The Book of Romance Part 16

'You need not do that,' answered Grania, 'for my father's horses are in a fenced meadow by themselves, and have chariots behind them. Go and bring two horses and a chariot, and I will wait for you here.'

And Diarmid did what Grania bade him, and he brought two of the horses, and they journeyed together as far as Athlone.

'It is the easier for Fionn to follow our track,' said Diarmid at last, 'now we have the horses.'

'Then leave them,' cried Grania, 'one on each side of the stream, and we will travel on foot.' So they went on till they reached Galway, and there Diarmid cut down a grove, and made a palisade with seven doors of wattles, and gathered together the tops of the birch trees and soft rushes for a bed for Grania.

When Fionn and all that were in Tara awoke and found that Diarmid and Grania were not among them, a burning rage seized upon Fionn. At once he sent out trackers before him, and he followed them himself with his men, till they reached the land of Connaught. 'Ah, well I know where Grania and Diarmid shall be sought,' cried Fionn. And Ossian and Dearing heard him, and said to each other, 'We must send Diarmid a warning, lest he should be taken. Look where Bran is, the hound of Fionn, and he shall take it, for he does not love Fionn better than he loves Diarmid, so, Oscar, tell him to go to Diarmid who is in Derry.'

And Oscar told that to Bran, and Bran understood, and stole round to the back part of the army where Fionn might not see him; then he bounded away to Derry and thrust his head into Diarmid's bosom as he lay asleep.

At that Diarmid awoke and sprang up and woke Grania, and told her that Bran had come, which was a token that Fionn himself was coming. 'Fly then,' said Grania; but Diarmid would not fly. 'He may take me now,'

said he, 'seeing he must take me some time.' At his words Grania shook with fear, and Bran departed.

All this while the friends of Diarmid took counsel together, and they dreaded lest Bran had not found them, and they resolved to give them another warning. So they bade the henchman Feargus to give three shouts, for every shout could be heard over three counties. And Diarmid heard them, and awoke Grania, and told her that it was a warning they had sent him of Fionn. 'Then take that warning,' said she. 'I will not,' answered Diarmid, 'but will stay in this wood till Fionn comes.' And Grania trembled when she heard him.

By-and-by the trackers came back to Fionn with news that they had seen Diarmid and Grania, and though Ossian and Diarmid's friends tried to persuade Fionn that the men had been mistaken, Fionn was not to be deceived. 'Well did I know the meaning of the three shouts of Feargus, and why you sent Bran, my own hound, away. But it shall profit him nothing, for Diarmid shall not leave Derry till he has paid me for every slight he has put upon me.'

'Great foolishness it is of you, O Fionn,' said Oscar, 'to think that Diarmid would stay in this plain waiting to have his head taken from him.'

'Who else would have cut down the trees, and have made a palisade of them, and cut seven doors in it? Speak, O Diarmid, is the truth with me or with Oscar?'

'With you, O Fionn,' said Diarmid, 'and truly I and Grania are here.'

When he heard this, Fionn bade his men surround Diarmid and take him, and Diarmid rose up and kissed Grania three times in presence of Fionn and his men, and Fionn, seeing that, swore that Diarmid should pay for those kisses with his head.

But Angus, the foster-father of Diarmid, knew in what straits his foster-son was, and he stole secretly to the place where Diarmid was hidden with Grania, and asked him what he had done to bring his head into such danger. 'This,' said Diarmid; 'Grania, the daughter of Cormac, King of Erin, has fled with me against my will to escape marriage with Fionn.'

'Then let one of you come under my mantle,' answered Angus, 'and I will carry you out of your prison.'

'Take Grania,' answered Diarmid. 'If I live, then will I follow you, but if not, carry her to her father, and let him deal with her as seems good.'

After that Angus put Grania under his mantle and they went their ways, and neither Fionn nor his Fenians knew of it.

When Angus and Grania had left him, Diarmid girded his arms upon him, and standing at one of the seven wattled doors, asked who stood behind. 'No foe to you,' answered a voice, 'but Ossian, the son of Fionn, and Oscar, the son of Ossian, and others who are your friends.

Come out, and none will do you hurt.'

'I will not open the door until I find out where Fionn himself is.'

And so it befel at six of the doors, and Diarmid would not open them, lest his friends should come under the wrath of Fionn. But as he drew near the seventh, and put his question, the answer came loud: 'Here are Fionn, the son of c.u.mhaill, and four hundred of his servants, and we bear you no love, and if you come out we will tear your bones in sunder.'

'I pledge my word,' said Diarmid, 'that yours is the first door by which I will pa.s.s,' and he rose into the air on the shafts of his javelins, with a bound as light as a bird's, and went far beyond Fionn and his people, and they knew nothing of it. Then he looked back and shouted that he had got the better of them, and followed after the track of Angus and Grania.

He found them warm in a hut with a fire in it, watching a wild boar roasting on a spit, and Grania's soul almost left her body for joy at seeing Diarmid. They told their stories before the fire, and when morning broke Angus rose and said to Diarmid, 'I must now depart, O son of O'Dowd, and this counsel I leave you. Go not into a tree having but one trunk, when you fly before Fionn. And go not to a cave of the earth having only one door, or to an island which can only be reached by one channel. And in whatever place you cook your meal, there eat it not; and in whatever place you eat, there lie not; and in whatever place you lie down to sleep, there rise not on the morrow.' So saying, he bade them farewell, and went his way.

