Chapter 9 No.9

As may be supposed, we were worn out, and the warmth may have made us drowsy. The roar of the sea, and the singing of the wind in the stiff grass of the sand hills was in our ears, unnoticed, and we had made up our minds that there was no man on the island and that we need fear no meddling with the ship until the sea calmed, and men might come from the mainland to see what they could take from the wreck. Presently we ourselves would get what was worth aught to us and hide it here.

So it came to pass that when from out of the hills round us came a small, rough brown dog which barked wildly at us, we leapt to our feet with our hands on our swords as if Heidrek himself had come. But no man came with him, and suddenly he turned and fled as if he had heard a call. I was about to follow him to the top of the sand hill to see what his coming meant, when the pebbles rattled on the near beach, and I halted. There were sounds as of a bare foot among them.

Into the little cleft between the dunes, out of which we looked over the sea, came a short man, dressed in a long, brown robe which was girt to him with a cord, and had a hood which framed his pleasant, red face. Black-haired and gray-eyed he was, and his hands were those of one who works hard in the fields. There was a carved, black wooden cross on the end of his cord girdle, and a string of beads hung from it. At his heels was the brown dog, and in his hand a long, shepherd's crook.

He came carelessly into the opening, looking from side to side as he walked as if seeking the men he knew must be shipwrecked, and stayed suddenly when he came on us. His face paled, and he half started back, as if he was terrified. Then he recovered himself, looked once more, started anew, and fairly turned and ran, the dog leaping and barking round him. After him went Dalfin, laughing.

"Father," he cried in his own tongue, "father! Stay--we are Irish--at least some of us are. I am. We are friends."

The man stopped at that and turned round, and without more ado Dalfin the Prince unhelmed and bent his knee before him, saying something which I did not catch. Whereon the man lifted his hand and made the sign of the Cross over him, repeating some words in a tongue which was strange to me. I could not catch them.

Dalfin rose up and called to me, and I went toward them, leaving Gerda and Bertric to wait for what might happen.

"This is Malcolm of Caithness, a good Scot," said he.

"Malcolm, we are in luck again, for it seems that we have fallen into the hands of some good fathers, which is more than I expected, for I never heard that there was a monastery here."

I made some answer in the Gaelic, more for the comfort of the Irish stranger than for the sense of what I spoke. And as he heard he smiled and did as he had done to Dalfin, signing and saying words I could not understand. I had no doubt that it was a welcome, so I bowed, and he smiled at me.

"I was sorely terrified, my sons," he said. "I thought you some of these heathen Danes--or Norse men, rather, from your arms. But I pray you do not think that I fled from martyrdom."

"You fled from somewhat, father," said Dalfin dryly; "what was it?"

The father pointed and smiled uneasily.

"My son," he said slowly, "I came to this place to be free from the sight of--of aught but holy men. If there were none but men among you, even were you the Lochlann I took you for--and small wonder that I did--I had not fled. By no means."

"Why," said Dalfin, with a great laugh, "it must be Gerda whom he fears! Nay, father, the lady is all kindness, and you need fear her not at all."

"I may not look on the face of a lady," said the father solemnly.

"Well, you have done it unawares, and so you may as well make the best of it, as I think," answered Dalfin. "But, without jesting, the poor lady is in sore need of shelter and hospitality, and I think you cannot refuse that. Will you not take us to the monastery?"

"Monastery, my son? There is none here."

"Why, then, whence come you? Are you weather bound here also?"

"Aye, by the storms of the world, my son. We are what men call hermits."

Dalfin looked at me with a rueful face when he heard that. What a hermit might be I did not at all know, and it meant nothing to me. I was glad enough to think that there was a roof of any sort for Gerda.

"Why, father," said my comrade, "you do not sleep on the bare ground, surely?"

"Not at all, my son. There are six of us, and each has his cell."

"Cannot you find shelter for one shipwrecked lady? It will not be for long, as we will go hence with the first chance. We have our boats."

Now all this while the hermit had his eye on Dalfin's splendid torque, and at last he spoke of it, hesitatingly.

"My son, it is not good for a man to show idle curiosity--but it is no foolish question if I ask who you are that you wear the torque of the O'Neills which was lost."

"I am Dalfin of Maghera, father. The torque has come back to me, for Dubhtach is avenged."

At that the hermit gave somewhat like a smothered shout, and his stately way fell from him altogether. He went on his knee before Dalfin, and seized his hand and kissed it again and again, crying words of welcome.

"My prince, my prince," he said, with tears of joy running down his cheeks. "It was told me that you had gone across the seas--but I did not know it was for this."

Dalfin reddened, and raised the hermit from the sand.

"Father," he said quickly, "I am not the avenger. It is a long tale--but the lady, who is a queen in Norway, shipwrecked with us here by a strange fate, has to do with the winning back of the torque."

