To his ears came the soft chime of six-sided bells. After a time he sat up and looked about him. He was surprised to see the quantity of hawthorn that abounded everywhere. Every child that passed carried branches of it; there were fields of young hawthorn tenderly cared for by labourers; among the larger trees wood-men were busy cutting it and piling it in heaps—and others were busy carrying away the waiting piles upon their shoulders.
Cormac rose to his feet as he realised where he was. He knew he could not be far from the cell of his cousin, the Princess Brigit—the sweet girl-saint of Kildare; who was so full of the spirit of love and propitiation of early Christianity that she thought it no sin to keep one of the Druid’s sacred fires burning—consecrating it anew to the Christian Faith and hoping to win the Druids over likewise. The great fire was fed entirely on the hawthorn wood; in using such fuel Saint Brigit felt she gave a truly sacred and symbolic character to the fire, for she believed that Our Lord’s Crown of Thorns was made of hawthorn.
In all the land around him lay the feeling of home and peace for which Cormac’s smarting spirit longed—but he could not stay. In this sweet spot he felt himself unclean.
A kindly wood-cutter offered him some food, which he gratefully accepted. Then he turned westward and went on once more till he had left Kildare far behind him, and the wild plain spread itself before his eyes.
Around him waved the long grass, and he stretched himself at full length upon it, plucking it in handfuls; heaping it on his face; as though there were something cleansing in its cool touch—hot and sick still at the memory of his Baal madness.
He realised, too late, that the sun-god of the Druids was Baal. A flood of light was poured on some of Ethne’s wild assertions—that the Druids held the ancient faith from which the Hebrew prophets had led the Jews away. Ay, it was Baal, the Druids worshipped—at the temple of the sun in the Slieve Bloom mountains—at the place of sacred fire near Tara—everywhere, Baal. And in their worship the very depths of iniquity were reached; bloodshed and license went hand in hand.
He writhed anew at the thought of his shares in the festival. He could not rid himself of the memory of those twisting serpent dances, leading to scenes of bloodshed, excess, and fire.
As he lay in grief and shame upon the grass, a few hot tears dropped from his closed eyelid. Suddenly some strong instinct caused him to sit up and open his eyes. Before him was Ethne of the Raven Hair.
She had ridden noiselessly over the plain towards him, and had reined in her horse at a little distance; she sat motionless on her saddle looking at him with a smile of scorn on her face.
“You ran away!” she said.