It was late before he got into his bed, and it was still later when he awoke and heard, mingling with the cries of the night-birds, the sound of hoarse singing that floated upward from the room where he had left his father and The Randal. The prince and the chief were joining their voices in a native melody, Standish knew; and he was well aware that he would not be disturbed by the ascent of either during the night. The dormitory arrangements of the prince and the chief when they had dined in company were of the simplest nature.
Standish went to sleep again, and the ancient rafters, that had heard the tones of many generations of Macnamaras' voices, trembled for some hours with the echoes from the room below, while outside the ancient owls hooted and the ancient sea murmured in its sleep.
CHAPTER VI.
What imports this song?
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee.
Hamlet. I do not set my life at a pin's fee …
It waves me forth again: I'll follow it.
Horatio. What if it tempt you toward the flood? …
Look whether he has not changed his colour.
—Hamlet.
THE sounds of wild harp-music were ascending at even from the depths of Glenmara. The sun had sunk, and the hues that had been woven round the west were wasting themselves away on the horizon. The faint shell-pink had drifted and dwindled far from the place of sunset. The woods of the slopes looked very dark now that the red glances from the west were withdrawn from their glossy foliage; but the heather-swathed mountains, towering through the soft blue air to the dark blue sky, were richly purple, as though the sunset hues had become entangled amongst the heather, and had forgotten to fly back to the west that had cast them forth.
The little tarn at the foot of the lowest crags was black and still, waiting for the first star-glimpse, and from its marge came the wild notes of a harp fitfully swelling and waning; and then arose the still wilder and more melancholy tones of a man's voice chanting what seemed like a weird dirge to the fading twilight, and the language was the Irish Celtic—that language every song of which sounds like a dirge sung over its own death:—
Why art thou gone from us, White Dove of the Irish
woods?
Why art thou gone who made all the leaves tremulous with
the low voice of love?
Love that tarried yet afar, though the fleet swallow had
come back to us—
Love that stayed in the far lands though the primrose had
cast its gold by the streams—
Love that heard not the voice sent forth from every new-budded briar—
This love came only when thou earnest, and rapture thrilled
the heart of the green land.
Why art thou gone from us, White Dove of the Irish
woods?
This is a translation of the wild lament that arose in the twilight air and stirred up the echoes of the rocks. Then the fitful melody of the harp made an interlude:—
Why art thou gone from us, sweet Linnet of the Irish
woods?
Why art thou gone from us whose song brought the Spring
to our land?
Yea, flowers to thy singing arose from the earth in bountiful
bloom,
And scents of the violet, scents of the hawthorn—all scents
of the spring
Were wafted about us when thy voice was heard albeit in
autumn.
All thoughts of the spring—all its hopes woke and breathed
through our hearts,
Till our souls thrilled with passionate song and the perfume
of spring which is love.
Why art thou gone from us, sweet Linnet of the Irish
woods?
Again the chaunter paused and again his harp prolonged the wailing melody. Then passing into a more sadly soft strain, he continued his song:—
Why art thou gone from us, Soul of all beauty and joy?
Now thou art gone the berry drops from the arbutus,
The wind comes in from the ocean with wail and the
autumn is sad,
The yellow leaves perish, whirled wild whither no one can
know.
As the crisp leaves are crushed in the woods, so our hearts
are crushed at thy parting;
As the woods moan for the summer departed, so we mourn
that we see thee no more.
Why art thou gone from us, Soul of all beauty and joy?
Into the twilight the last notes died away, and a lonely heron standing among the rushes at the edge of the tarn moved his head critically to one side as if waiting for another song with which to sympathise. But he was not the only listener. Far up among the purple crags Standish Macnamara was lying looking out to the sunset when he heard the sound of the chant in the glen beneath him. He lay silent while the dirge floated up the mountain-side and died away among the heather of the peak. But when the silence of the twilight came once more upon the glen, Standish arose and made his way downwards to where an old man with one of the small ancient Irish harps, was seated on a stone, his head bent across the strings upon which his fingers still rested. Standish knew him to be one Murrough O'Brian, a descendant of the bards of the country, and an old retainer of the Gerald family. A man learned in Irish, but not speaking an intelligible sentence in English.
“Why do you sing the Dirge of Tuathal on this evening, Murrough?” he asked in his native tongue, as he came beside the old man.
“What else is there left for me to sing at this time, Standish O'Dermot Macnamara, son of the Prince of Islands and all Munster?” said the bard. “There is nothing of joy left us now. We cannot sing except in sorrow. Does not the land seem to have sympathy with such songs, prolonging their sound by its own voice from every glen and mountain-face?”
“It is true,” said Standish. “As I sat up among the cliffs of heather it seemed to me that the melody was made by the spirits of the glen bewailing in the twilight the departure of the glory of our land.”
“See how desolate is all around us here,” said the bard. “Glenmara is lonely now, where