"A queen!" said the hermit quickly. "Then the rule of which I spoke must needs be broken; nay, not broken, but set aside. Now, where are your men?"

"Never a man have we. There is Malcolm here, and Bertric, a Saxon thane, who is my friend also and a good Christian, and the poor young queen, and no more."

The hermit threw up his hands.

"All drowned!" he cried. "Alack, alack! May their souls rest in peace!"

"We sailed without them, father. There were none, and so they are all safe at home."

"Good luck to them--for if they had been here they were drowned, every man of them," said the hermit with much content, looking at me with some wonder when I laughed.

"They would not be the first by many a score whom we have buried here," he said in reproof. "Aye, heathen Lochlann and Christian Scot, and homely Erse yonder. It is good to see even a few who have escaped from this shore."

He bowed his head for a moment, and his lips moved. Then he turned to Dalfin as a councillor might turn to his prince, and asked what he would have the brothers do for him.

"Come and ask the lady," answered Dalfin, and so we went to the fire, where Gerda and Bertric rose up to meet us.

Now the hermit had set aside his fear of the lady, if he had any beyond his rules, and welcomed her in Erse, which I had to translate. Also he told her that what shelter he and his brethren could give was hers, if she would be content with poor housing.

"Thank him, and tell him that any roof will be welcome after the ship's deck," she said, smiling at the hermit.

"Ask him to send men and help us get our stores ashore and out of the way of the fisher folk, who will be here as soon as they see the wreck," said Bertric. "No need to tell him that the stores are treasure for the most part."

"Tell him it is treasure, and it will be all the safer," Dalfin said. "These are holy monks, of a sort who care for poverty more than wealth. This man was well born, as you may guess from his speech."

I told the hermit what Bertric needed, and he laughed, saying that the whole brotherhood would come and help at once. And then he bade us follow him. We went across the moorland for about half a mile, to the foot of the hill or nearly, and then came on a little valley amid the rising ground, where trees grew, low and wind twisted, but green and pleasant; and there I saw a cluster of little stone huts for all the world like straw beehives, built of stones most cunningly, mortarless, but fitting into one another perfectly.

The huts were set in a rough circle, and each had its door toward the sun, and a little square window alongside that, and a smoke-blackened hole in the top of the roof. Doubtless it was from one of these that Bertric had seen the smoke from the sea, though there was none now. From the hill and down the valley across the space between the huts ran a little brook, crossed in two or three places by wandering paths, some with a stepping stone, and others with only a muddy jumping place. The stream was dammed into a deep, stone-walled pool in the midst of the space, and close to the brink of this stood a tall, black stone cross, which was carved most wonderfully with interlacing patterns, and had a circle round its arms.

We saw no men at first. Pigs there were, fat and contented, which rooted idly or wallowed along the stream, and fowls strolled among the huts. I saw one peer into an open door, raise one claw slowly as if she was going in, and then turn and fly, cackling wildly, as if some inmate had thrown something at her.

"That is brother Fergus," said our guide. "The more he throws things at the hens, the more they pester him. It is half a loaf this time. See."

The hen had gone back into the doorway in a hurry, and now retired behind the hut with the bread, to be joined there by hurrying friends.

"The pigs will come in a minute," our hermit said, chuckling and rubbing his hands together. "They know that Fergus hurls what comes first without heed of what it may be."

He half stayed to watch, and then remembered that he was not alone or with some of his brethren. We had been silent as we came, and he had gone before us with the dog in front of him, musing. I think that he had forgotten us.

"Pardon, prince," he said. "Year in and year out in this place we have naught but these little haps to lighten our thoughts. We watch for them, and are disappointed if we miss them. Ah, well, tonight at least we shall have somewhat more wonderful of which to talk. I only pray that you, with your breath of the outer world--warfare and wreck, victory and vengeance--may not leave us unsettled."

He sighed, and turned back to the way once more with bent head. He seemed a young man to be in this desolate place of his own free will, for his black beard and hair were hardly grizzled with the passing years yet.

There was a low wall round the gathering of huts, the gate being closed with a wattled hurdle, lest the pigs should wander. Here the hermit stopped, and before he opened the gate lifted his voice and cried loudly in the tongue which I did not know.

There was a stir then in the peaceful enclosure. Out of the huts came in all haste men clad like our guide, speaking to one another fast, with eager faces and gestures. At that time I counted nine huts, and thought that we need turn out none of these strange hosts of ours.

P Again our hermit cried out, for the rest did not come to meet us. I saw Dalfin smiling, and asked what it all meant in a low voice.

"I have more than half forgotten the little Latin they taught me at Monasterboice long ago," he answered; "but he is telling them that here we have not a lady merely, but a queen. It is the first trouble again."

