Knowing that his daughter was due at the house, Joel returned home towards sun-down. He also expected to be able to take a hand in the preparations for the war.
Hena, the virgin of the Isle of Sen, soon arrived. When her father, mother and other relatives saw her enter it seemed to them never before had she been so beautiful. Never before did her father feel so proud of his daughter. The long black tunic that she wore was held around her waist by a brass belt, from which, on one side, hung a little gold sickle, and on the other a crescent in the shape of the waning moon. Hena had dressed herself with special care in honor of the celebration of her birthday. A necklace and gold bracelets inlaid with garnets ornamented her arms and neck, whiter than the driven snow. When she took off her caped cloak it was noticed that she wore, as ever at religious ceremonies, a crown of green oak leaves on her blonde hair, plaited in braids over her chaste and mild forehead. The blue of the sea, when lying calmly under a clear sky, was not purer than the blue of Hena's eyes.
The brenn stretched out his arms to his daughter. She ran into them joyously and offered him her forehead, as she also did her mother. The children of the family loved Hena dearly and contested with each other the privilege of being the first to kiss her hands—sought with greed by all the little innocent mouths. Even old Deber-Trud gamboled and barked with joy at the arrival of his young mistress.
Albinik the mariner was the first to whom Hena offered her forehead to kiss after her father and mother; she had not seen her brother for a long time. Next came the turn of Guilhern and Mikael and then the swarm of children, whom, stooping to them, Hena, sought to hold all together in one embrace. The young priestess then tenderly greeted Henory, her brother Guilhern's wife, and expressed her regret at not seeing Albinik's wife Meroë. Nor were the other relatives forgotten; all, down to Stumpy, otherwise everyone's butt, had a kind word from her.
The general exchange of greetings being over, and happy at finding herself among her own, in the house where she was born eighteen years before, Hena sat down at her mother's feet on the same stool that she used to occupy when a child. When she saw her child seated at her feet, Mamm' Margarid called the maid's attention to the disorder that reigned in the house due to the preparations for war, and she said sadly:
"We should have celebrated this day of your birth with joy and tranquility, dear child! Instead, you now find confusion and alarm in our house that soon will be deserted.... War threatens."
"Mother is right," answered Hena sighing; "Great is the anger of Hesus."
"And what say you, dear child, you who are a saint," inquired Joel, "a saint of the Isle of Sen? What must we do to appease the wrath of the All-Powerful?"
"My father and mother honor me too much by calling me a saint," answered the young virgin. "Like the druids, myself and my female companions have meditated all night under the shadows of the sacred oak-trees at the hour of moon rise. We search for the simplest and divinest principles, and seek to spread them among our fellow-beings. We adore the All-Powerful in His works, from the mighty oak that is sacred to Him, down to the humble moss that grows on the rocks of our isle; from the stars, whose eternal course we study, down to the insect that is born and dies in one day; from the sourceless sea, down to the streamlet of water that glides under the grass. We search for the cure of diseases that cause pain, and we glorify those among our fathers and mothers who have shed lustre upon Gaul. By the knowledge of the auguries and the study of the past, we seek to foresee the future to the end of enlightening those who are less clear-sighted than ourselves. Finally, like the druids, we teach childhood, we inspire the child with an ardent love of our common and beloved fatherland—so threatened to-day by the wrath of Hesus, a wrath that comes down upon them because they have forgotten that they are all the children of the same God, and that a brother must resent the wound inflicted upon his brother."
"The stranger who was our guest and whom this morning I took to the Isle of Sen," replied the brenn, "spoke to us as you do, dear daughter."