Ay, she had been gone for long—fallen prey to Goth and Hun, but for the first time in his life Cormac realised it; and in doing so a momentary weakness seized him for Roman civilisation had played its part in his life; it had drawn his grandfather from his fellows, the Picts and Scots, and made him Bret!
But here, thought Cormac, in Hibernia he would find the ancient spirit, unknown in poor, lost Britain. Back, then, once more to Pict and Scot! He leapt to his feet, on his horse’s back, as they rode along; and, brandishing his sword around his head, uttered the wild scream of a war-cry.
Ethne joined her voice to his; and, as they galloped by wattled hamlets, by dun and cabin, all eyes were turned on the two noble riders and on their black and white horses. The news spread fast that Cormac of Fail, of the race of Finnfuathairt, had returned from Britain. Men, women and children ran everywhere to salute them. A party soon formed around them, mounted on horseback. When they halted beautiful girls ran forward, offering mead and curd to refresh them. Old men tottered from sunny grianans to look upon the face of the last of the house of Finnfuathairt. Old women called down blessings upon them and children peeped at them shyly from hiding places. Slaves crept unperceived from quern and hoe to stare upon them, open-mouthed.
Everywhere Ethne proclaimed their lineage.
“We are the children of Tuathal the Legitimate! We trace our descent through the race of Finnfuathairt! Cormac of Fail, known in Britain as the Black Horse; and Ethne of the Raven Hair—foster sister to Cormac, and likewise descended from his family, through Ethne the Terrible!”
Her cry was taken up far and wide; for Hibernians never tired of reciting pedigrees. And, here and there, one would come forward who remembered her in childhood; and how she had been sent for from Britain when her mother fostered Cormac.
Every hour the crowd around them grew larger. From marsh and forest wild men came forth, clad in skins with red naked limbs; their beards and long hair plaited, strange devices tattooing their freckled skins. Even from the weans beneath the earth, short, long-armed men, dark and swarthy, scrambled out and ran, fleet-footed, in the rear—some, among them, leaping on the great Irish hounds, rode in this manner amongst the throng.
Thus riding on in triumph, they left the hills behind, and entered the great central plain of Hibernia.
The day drew near its close; but, as the shadows fell, Cormac thought that the crowd around him grew thicker. He had pictured these wide plains desolate and uninhabited; and now it seemed to him they swarmed with people and with flocks and herds—everywhere he looked he saw lights twinkling.
Ethne had chosen for their journey the time of the Beltane Festival.