Now the brethren consulted, still standing in the hut doors, and at last, being thereto exhorted once more by our friend, they came toward us slowly, as if wishing to show that they had no longing for things outside their island cares. Five out of these six were old men, our guide being the youngest, and two of them were very old, with long, white beards. One of these two came forward as they neared us, and spoke for the rest, greeting Dalfin first, as their prince, with all respect, though not at all in the humble way in which he had first been hailed.

"It is our good fortune," he said, "that we are able to shelter you. It has been our sorrow that up till this time those strangers who have come from the sea have needed nothing from us but the last rites. We are all unused to guests, and you will forgive us if we know not how to treat them rightly. But what we can do we will."

He waved his hands toward the huts, and said no more. Dalfin thanked him, and after he had heard, he paid no more heed to us, but turned to our guide.

"Brother Phelim," he said wearily, "see you to all that may be done. The care must be yours, as was the first welcome. I do not know why you wandered so far at this hour."

"Because I thought there might be poor folk in need, father," said Phelim meekly. "Moreover, I am shepherd today."

The old man waved his hand as if to say that the excuse was enough, and with that turned and went his way, leaning on the arm of the other ancient brother, the three who had stood behind them making way reverently.

"He is our superior," whispered Phelim. "He has been here for forty years. He will forget that he has seen you presently. Now, come, and we will see how we may best bestow you."

"Concerning what is on board the ship," said Bertric, staying him. "It is needful that we get it ashore before the tide turns. It is but half an hour's hard work, at the most, if you folk help."

Phelim stared, for Bertric spoke in the Dansk tongue we had been using. I had to translate for him, and Phelim nodded.

"Tell the sea captain that all will be well. We will return at once. We do but find a house for the queen."

So we went on to the central green amid the huts, and there stood and looked round, while Phelim and Fergus deliberated for a time. It seemed that the pigs had one empty hut, and the fowls another. The largest was the chapel, and so there was not one vacant. I think that they each wished for the honour of turning out for us.

"Father Phelim," I said at last, for Bertric waxed impatient, "let one good brother leave his cell for that of another, leaving it free for the queen, and then we can shift for ourselves. We do not at all mind sleeping in the open, for so we have fared for the last week and more."

But they would not have that, and in the end Phelim himself led Gerda with much pride to his own cell and handed it over to her, while another brother left his cell to us three, it being a large one, which, indeed, is not saying much for the rest. We were likely to be warm enough in it; but the cells were clean and dry, each with a bed of heather and a stone table and stool, and some little store of rough crockery and the like household things. There were blankets, too, and rugs for hanging across the doors, which seemed in some abundance. Afterwards, I found that they were washed ashore from wrecks at different times.

Then we went back to the shore in all haste. I had doubts as to whether Gerda would care to be left alone in this strange place, but she laughed, and said that there was naught to fear. The two old brothers had gone their way to their own cells, and would not come forth again till vesper time, as Phelim told us. She had the little village, if one may call it so, to herself, therefore, till we returned. But Phelim set his crook against the hut wall as he went.

"The pigs need a stick at times," he said; "it may be handy."

The tide had ebbed far when we reached the place of the wreck again, and had bared a long, black reef, which, with never an opening in it, reached as far as we could see along the shore. It was only the chance of the high spring tide, driven yet higher than its wont by the wind on the shore, which had suffered us to clear it. It was that which we touched slightly as we came in among the first breakers. We had had a narrow escape.

In an hour we had all that was worth taking ashore saved. The chests of arms, and those of the bales which the sea had not reached, and the chest of silver, were all on the beach, and we got the larger of the two boats over the side, and ran her up into safety, with her fittings. And then, for there was yet time, Dalfin would have us save the wonderful carved wagon which was on the deck unhurt, and that, too, we took ashore, and with it some of the casks of food stores which had been so lavishly stored for that strange voyage. We should not burden the good brothers with this to help feed us.

For the sea was coming in more heavily still as it gathered weight with the long gale, which was still blowing hard. It was more than likely that the ship would go to pieces in the night as the tide rose again. Now and then the rain squalls came up and drenched us, and passed; but the brothers cared as little for them as did we, and enjoyed the unusual work more. It was a wonder to them to see their young prince working as hard as themselves as we carried the heavy things up the beach.

"It is a matter which I have learned while on my travels," he said, when Fergus said somewhat of the sort to him gently. "I have seen these two friends, who are nobles in their own lands, work as hard at oar and rope's end as they would at fighting. Moreover, it is well to do things for myself now and then--as, for instance, swimming."

Now we loaded the wagon, which was easy to put together, and the brethren harnessed themselves to it, laughing. They would not suffer us to help, and we had to walk behind the wagon in a sort of idle train, not altogether sorry to rest, for we were very weary by this time. As for the hermits, they made light of the rough way and the load, being like schoolboys let loose. I do not suppose that they had laughed thus for many a long day, and it was good to watch them.

