
 near the temple, and around which Elim now 
 could faintly distinguish the gorgeous dresses of 
 the Ard-Draithe and his principal assistants. 
 Soon after, burning brands were distributed to 
 the people, with which they were to re-illume 
 their own hearth-fires, not again to be exlin- 
 tinguished before the festival of Bel. The sight 
 of the numerous torches, hurrying along the 
 shore and up the heights, in various directions. 
 
THE INVASION. 257 
 
 appeared to Elim not the least interesting part 
 of the ceremony. 
 
 Returning to the Dun, Elim renewed his 
 conversation with the Ard-Draithe's niece, while 
 they waited his return. Aithne, who appeared 
 perfectly acquainted with the history and present 
 condition of the sept of O^Haedha, made so 
 many enquiries respecting the young chieftain, 
 and spoke so warmly in his praise, that Elim's 
 countenance was sometimes near betraying him. 
 
 ** And here, in this lone retreat, after the 
 splendours of Tamrach, thou dwellest content, 
 and quite companionless ? " said Elim. 
 
 '^ Not quite," answered Aithne. " Tuathal 
 gives me a great deal of his company, and not a 
 little of his conversation. I am sorry he is not 
 here to lecture thee on caths, and gens, and 
 skiaghs, and other warlike affairs. He could 
 prove to thee, beyond question, that our Dun is 
 
258 THE INVASION. 
 
 fortified according to the precise rules laid down 
 by the renowned Art Imlioch, or the Pond Girt, 
 that great monarch who first taught the children 
 of Inisfail to raise breast-works of earth and 
 stone, and to construct the moat and drawbridge. 
 Art Imlioch and Jonnaruidh, the first who ever 
 wrote a book on tactics, are the constant subjects 
 of Tuathal's eulogy, as Coun Crehir, and Doun 
 Dara are the admiration of Duach. He left 
 the Coom at day break, on an excursion of the 
 chase, and has not since returned. He was ex- 
 pected to take a part at the festival, and, before 
 thy coming, his absence had already begun to 
 make the Ard-Draithe anxious." 
 
 Elim, on hearing this, was silent for some 
 time, and then said : 
 
 *' Did thy young friend wear a canabhas with 
 a purple hood ? " 
 
 Aithne replied in the affirmative, and her 
 
THE INVASION. 259 
 
 answer struck Eliai mute for a few seconds. He 
 had no doubt it was the fugitive whom he pur- 
 sued. The only way he could account for his 
 not having reached the Dun before, was, by sup- 
 posing (what was in truth the case) that he had 
 concealed himself from the pursuit, in some se- 
 cret pass, and was fearful of venturing out again 
 until the danger had completely passed away. 
 The necessity of immediately taking measures 
 for his safety was evident, and he thought it best 
 to throw himself on Aithne's generosity. Relating 
 what had taken place, yet without revealing his 
 rank, he so impressed her with the truth of his 
 statement, and the wantonness of Tuathal's out- 
 rage, that she consented to favour his escape, 
 though the event alarmed and distressed her. 
 
 The sun was now descending fast, and the 
 sound of the distant citola and piobh mala had 
 ceased for some time to remind them of the pro- 
 
260 THE INVASION. 
 
 ceedings at the temple. On a sudden, while both 
 continued silent, the distant concert was renewed 
 with a louder burst of harmony than ever. The 
 music approached more near, and in a short time 
 the Ard-Draithe re-appeared, attired in robes of 
 white, and bearing in his hand a blazing brand, 
 which he cast upon the blackened hearth. ^The 
 fire was lighted up anew ; and now the house 
 was thronged with the inhabitants of the valley, 
 who pressed forward, with a stunning clamour 
 of laughter and of voice, to enter on the amuse- 
 ments of the evening. 
 
 In the midst of all this festive tumult, and 
 while the Ard-Draithe stood near the fire, com- 
 manding peace, and endeavouring to restore or- 
 der, he was astonished to see Aithne suddenly 
 advance and kneel at his feet. All was hushed 
 in an instant. The old Druid raised his hands 
 in astonishment, those who were approaching the 
 
THE INVASION. 26l 
 
 fire stopped short, and those who were at a dis- 
 tance looked back, to see the occasion of the 
 sudden silence. 
 
 '' Well, Aithne," said the Druid, '' what 
 wouldst thou have, my child ? What must I give 
 thee now?" 
 '' Aithne was silent for a moment. 
 
 *' First grant it, father — and then I will tell 
 thee what it is." 
 
 '' I freely do," replied the Ard-Draithe — 
 " I may grant any thing that Aithne asks. And 
 now what is it thou hast gained of me ?" 
 
 Aithne pressed her hands and forehead on his 
 feet, and then said, looking np, with kindling 
 features : 
 
 '' The freedom of the Ithian prisoner" 
 
 " Thou hast thy will," said the Ard- 
 Draithe. " It is a little thing to grant thee, what 
 I had almost determined on before hand. Our 
 
262 THE INVASION. 
 
 kern, Duach/' he added, turning to Elim, who 
 stood viewing his intercessor with silent gratitude, 
 *' has punished thee enough by his needless 
 violence. Thou art free, Christian, to return to 
 thy people, but though we break the chains of 
 force, we would gladly bind thee longer amongst 
 us, by those of kindness. Remain to night and 
 share our festival : we will not ask thee to partake 
 in rites which thou abhorrest, but only to join 
 our mirth. Young ears love music, and young 
 limbs the dance, and thou wilt never be the less 
 an Ithian for making meriy with the Hooded 
 People." 
 
