And she brought him towards her, continued Brother Mailcoba, not heeding the interruption, and made him take the seat beside hers.
When I opened the door to admit the harper, the raven, who had finished his self-imposed task in the cowhouse, hopped in and took up his perch on the rafter, and eyed the company in the most critical manner. He had only one eye, having lost the other in a scrimmage with one of the cats, but this, instead of detracting from, rather added to, the solemnity of his gaze. At the harper’s heels, sniffing in the friendliest way, came the house dog, Bran, who stretched himself before the fire.
The harper made only a very slight repast, and when it was finished the lady begged him to soothe the night with song. He, nothing loth, proceeded to comply, and, after coaxing the strings to follow him, began to sing of the wooing of Lady Eimer by Cuchullin. But suddenly the old man, the maiden’s father, started like one aroused from sleep.
“Have you no other song,” he cried, “no song of battle, of burning, or of voyages across the seas, that tell how heroes fight and fall? Sing of Cuchullin when he stood alone against the hosts of Connaught in the battle armour drest, or when he met Ferdiah at the ford, but waste not your time and ours with the story of his love-sick fits.”
The harper paused, the maiden’s lashes hid her eyes, and a blush like that which follows the grey light of the dawn stole to her cheeks. The harper was about to make reply when the raven, from the rafter, and behind where we were sitting, croaked, “Grob! grob!”
“A soldier is coming,” said the old harper.
I noticed that the maiden cast a furtive glance at the door, which I hastened to open, expecting, of course, to see a soldier, for the raven never lied.
“But was not that a Druidic superstition, and unworthy of the credence of a Christian?” queried the Abbot.
“May be so, father,” replied Brother Mailcoba, “but they say the ravens are very knowledgeable birds, and in my boyhood I was taught to believe in them, and so was the harper.”