The next day Diarmid and Grania journeyed up the Shannon, and they killed a salmon, and crossed the river to eat it, as Angus had told them. Soon they met a youth called Muadan, who wished to take service with them; and he was strong, and carried them over the rivers across their path. When evening came they found a cave, where Muadan spread out soft rushes and birch twigs for Diarmid and Grania to lie on, and as soon as they were asleep he stole into the next wood, and broke a long straight rod from a tree, and put a hair line and a hook upon it, and a holly berry on the rod, and fished in the stream. In three casts he had taken three fish. That night they ate a good supper, and while Diarmid and Grania slept, Muadan kept watch for them.

At dawn Diarmid woke Grania and told her to watch while Muadan slept, as he was going to climb a hill near by, and see where they had best go.

He soon stood on the top and looked round about him. In front of him was a great company of s.h.i.+ps bearing towards him out of the west. They landed at the foot of the hill where Diarmid stood, and he swiftly ran down to meet them and to ask of what country they were.

'We are three royal chiefs,' said they, 'and are sent by Fionn to take an enemy of his whom he has outlawed, called Diarmid O'Dowd. And with us are three fierce hounds whom we will loose upon his track. Fire burns them not, nor water drowns them, nor weapons wound them, and of us there are two thousand men. Moreover, tell us who you yourself are, and if you have any tidings of the son of O'Dowd.'

'I am but a warrior walking the world with the strength of my arm and the blade of my sword. But I warn you, you will have no common man to deal with if you meet Diarmid, whom but yesterday I saw.'

'Well, no one has been found yet,' said they.

'Is there wine in your s.h.i.+ps?' asked Diarmid.

'There is,' answered they.

'If you would bring a tun of it here, I would do a trick for you.' So the wine was sent for, and Diarmid raised the cask up and drank from it, and took it up to the top of the hill and stood on it, and it glided with him to the bottom. And that trick he did thrice, standing on the tun as it came and went. But the strangers only scoffed, and they told him they could do a much better trick than that, and one of them jumped on the tun. Then, before it could move, Diarmid gave the tun a kick, and the young man fell, and the tun rolled over and crushed him. And in like manner he did to many more, and the rest fled back to their s.h.i.+ps.

The next morning they came to Diarmid where he stood on the hill, and he asked if they would like him to show them any more tricks, but they said they would rather hear some news of Diarmid first. 'I have seen a man who met him to-day,' answered Diarmid, and thereupon he laid his weapons on the ground and bounded upwards upon his javelin, coming down lightly beyond the host.

'If you call that a feat, then you have never seen a feat,' said a young warrior of the green Fenians--for so were they called from the colour of their armour. And he rose in like manner on his javelin and came down heavily on it, and it pierced his heart. Diarmid drew out the javelin, and another man took it and tried to do the same thing, and he also was slain, and so to the number of fifty. And they went to their s.h.i.+ps while Diarmid returned to Muadan and Grania.

As soon as Diarmid awoke he went to the forest and cut two forked poles, which he took to the hill and placed upright, and he balanced the sword of Angus across the top. Then he rose lightly over and came down safely over it. 'Is there any man among you who can do that?'

asked he of the men who had come up from their s.h.i.+ps.

'That is a foolish question,' answered one, 'for no man ever did a feat in Erin which one of us could not do,' and he arose and leapt over the sword, but his foot caught in it, and he was cut in half.

After that others tried, but none jumped that sword and lived. 'Have you any tidings of the son of O'Dowd?' asked the rest at last.

'I have seen him that saw him to-day,' answered Diarmid. 'I will seek tidings of him to-night.' And he returned to Grania.

When the sun rose Diarmid put on his coat of mail which no sword could pierce, and girded on the sword of Angus, and took his two javelins, whose stroke none could cure. Grania trembled at this brave sight, but Diarmid soothed her fears, and went off to meet the Fenians.

'What tidings of the son of O'Dowd?' said they. 'Show us where he is, that we may take his head to Fionn.'

'The body and life of Diarmid are under my protection, and I will not betray him.'

'Then we will take your head, as Fionn is your enemy,' said they.

'Take it if you can,' answered Diarmid, and he drew his sword and struck at the head of the man next him, and it rolled away from the body. Then he rushed on the host, and slew them right and left, and none lived to tell the tale but the three green chiefs and a few men who went back to their s.h.i.+ps. And they returned the next morning and renewed the fight, but Diarmid vanquished them, and binding them fast, left them where they were. For he knew that there were only four men in the world that could loose them.

After this Diarmid called to Grania and Muadan to come with him, and they travelled till Grania grew weary, and Muadan carried her on his back to the foot of a great mountain. And there they rested on the bank of the stream.

Meanwhile the few men who had been left alive abandoned their s.h.i.+p, and sought the three chiefs who were lying bound on the hill. They tried to loosen the bands of the captives, but only drew them tighter.

Soon they saw the witch-messenger of Fionn coming over the tops of the hills skimming from one to the other as lightly as a swallow.

'Who has made this great slaughter?' said she.

'Who are you that ask?' said they.

'I am Deirdre, the witch-messenger of Fionn, and he has sent me to look for you.'

'We know not who the man was,' answered they, 'but his hair was black and curly, and his countenance ruddy. And he has bound our three chiefs, so that we cannot loose them.'