 ** I am grateful to thee and to thy kins- 
 woman," said Elim, " but I would gladly reach 
 Rath-Aidan before morn. My kinsmen must 
 suppose me slain, — and I have a mother at home 
 who will pass a sleepless night if I stay dancing 
 here." 
 
THE INVASION. 263 
 
 *' A daltin can be sent to quiet her mind," 
 said the Ard-Draithe. 
 
 '* I beseech thee press me not," continued 
 Elim, " what thou hast given, give wholly." 
 
 "Be it as thou wilt," said the Ard-Draithe, 
 *'onIy at least thou must not pass the Druid's 
 threshold without once more sharing liis cake 
 and mead." 
 
 With renewed anxiety, Elim saw himself 
 compelled to await the termination of the 
 concert and dance which were already in prepa- 
 ration, at the eminent risk of being surprised by 
 the fugitive Tuathal before he should depart. 
 
 '* Thou canst not help thyself," said Aithue, in 
 a low tone, as she passed him, " I have saved thy 
 head for thee, and thou must now take care of it 
 as thou canst. If Tuathal arrive, avoid him as 
 well as thou art able, until thou canst thrid thy 
 way to the other side of the bridge, and then — 
 
264 THE INVASION. 
 
 remember to deal as generously as thy power 
 may enable thee by thy prisoners." 
 
 " I will not forget thy wishes, nor thy kind- 
 ness/' answered Elim. *' If I did, my head were 
 hardly worth thy intercession." 
 
 So saying, and forcibly dismissing his care, he 
 prepared to enter with a cordial spirit into the 
 mirth of the assembly. The apartment was now 
 filled with dresses of a richer sort ; torches, com- 
 posed of twisted rushes steeped in oil, were lighted 
 along the walls, and a burst of harmony pro- 
 ceeded from the band of crotaries, composed of 
 all but the wind instruments, which were then 
 esteemed too rude for in-door concerts. Elim 
 found the harpers no way inferior in skill to those 
 of his own sept, although their music was of a 
 somewhat obsolete air, and their poetry, for the 
 
 most part, far more agreeable in style than senti- 
 ment. 
 
THE INVASION. 0.65 
 
 *' But what mode of warfare is this which has 
 been adopted by my conqueror?" asked Elim, as 
 he led Aithne to her tripod near the fire-place, 
 and sat on the rushes at her feet. ^' I am sure 
 there is nothing like it in the book of Jonnaruidh. 
 It was more like the spring of a wild cat, than 
 the onset of a well-reared soldier." 
 
 In answer to this remark, Aithne informed 
 him, that Duach had been, from his boy- 
 hood, the attached and faithful follower of her 
 deceased father, and since his death, a devoted 
 servant to herself. He had been, in childhood, 
 remarkable for a placability of temper, that was 
 even unusual amongst the wild kerne of the hills, 
 until, at the period when he was rising into youth, 
 a travelling Fochlucan, one of those persons who 
 obtained a livelihood by story-telling, arrived at 
 her father's residence. In the course of the even- 
 ing, being called on to entertain the company with 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
Q66 the invasion. 
 
 some of his professional lore, he related with 
 great emphasis and gesticulation, the famous narra- 
 tive of the Catha Fiontreagha, or battle of Ventry 
 Harbour, fought in the days of yore between Dara 
 Doun Mac Laskien Loumlunig, monarch of the 
 ^'orld, and Fion Mac Comhal, with his Irish 
 legion. The resounding effect of the heroes' 
 names, and the terrible description held out of 
 the havoc committed during a battle which lasted 
 for three hundred and sixty-six days, took hold, 
 like a contagion, of the mind of Duach, and 
 transformed him from a peaceful and merry dallin, 
 into one of the most redoubted kerne in her 
 father's service. He exchanged his ashen sheep- 
 hook, for a skene and javelin, and his saffron 
 tunic, or cota, for the frieze mantle of the war- 
 rior. From that time to the present, there was 
 scarce a moment in which he was not heard utter- 
 ing the names of Goul MacDravan, Rolust Goul, 
 
THE INVASION. ^6? 
 
 Moungand Muncusker Mac Dounha, or some 
 other of the thunder-sounding epithets, which 
 were so remarkable in that tale of blood, and 
 which he seemed to feel a satisfaction in mouthing 
 forth with all their depth of sound. This turn 
 of character was fitted, as he entered into man- 
 hood (which took place while Aithne was yet a 
 child), with a person almost gigantic, though lean 
 and muscular ; and with eyes that seemed to burn 
 in his head, whenever the ruling passion was 
 aroused within him. 
 