So we came to the huts, and set down our load. Presently the brothers would bestow the things under cover, but there was no more to come. So we did but take Gerda her own chest, and have the court men's to the hut which had been given us. We bade Phelim, as guest master, take what he would of the provender as he liked, saying it was theirs altogether; and he thanked us simply, more for our own sake than theirs, as I know. They would not let us go back to the shore for the next load.

"Bide and rest," said Fergus; "this is a holiday for us, and we enjoy it. We shall talk of it all for many a long day; but for you it is but an added and needless weariness."

So, nothing loath, we sat on the stone blocks which were set for seats outside Gerda's hut, and watched them go with the wagon. Presently Gerda came and asked for a little help, and I went and moved her chest for her, and hung a heavy curtain, which I have no doubt was a wrecked boat's sail once, to its stone pegs across the door. They had lit a fire for her at the first, and the cell was comfortable altogether.

"Now I shall rest," she said. "By and by, no doubt, you will bring me supper, but it is strange not to feel the tossing of the ship. It is wonderful to be warm and in safety once more. You have been very good to me."

But I thought of her patience and cheerfulness through the countless discomforts and dangers of the voyage, and knew that the praise was hers.

"We have said truly that you are a sea-king's daughter indeed, my queen," I answered. "It is enough to hear you say that we are not useless courtmen."

We three went to our hut and took off our mail, and found dry clothing in the chest, with many thanks to the careful half-dozen warriors who had kept their best therein. Then in much comfort we saw to our arms, red with the sea rust, and hung them round the cell, which was some nine feet across and about the same height, and by the time that pleasant work was done the brothers were back, and the little bell on the chapel, where it hung in a stone cote, rang for their vespers.

They bade us come also, and Bertric and Dalfin rose up and went gladly. I had no thought that I could be welcome, and was staying, but Phelim called me.

"Malcolm is a Norse Scot," said Dalfin quietly. "He is not of our faith, and I do not know if he may come.

"If he will, he may," answered the hermit kindly. "He can be no evil heathen, seeing that he is your friend."

So, not wishing to seem ungracious, I followed them into the chapel, which was stone built after the same manner as the cells, but with a ridge roof instead of the rounded top, and much larger, being about fifteen feet long and ten wide. Over the door was a cross of white stones set in the wall, and at the eastern end was a cross also, and an altar, on which were candles of wax, at which I wondered, seeing them in this place. Round the walls ran a stone slab as bench, but I was the only one who used it. The others knelt, facing eastward, and I, at a sign from Bertric, sat by the door, wondering what I should see and hear.

There was enough for me to wonder at. I heard them pray, and I heard them sing, and whether of prayer or song the words were good to listen to. I heard them pray for the safety of men at sea in the gale, and for men who fought with the Danes ashore. They prayed that the hands of the Danes who slew their brethren in the churches round the coast wantonly might be stayed from these doings; but they did not pray for the destruction of these terrible foes. They asked that they might be forgiven for the wrong they did to harmless men. And I heard them read from a book whose leaves, as the reader turned them, I saw were bright with gold and colours, words that I cannot set down--words of uttermost peace in the midst of strife. I had never heard or thought the like. I did not know that it could be in the minds of men so to speak and write. I thought that I would ask Phelim more concerning it at some time if I had the chance.

The brethren rose up with still faces and happy, and the vespers were over. We went out into the wind again, and across to the cell they had given us, and there they gave us a supper of barley bread and milk, setting aside some for Gerda in a beautiful silver bowl, which Phelim said had come from the shore after a wreck long ago.

Now, we three had some thought that one of us had better watch through the night, if only for Gerda's comfort. But Phelim heard us speak thereof, and laughed.

"My sons," he said, "there is naught to watch against in all this little island, save only the ghostly foe, against whom your arms were of no avail. Nay, do you sleep in peace. All the night long we watch in turns in the chapel, and will wake you, if by some strange chance there is need."

"What do you watch against then, father?" I asked, somewhat idly. "Wolves round your folds?"

"Aye," he answered; "the wolf of all wolves."

"Ah, the wolf will come from the mainland, betimes, I suppose."

"Most of all we fear him thence," Phelim answered, with a quaint smile. "Nay, my son, it is no earthly wolf we watch against. Hereafter you may learn, or the prince will tell you even now, if you will. Rest in peace."

He lifted his hand and blessed us, even as he had done when he met us on the shore, and left us. They had brought fresh heather for our bedding while we ate, and blankets, and though the light still lingered in the west, we did not wait for darkness. We slept, as shipwrecked men will sleep, when at last others watch for them.