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CHAPTER III
It happened that the men of Lochlann came on an expedition against Ireland. A monstrous fleet rounded the bluffs of Ben Edair, and the Danes landed there, to prepare an attack which would render them masters of the country. Fionn and the Fianna-Finn marched against them. He did not like the men of Lochlann at any time, but this time he moved against them in wrath, for not only were they attacking Ireland, but they had come between him and the deepest joy his life had known.
It was a hard fight, but a short one. The Lochlannachs were driven back to their ships, and within a week the only Danes remaining in Ireland were those that had been buried there.
That finished, he left the victorious Fianna and returned swiftly to the plain of Allen, for he could not bear to be one unnecessary day parted from Saeve.
"You are not leaving us!" exclaimed Goll mac Morna.
"I must go," Fionn replied.
"You will not desert the victory feast," Conan reproached him.
"Stay with us, Chief," Caelte begged.
"What is a feast without Fionn?" they complained.
But he would not stay.
"By my hand," he cried, "I must go. She will be looking for me from the window."
"That will happen indeed," Goll admitted.
"That will happen," cried Fionn. "And when she sees me far out on the plain, she will run through the great gate to meet me."
"It would be the queer wife would neglect that run," Cona'n growled.
"I shall hold her hand again," Fionn entrusted to Caelte's ear.
"You will do that, surely."
"I shall look into her face," his lord insisted. But he saw that not even beloved Caelte understood the meaning of that, and he knew sadly and yet proudly that what he meant could not be explained by any one and could not be comprehended by any one.
"You are in love, dear heart," said Caelte.
"In love he is," Cona'n grumbled. "A cordial for women, a disease for men, a state of wretchedness."
"Wretched in truth," the Chief murmured. "Love makes us poor We have not eyes enough to see all that is to be seen, nor hands enough to seize the tenth of all we want. When I look in her eyes I am tormented because I am not looking at her lips, and when I see her lips my soul cries out, 'Look at her eyes, look at her eyes.'"
"That is how it happens," said Goll rememberingly.
"That way and no other," Caelte agreed.
And the champions looked backwards in time on these lips and those, and knew their Chief would go.
When Fionn came in sight of the great keep his blood and his feet quickened, and now and again he waved a spear in the air.
"She does not see me yet," he thought mournfully.
"She cannot see me yet," he amended, reproaching himself.
But his mind was troubled, for he thought also, or he felt without thinking, that had the positions been changed he would have seen her at twice the distance.
"She thinks I have been unable to get away from the battle, or that I was forced to remain for the feast."
And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been changed he would have known that nothing could retain the one that was absent.
"Women," he said, "are shamefaced, they do not like to appear eager when others are observing them."
But he knew that he would not have known if others were observing him, and that he would not have cared about it if he had known. And he knew that his Saeve would not have seen, and would not have cared for any eyes than his.
He gripped his spear on that reflection, and ran as he had not run in his life, so that it was a panting, dishevelled man that raced heavily through the gates of the great Dun.
Within the Dun there was disorder. Servants were shouting to one another, and women were running to and fro aimlessly, wringing their hands and screaming; and, when they saw the Champion, those nearest to him ran away, and there was a general effort on the part of every person to get behind every other person. But Fionn caught the eye of his butler, Gariv Crona'n, the Rough Buzzer, and held it.
"Come you here," he said.
And the Rough Buzzer came to him without a single buzz in his body.
"Where is the Flower of Allen?" his master demanded.
"I do not know, master," the terrified servant replied.
"You do not know!" said Fionn. "Tell what you do know."
And the man told him this story.