 '* Nevertheless," said Aithne, " since he has 
 become attached to the Ard-Draithe, he has in- 
 volved him in so many difficulties with surround- 
 ing princes, by various acts of hostility offered 
 without law, or warrant of his master, that, but 
 for his devoted affection for me, I believe he 
 would esteem himself more a loser than a gainer 
 by his services. You are not the first prisoner 
 
 N 2 
 
268 THE INVASION. 
 
 with whose presence, in times of the profoundest 
 peace, he has surprised the tranquil inmates of 
 the Dun." 
 
 Aithne continued to converse with the young 
 Ithian, pointing out to him the different charac- 
 ters by which the Dun was crowded relating 
 anecdotes of their daily life, and displaying in 
 the whole a disposition so affectionate, and a 
 mind so gifted, that Elim grieved, whenever she 
 ceased speaking. He felt his spirits sink with a 
 blank and lonesome sensation, when he remem- 
 bered, that as this was the first, it should pro- 
 bably be the last, night of their acquaintance, 
 and that he was now listening, perhaps for the 
 last time, to the voice which had pleaded, unsoli- 
 cited, for his freedom. 
 
 ^' The different dresses which you see," said 
 Aithne, *^ distinguish, according to an ancient 
 Druidical sumptuary law, the different ranks of 
 
THE INVASION. 269 
 
 the wearers. The old man in white, who leans 
 on the sally-framed clarsech, is Irial, the princi- 
 pal crotarie, or chief harper, of the entire sept. 
 Next him, almost of equal years, sits Cormoc, 
 the chief bard, whose duty it is to follow his 
 master to the field, to sing his deeds at the ban- 
 quet, and to preserve, in verse, the records of his 
 sept. I confess to you, though I inherit but 
 little of the enthusiasm of my race for their de- 
 parted privileges, there are times in which his 
 songs have made my veins thrill, until I fancied 
 myself a Druidess ; and almost forced me to weep 
 for the lost glories of the sun-adorers, as if the 
 change had been an evil." 
 
 '' And who are those," asked Elim, " the old 
 man in green, and the younger in saffron, who 
 sit at a little distance from the old filea?" 
 
 " The first," answered Aithne, " is Eogan 
 Bel, our story teller, and the foster father of 
 
270 THE INVASION. 
 
 Tuathalj having purchased that dignity from 
 his parent, Eira, the Ard-Draithe's sister, by 
 a present of fifty choice kine. The younger 
 man is his son Eimher, the best slinger and 
 archer in the Coom, and both remarkable for ex- 
 cessive superstition ; a foible from which indeed 
 Tuathal is not free. He would not eat an odd 
 number of eggs this morning, lest his horse 
 should fail him in the expedition, nor would he 
 suffer his daltin to swallow one for the same 
 prudent reason. As to Eogan Bel, his house, 
 which lies somewhat farther up the Coom, is an 
 absolute den of superstition ; an actually frightful 
 specimen of what the human mind is capable of,, 
 when it lets conjecture take the place of truth.** 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Elim, who became every instant more enchanted 
 with his new acquaintance, soon after received 
 from the latter an account of the manner in 
 which her ancient sept had become possessed of 
 this lone and singular retreat. 
 
 " It is many centuries," said Aithne, *' since 
 Cormoc, the Ard-righ of Inisfail, pitched his camp 
 at Drum Dahbaire, against Fiacha, Righ of 
 Dheas Muimhean, in order to enforce some 
 tribute, on pretence of injury received from the 
 latter, Cormoc, having cut off his enemy's sup- 
 
272 THE INVASION. 
 
 plies, a great drought ensued, occasioned, as the 
 followers of Fiacha believed, by the spells of 
 Cormoc^s Druids. Gloom and dismay prevailed 
 through the camp of Fiacha, and the issue would 
 have been fatal to his cause, if accident had not 
 brought to his assistance an unexpected succour. 
 Our ancestor, Modharuith, the most famous 
 draithe in the kingdom of Ciar, arrived at his 
 camp, and by means of a white wand, which had 
 the power of indicating hidden springs, supplied 
 the army of Fiacha with abundance of water in 
 their camp. The troops, relieved of their thirst 
 and of their fears, gave battle to the Ard-righ, 
 and compelled him to retire to Ossruidhe, where 
 he was obliged to capitulate, promising to make 
 good to the King of Muimhean the loss sustain- 
 ed by his invasion ; giving noble hostages, and re- 
 nouncing for himself and his successors, all claim 
 of chiefrie over any part of Leath Mogha. For 
 
THE INVASION. 273 
 
 this service Modharuith was rewarded with ex- 
 tensive possessions in Corca Luighe, of which 
 •this valley is now the only portion left to his pos- 
 terity. I confess to thee, Ithian, though I mourn, 
 deeply mourn, the fallen honour of my race, I 
 could well behold them still more straightened 
 in power, provided their depression could contri- 
 bute, in any degree, to promote union and good- 
 will amongst the bickering children of our com- 
 mon country. I know, woman though I am, I 
 know how this will end. The hand of the Dal 
 Gas will be raised against the Eoganacht, Ulladh 
 will make war on Meath, and Claire on Conacht, 
 the spirit of dissension will divide our princes, 
 from the Ard-righ of Erin to the poorest chief- 
 tain of a distant township ; some foreign foe will 
 take advantage of their discord, and Erin never 
 — never more will know what freedom is." 
 
