There was a pause. The sound of the waves on the sands far below came up in soft pulses to them, and, nearer, the rush of the little river falling from rock to rock through the glen beside them.
“We will ask mother first,” resumed Ethne. “She looked like one of those beautiful creatures, the angels, when she rose up out of the waters. Her eyes shone as if with light within, and she did not seem to need wings to take her straight up to the sky. And when they folded her in the white robes, no one need have asked us, as they say the two princesses of our race asked Patrick, ‘Has the King of Heaven daughters?’ so heavenly she looked and so queenly. She seemed shining all through with love, the love which seems the light of heaven! Perhaps that love is the secret of forgiveness and of everything.”
“Yet,” replied Baithene, “love is of many kinds, and has many ways. There is the love of the sheep who are cared for, and the love of the shepherd who guards the sheep, and the love of the faithful dogs who help the shepherd to fight the wolf. Perhaps the love of the king has sometimes to be of the fighting kind.”
At that moment the great Irish deer-hound at Ethne’s feet gave a low, suspicious growl.
“Quiet, Bran,” said Baithene; “it is only a rustle among the trees in the glen.”
“Do you ever feel,” he resumed, “a great longing to go and see that great world beyond the seas, where the great cities are, and above all Rome, with her palaces, her armies, and her Emperor, and the great temples? There is so much to see and to hear!”
“No,” said Ethne, “I never want to wander from home, and the dear people who love us so dearly, who would give their lives for us.”
As she spoke the old nurse came out with two large woollen plaids, and wrapped the girl round and round in their warm folds from head to foot, laying the other over the shoulders of Baithene, who crossed it around him.