 Elim, who listened with absorbed attention, 
 n5 
 
274 THE INVASION. 
 
 was surprised, and penetrated by the depth of 
 feeling with which Aithne spoke these last words. 
 He gazed on her with interest of a new and deeper 
 kind, and as he observed with delight and ad- 
 miration the heightened colour of her cheek, and 
 the moistened brilliancy of her glance, it seemed 
 to him as if, in the instant, her countenance and 
 character had wholly changed into something 
 loftier and nobler, if not more winning than 
 before. 
 
 " Thou art an enthusiast, Aithne, " said the 
 young chieftain, with a warm smile. 
 
 ** Say not so," answered Aithne, at once 
 resuming her light and cheerful manner, "I do not 
 sigh for things impossible. I have been taught 
 to love peace ; and, as I love my country, I wish 
 she could enjoy it : that is all." 
 
 In the meantime the festivities of the evening 
 proceeded with increasing zest. The senachie 
 
THE INVASION. 275 
 
 told his story ; the minstrel sung his song ; the 
 brehoun and the tiarna (or chief of a district) dis- 
 cussed the several laws of south, assaut, rauste- 
 rowne, bode, garty, &c. ; the young peo- 
 ple chatted and laughed in groups ; the cro- 
 taries played their liveliest airs ; and, altogether, 
 the variety of dresses, the sprightliness of the 
 music, and the cheerful countenances of the 
 assembly, gave it such an exhilirating effect as 
 somewhat relieved the want of refinement in 
 some of its features. 
 
 Late in the evening, an open space was cleared 
 in the midst ; the guests half lay, half sat, round the 
 walls on beds of rushes freshly gathered ; while the 
 Ard-Draithe, to the great mortification of the Ithian, 
 led his niece away to a kind of canopied recess, 
 completely framed in with flowers and foliage, 
 and placed before the open entrance; so that 
 those who crowded without to look in upoii 
 
2,76 THE llSVASIOTt. 
 
 their ruler, might gratify their hearts without ob- 
 struction. 
 
 Soon after came the favourite national dance, 
 the name of which alone is frequent now in the 
 minds of Irish villagers. Elim, who felt pain at 
 being separated from Aithne, took advantage of 
 this circumstance to renew the conversation, and, 
 gracefully presenting a white kerchief, led her 
 to the dance. The harp, the bell, the cymbal, 
 and the drum, once more resounded beneath the 
 practised fingers of the crotaries. At first to a 
 slow and peaceful movement, three maidens, all in 
 white, advanced abreast, each chained to each by a 
 white kerchief held between. Pair after pair, of 
 ouths and maids, (amongst whom came first the 
 llhian and his partner,) in similar attire, came after 
 at an equal pace, as many as the building could 
 accommodate. The three in front having ad- 
 vanced to the recess which held the Ard-Draithe, 
 
THE INVASION. 277 
 
 did graceful homage to iheir superior, by laying 
 each her girdle at his feet. Resuming instantly 
 their former attitude, the band on a sudden changed 
 to a rapid measure. The three maidens, standing 
 far apart, held up the kerchiefs so as to form 
 two arches, through which the dancers passed 
 successively, did homage in like manner to the 
 i\rd-Draithe; w^heeled round in rapid semicircles, 
 interspersed with movements of agility and grace, 
 giving place without delay to those who followed, 
 and falling modestly behind into their former 
 places. As the dancers retired, and the music 
 ceased to play, a murmur of approbation arose 
 from the surrounding circle. 
 
 Taking his seat once more on the rushes near 
 the feet of Aithne, Elim was about to offer some 
 observation on the entertainment which had just 
 concluded, when he was cut short in his speech 
 by an exquisitely affecting prelude from the clar- 
 
278 THE INVASION, 
 
 sech of the principal crotarie of the Ard-Draithe» 
 A dead silence sunk upon the circle, and Aithne 
 inforni ed him in a whisper that this was the great- 
 est musician of the tribe, that he had been edu- 
 cated for seven years at a Druidical college near 
 Ross Ailithri, and was esteemed by all a wonder 
 of musical proficiency. He was about to be ac- 
 companied by the tilea, or poet, in an extempo- 
 raneous poem, the two offices being quite distinct 
 amongst the Druids, and the sudden silence pro- 
 ceeded from the high raised expectations of the 
 assembly, whom either seldom failed to enchant, 
 but whom both together could excite and move 
 almost to any enterprise. The delicious tender- 
 ness of the prelude, and the richly modulated 
 accents of the singer, made the tears start into 
 Elim's eyes in spite of him, and it was with a 
 thrill of delight and surprise that he heard his 
 own name mingled in the melody : 
 
THE INVASION. 279 
 
 Cead millia falta ' child of the Ithian ! 
 Cead millia falta, Elim ! 
 Uisneach, thy temple in ruins is lying, 
 In Druim na Druid the dark blast is sighing. 
 Lonely we shelter in grief and in danger, 
 Yet have we welcome and cheer for the stranger. 
 Cead millia falta, child of the Ithian ! 
 Cead millia falta, Elim ! 
 
 ir. 
 
 Woe for the weapons that guarded our slumbers ! 
 Tamrach, they said, was too small for our numbers ; 
 Little is left for our sons to inherit, 
 Yet what we have, thou art welcome to share it. 
 Cead millia falta, child of the Ithian ! 
 Cead millia falta, Elim ! 
 III. 
 Corman, thy teachers have died broken hearted ; 
 Voice of the trilithon, thou art departed ! 
 All have forsaken our mountains so dreary ; 
 All but the spirit that welcomes the weary. 
 Cead millia falta, child of the Ithian ! 
 Cead millia falta, Elim ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Vainly the Draithe, alone in the mountain, 
 Looks to the torn cloud, or eddying fountain ; 
 The spell of the Christian has vanquished their power. 
 Yet is he welcome to rest in our bower. 
 Cead millia falta, child of the Ithian ! 
 Cead millia falta, Elim ! 
 
280 THE INVASION. 
 
 V. 
 
 Wake for the Christianyour welcoming numbers ! 
 Strew the diy rushes to pillow his slumbers, 
 Long let him cherish, with deep recollection. 
 The eve of our feast, and the Druid's affection. 
 Cead millia falta, child of the Ithian • 
 Cead millia falta, Elim ! 
 
 While a murmur of admiration and delight 
 ran through the circle, Elim advanced, and at the 
 hazard of discovering his rank, removed from his 
 breast the golden clasp which bound his bright 
 green mantle, and divided it between the min- 
 strels. 
 
 On returning to his place, he perceived the 
 Ard-Draithe pressing Aithne to some measure 
 which she seemed to decline with a bashful mix- 
 ture of laughter and coyness. The mystery was 
 explained, when one of the maidens already men- 
 tioned placed a cruit in the hands of her young 
 mistress. Tiie latter complying at length with the 
 wishes of her aged protector, though with a de- 
 gree of embarassment that almost amounted to 
 
THE INVASION. 281 
 
 agitation, ran a rapid prelude in a style that 
 showed Elim she was a perfect mistress of the 
 instrument. Recovering ease and self-possession 
 as she felt the music flow beneath her fingers, she 
 sung in a voice wild, indeed, and unmodulated as 
 the strain of the song-thrush, but sweet and 
 thrillingly distinct in every emphasis, the following 
 verses in the words of her native tongue. As the 
 song proceeded, all other sounds were hushed to 
 a midnight stillness, and the voice of the singer 
 filled the extensive chamber, till it seemed to be 
 echoed from the roof and sculptured walls : 
 
 I. 
 
 No, not for the glories of days that are flown, 
 For the fall of a splendour that was but our own ; 
 No, not for the dust of our heroes that sleep. 
 Should the bard of the Coom in his melody weep. 
 
 II. 
 
 For the thought of that glory remains in each breast. 
 Though we see them no longer, the dead are at rest j 
 And gay is the face of the Druid's lone vale, 
 But dark is the bosom of wide Inisfail ! 
 
282 THE INVASION. 
 
 IXI. 
 
 The demon of discord has breathed on the land. 
 And her sons on her mountains meet hand against hand. 
 The children who thought for her welfare are slain, 
 And her bosom is trampled by those who remain ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Wild blast of the trompa! that echoing far, 
 Hast summoned Leath Mogha with Cuin to war. 
 Far westward of Ara die over the main. 
 And never be heard in our vallies again. 
 
 V. 
 
 Arise on our mountains, O spirit of peace ! 
 Let the sons of the Riada hear thee and cease ; 
 Too late for their country, oh, let them not prove, 
 That the strength of the island is union and love ! 
 
 Oh, spread not thy strife-quelling pinions aloft. 
 Till the calm on our country fall sunny and soft ; 
 From Rechrin's cold islet and Ulladh the green. 
 To woody Glengaiiff and fair Inbhersceine. 
 
 The exquisite voice of the fair minstrel, and 
 the intense fullness of feeling with which she 
 poured forth her musical appeal, produced an 
 effect on the assembly which, perhaps, a far more 
 accomplished vocalist might have attempted in 
 
THE INVASION. 2§S 
 
 vain. The warriors, of whom there were few in 
 the island undeserving of the reproach, looked 
 downward, as if in shame ; the tioseach lowered 
 his sword, as if to conceal it ; the kern drew his 
 cota involuntarily over his skene; and Elim gazed 
 on the beautiful figure of the minstrel, as if she 
 were herself the spirit she had invoked in fancy, 
 a being sent by the genius of her country to ex- 
 hort her sons to concord and to peace. 
 
 The time was now arrived, however, when 
 this evening, so new in the life of Elim, so full 
 of events, and which he already felt was destined 
 strongly to influence the course of his future for- 
 tunes, must draw to a close. He had, indeed, 
 totally forgotten the nature of his situation, and 
 would never have thought of the necessity of de- 
 parture ; but Aithne, who perceived his abstrac- 
 tion, took an opportunity of directing his atten- 
 tion to the moonlight which glimmered upon the 
 
284 THE INVASION. 
 
 waters of the river, at no great distance from the 
 entrance of the Dun, reminding him at the same 
 time that Tuathal must soon arrive. Elim as- 
 sented, with reluctance, to her repeated instances, 
 and rose to bid the Ard-Draithe and his friends 
 farewell. 
 
 " Fill up the parting cup," said the Ard- 
 Draithe, " and hand it to the Ithian. Stranger," 
 
 he continued, "it is now a score of years since 
 these old arms took up the gen against thy race, 
 on behalf of him whom I believed their injured 
 chief. Whether his cause were good or ill, it is 
 not now worth while to wake the question. Thy 
 sept have well preserved the peace they gave, 
 and were they all like thee, thus frank, thus cor- 
 dial and ready-handed, I could rejoice to know 
 them closer friends. Here comes the cup — 
 Aithne, do honour to the stranger's parting 
 draught." 
 
THE INVASION. 285 
 
 Ailhne, \vho seemed to think the conference 
 somewhat long, took the golden vessel in silence 
 from the hand of the dark-haired daltin, touched 
 the brim with her lips, and returned it to the 
 attendant, by whom again it was presented to the 
 Ithian chief. Ehni paused a moment to remove 
 the green birrede from his bright and curling 
 hair, after which he said : — 
 
 ** I drink to the forgetfulness of useless strife, 
 and to the memory of present kindness. And 
 thou, too, gentle maiden, to whom I owe a free- 
 dom that thou hast taught me how to value, I give 
 thee all good wishes in the draught." 
 
 So saying, he drained the vessel of its con- 
 tents, and was preparing to depart, amid mur- 
 murs of kindness and regard from the whole 
 assembly, when, with a sudden bound, Duach 
 sprung into the midst, wheeling his short javelin, 
 and exclaiming aloud : — 
 
286 THE INVASION. 
 
 ''Tuathal a-bo!" 
 
 '^ He is somewhat late/' said the Ard- 
 Draithe, with displeasure. " It is to be hoped 
 he has brought some precious game that can ex- 
 cuse his absence. If my conjecture prove cor- 
 rect, and that Tuathal in these excursions has 
 other game in view than the w^olf and the red 
 deer, it is time for him to look to his inherit- 
 ance." 
 
 Scarcely was this speech concluded, when a 
 loud cry of women was heard at the bridge with- 
 out, mingled with the voice of a man in seeming 
 exultation. The Ard-Draithe rose hastily, and 
 general confusion appeared in the countenances 
 of the guests. 
 
 ** It is TuathaFs voice," said he ; " his horses* 
 hoofs sound lonely on the bridge. Some disaster 
 has befallen our friends." 
 
 Aithne darted a warning glance at Elim, who 
 
THE INVASION. 287 
 
 had scarcely retired amongst the crowd, when the 
 fugitive made his appearance at the doorway, his 
 brazen sword still bare, and his dress disordered. 
 As he passed the threshold, he turned back and 
 addressed the crowd of women who followed 
 with increasing lamentations of " Vo ! Ohone ! 
 O Vo! O Vo! Tuathal!" 
 
 "Ohone! O Vo !" he said, in a sharp tone. 
 *' O Vo and Ohone, as much as you will, but 
 do not O Vo at me. It was not I that slew or 
 threw in chains your husbands or your sons. 
 Bright Bel has seen how hard I fought for them. 
 But what could one against a multitude ? Dear 
 father," he continued, pulling off his birrede, and 
 laying his sword for an instant at the feet of the 
 Ard-Draithe, " thou art a fortunate Chief Druid 
 to behold me safe. Embrace me, and count thy- 
 self happy that it is in thy power to do so. This 
 is it to be somew^hat used to combat ; this is it to 
 
288 THE INVASION. 
 
 know how to wield a gen ; this it is to have the 
 use of one's hands." 
 
 '' And feet/' said Aithne, at the same time 
 making a significant gesture to EUm to begone ; 
 the press at the door, however, rendered it im- 
 possible for him to obey. 
 
 *^ Ah, art thou there?" cried Tuathal. ''No 
 matter for the feet, it would be w^ell for others if 
 they knew the use of either. There's one fellow 
 I had under my hand for an hour or more. I 
 notched his skiagh for him ; a clever fellow too, 
 and nimble enough with the weapon : a wicked 
 muscular rogue. Let Bel declare what a subtle 
 understroke he used to deal beneath the skiagh. 
 I have got three scratches here on the left arm, 
 besides a javelin in my horse's shoulder. I never 
 dealt with such a positive rogue." 
 
 '' But thou subduedst him?" said Aithne. 
 u Oh, I— I— why as to that," said Tuathal, 
 
THE INVASION. 289 
 
 " let me do the rogue justice, — I did not behead 
 him ; but we, we — both gave over fighting much 
 about the same time." 
 
 " And thy friends, Tuathal?" said the Ard- 
 Draithe. 
 
 ^' All slain or taken, every one,** added the 
 young chieftain. 
 
 " By whom?" said the Ard-Draithe, waving 
 his hand to still the tumult which this unexpected 
 news occasioned in the assembly. 
 
 " Some sept of Ithians, I know not which," 
 replied Tuathal. 
 
 *' Describe the encounter," said the Ard- 
 Draithe ; " let us hear something of the manner 
 of the occurrence." 
 
 In compliance with this request, Tuathal gave 
 an account of their incursion on a territory near 
 the coast, and in particular of his own single- 
 handed encounter with the young Ithian, whom 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
290 THE INVASION. 
 
 he described as a person of prodigious strength 
 and wonderful dexterity. In the midst of this 
 detail, and while he was in the act of furnishing 
 a somewhat highly wrought account of his own 
 prowess in the combat, he was suddenly struck 
 mute, by catching the eye of Elim raised to his, 
 and fixed upon him with a meaning which occa- 
 sioned an immediate recognition. 
 
 '' What ails thee V said the Ard-Draithe, 
 ** why dost thou not continue thy tale? What 
 dost thou gaze at?" 
 
 " Thou hast not told me," said a woman who 
 stood near, ^'how chanced it with my husband ?" 
 
 '' Or with my son," said a second, plucking 
 him by the cloak, " is he among the slain, or pri- 
 soners ?" 
 
 Disregarding these instances, Tuathal still 
 fixed his fascinated eye on Elim, and stalking 
 across the room, exclaimed aloud, while he shook 
 
THE INVASION. 291 
 
 the sword blade in his face to the astonishment 
 of the assembly : 
 
 " H05 ho ! thou valiant fellow ! Is this the 
 end of thy determination ? Thou merciless rogue, 
 is it here at length thou hast condescended to 
 pull bridle ? What sayest thou now ? Where is 
 thy valour now ? and thy fierce farrah ! thou mur- 
 derous minded man ! and thy cruel under-cut, 
 thou terrible fellow ? Shall I hew thy head off 
 with a blow, thou cruel rogue? Who fears thee 
 now, thou shocking fellow ? Wilt thou hunt me 
 now with thy dog_, and thy pair of assassins ? 
 Wilt thou halloo me like a red deer through my 
 native glen ? Wilt thou, O wicked rogue ? Shall 
 I cut thy head off with my skene this instant?" 
 
 Elim looked modestly downward without 
 making any reply. 
 
 '* Thou art silent, and thou hadst best," con- 
 tinued Tuathal, " thou art no longer cock on 
 
 o 2 
 
292 THE INVASION. 
 
 thine own hill ; — thy bark was loud enough at 
 thine own door, but here 'tis my turn. Thou 
 most unfeeling fellow ! How thou didst hack 
 and hew, and lay about thee ! Thou cruel per- 
 severing fellow !" 
 
 " Peace, Tuathal;" said the Ard-Draithe, 
 *' was this youth amongst the party with whom 
 our kinsmen fought?" 
 
 Tuathal answered in the affirmative, and the 
 Ard-Draithe commanded Elim to be brought be- 
 fore him. 
 
 " I blame thee not," he said, '* for fighting 
 well; nor for thy conduct here. But justice 
 must be rendered to my people. I know thy 
 name and rank. ^ It is not every kern rewards a 
 minstrel's song with a golden dealg-fallaine. 
 Thou art Elim, the young chieftain of Rath- 
 Aidan?" 
 
 *' I am ; " said Elim, assuming with the 
 
THE INVASION. 293 
 
 avowal the dignity of the chieftain ; " thy friend 
 if thou wilt; if not, the chieftain of Rath- 
 Aidan still. I am the son of Conal, and the 
 legal instrument of justice on his slayer; the 
 foe of Baseg, and of all who shelter or abet 
 him." 
 
 "Thou mayest be Baseg's foe/' replied the 
 Ard-Draithe ; '^ thou shalt not long be chieftain of 
 Rath-Aidan. Thou profFerest friendship with 
 thy gen scarce dry from the recent slaughter of 
 my children, and thy horse yet warm from the 
 pursuit of him who is to be my successor.'' 
 
 " I acquit him of that," cried Tuathal, has- 
 tily, '^ nay, it was no pursuit. I did but go 
 before as it were, and he, somehow, came after. 
 It was a kind of an unintentional decoy. I only 
 canre for assistance to the Coom, seeing all our 
 friends cut up, and he, poor fellow, I suppose, 
 followed, to — to know where I was going." 
 
 o 3 
 
294 THE INVASION. 
 
 '' Peace !" said the Ard-Draithe, "thou hast 
 thyself to answer for the unprovoked attack that 
 has drawn this woe upon us. But unprovoked or 
 otherwise, the blood of Modharuith has been 
 shed, and his great spirit shall not call in vain for 
 vengeance. I revoke the freedom which I gave 
 this stranger in my ignorance, Ithian, thou diest 
 at the rising of tomorrow's sun. Tuathal, hold 
 thy peace, the word is spoken." 
 
 A deep silence fell on the assembly ; many 
 even of those who had, at first, exclaimed against 
 Elim, were surprised at the sudden revocation 
 of the mercy of their chief, and seeming to com- 
 passionate the youthful prisoner. The greater 
 number, however, being friends or relatives of 
 the slain, were gratified at the decree. The 
 young chieftain heard it with firmness, but with- 
 out any ostentation of defiance ; and remain- 
 ed standing erect, endeavouring to collect his 
 
THE INVASION. 295 
 
 thoughts to reply. Before he could speak, how- 
 ever, the Ard-Draithe's niece once more arose 
 from her place, and knelt at his feet in tears. 
 
 " Away, Aithne ! " cried the old man, " put 
 me not to the pain of denying thee, for I attest 
 the sun, the moon, and stars, that what I have 
 said has not been spoken in heat." 
 
 ** And will my father break his plighted 
 word ? " said Aithne, in a pleading tone. " The 
 sun, the moon, the stars, are emblems of fidelity 
 and truth, and shall they be attested to a broken 
 contract ? Not by thy love for me, my father, 
 but by our honourable name, by thy untarnished 
 age, and those reverend white locks I love so 
 well, I conjure thee go not back of thy plight- 
 ed word to night in the sight of thy children, and 
 of this stranger. He has had thy promise, he 
 has drank our cup, he has tasted our food, let 
 him go as he has come, unharmed, and leave the 
 
296 THE INVASION. 
 
 avenging of our kinsmen's lives, in the hands of 
 the Being who loves justice, and will punish 
 wrong." 
 
 *' I charge thee urge me not," said the Ara 
 Draithe, " he dies at dawn. The liberty I gave 
 was bestowed in ignorance." 
 
 *' But it was bestowed, my father," pleaded 
 Aithne, looking up in tears, and with the deepest 
 expression of entreaty, in the face of her old protec- 
 tor. '* Revoke it not, I implore thee, my dear 
 father ! Bring not so dark a blot on thy fair re- 
 pute, on such a night as this ; a night devoted to 
 the honour of Samhuin herself; that moon which 
 thou adorest as a deity, but which I know to 
 be only the fairest of his visible creatures." 
 
 '* Rise, maiden ! " said the Ard-Draithe, in 
 manifest anger ; " thou art daring to cross me 
 thus, and far more bold to utter those last words. 
 If I love thee as a child, it is not that I forget 
 
THE INVASION. 297 
 
 thy father and his history. Arise, and leave my 
 presence ; thou sayest thou knowest not what," 
 he added, in a more moderate tone, observing the 
 deep confusion with which his words had cover- 
 ed the kneeling maiden. " Eimhir, remove the 
 prisoner," 
 
 The slinger approached, but Elim raised 
 his hand, as if to solicit a pause, while he said : 
 
 ** From justice I fear nothing for what I have 
 done, in the discharge of my duty as the guar- 
 dian of my people, and the protector of their 
 holdings. Thy men came unprovoked two se- 
 veral times upon our lands and spoiled our kine, 
 and we in our defence have checked their plunder. 
 From passion this may meet the punishment of 
 crime, from justice never. But one word I will 
 say at parting, though it be my last. It is the 
 curse of our unhappy isle that private passion 
 thus for ever takes the place of public justice. 
 
298 THE INVASION. 
 
 The friends of Inisfail ! Shame on the cheat ! 
 the friends of their own mean cupidities ; the 
 slaves of their own passions, of private revenge, 
 of private hate and private vanity. They turn to 
 the ends of petty interest, the power that is given 
 them for the happiness of Erin. Such are the 
 sons she has nurtured in her bosom, and who call 
 themselves her lovers ! If I die, it is not for justice. 
 Thy wildest reasoning could not impute crime to 
 me for the defence of my people, and thou hast 
 thyself pronounced the offering a sacrifice to ven- 
 geance. The blood of thy people rests upon 
 themselves; mine rests on thee alone." 
 
 '' Remove him from the Dun," said the Ard- 
 Draithe ; 'Met him be kept in the Caircer na 
 Nguiall, and do thou, Tuathal, keep guard upon 
 the prisoner." 
 
 " They told the truth then of the Hooded 
 race !" said £lim, in reply. '* In an evening thou 
 
THE INVASION. 299 
 
 hast pledged and broken faith. But there is 
 many a soldier of the Coom in the hands of the 
 O'Haedhas, and sorrow will await thy tribe if 
 thou shouldst follow up the crime of Baseg." 
 
 The-Ard Draithe waved his hand, and two 
 galloglachs approached in order to remove the 
 prisoner. 
 
 *' Kind-hearted maiden," he said, looking 
 pale, but smiling as he passed the spot, where 
 Aithne sat, *^thou hast pleaded well, but vainly. 
 Farewell, since we shall never dance again." 
 
 It was with difficulty Tuathal, assisted by 
 Eimhir, and the two galloglachs, bore his prisoner 
 safe through the crowd of women and children 
 which beset the Dun. They pressed upon the 
 galloglachs with shrieks and gestures of the most 
 violent description, tearing their long hair, and 
 beating their breasts with clenched fingers. 
 
 ** Give place, ye boisterous herd !" cried 
 
300 THE INVASION. 
 
 Tuathal, while the galloglachs thrust back the 
 foremost with the butts of their battle-axes. 
 *' How would ye howl if I had fallen a victim, 
 when ye make such an uproar for the kerne?" 
 
 THE END OF VOL. I. 
 
 B. BEN8LEY, PRINTER, ANDOVER. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS-URIANA 
 
 3 0112 046415136