So there we leave Thorstein to bite his hands and weep for that slip between cup and lip, the bitterest he had known. Gartnaidh came into the cot, and what should he see but Raineach, giggling and wide-eyed over a silken scarf that a gay spark, he knew him well, was tying round her bare shoulders: and the house-mistress smiling and becking and bowing like a fool. Aluinn was not there: but they seemed merry, and the wild lass looked quite bonny in the firelight.

“What, goodfellow giant!” said Domhnaill, with somewhat shame-faced bravery, as Gartnaidh scowled in at them; “here we are all as merry as hares by moonlight; and upon my honour, I make my best bow to the father of such a bright little thing.”

“See what he has given me,” said Raineach with childish pride.

“She’ll be back before long,” said the mother. “I warrant, now I know of it, Aluinn just slipped away to look for somebody. But take something, sir. It’s little we fell-folk have to offer the likes of you: though fair’s the day that brought you: and it’s a poor place for a king’s son, though the last drop of Roman blood runs in the veins of our Aluinn.”

“It’s the sweetest spot in the world, mother,” said Domhnaill: “and no finer greeting can I give you when we take our Aluinn to court, and all the lords of the land have to bow down before her.”

Then Aluinn burst in, breathless and haggard and panting. She flew at her lover and held him tight, taking no heed of them all.

“What now?” cried they, and the young man unwound her arms from his neck, and held her off a little.

They learnt bit by bit that she had strayed out to look for him, and away on the road toward the wath. She had hidden while a troop of men rode past,—Northmen they would be, going to their meeting place. She had heard them splash over the ford, and then it was dark and she turned homewards. But suddenly she saw a light, as if some wayfarer were camping in the wood by the lake-side. It brightened and spread, until she thought the forest was on fire. But no sound of crackling branches or hissing flame could she hear. The blaze grew broader: sparks flew on high, and all round it seemed one great flickering. Then she was terrified and fled by the well-known wood-paths, daring no more to look behind her.

The men went out to a little spying-place on the uttermost brink of the nab, but fire there was none. The glow of the Northmen’s Thing-stead was hidden behind Great Howe, and the Welsh city was away beyond the crags.

“Why, pretty one,” said Domhnaill, coming in, “what fancies are these? The heather’s afire I know, for all the country is up: but that is the only blaze, and black night it is between here and Helvellyn.”

“But I saw it,” said the lass shuddering.

“It was only a glint of moonshine: come, little silly, let us be merry again.”

“Nay,” said her mother thoughtfully, and stood up, tall and strange. “She saw it. I have seen it. Twice before I have seen it, and well I know the sight. Once for death: and again for death: and the third time.”

“Come, good mother,” said Domhnaill, “never seek to scare us. King’s sons and queens that are to be, give no heed to old wives’ soothsayings. Aluinn, smile now, and drink. It will do thee good, and me too.”

“Peace, young man,” said the mother. “Are not all thy men now bound for battle, and unappeasable war with the great king? Which of them all, think’st thou, which of them that drink to-night and shout drunkenly round their fires, will come unscathed out of the fire of the fight, to march hitherward again in triumph to the homes of their fathers and their children? Nay, I tell you, not a man of them all. And which of them will lie in agony on the desolate heath far away in Saxon-land, till the ravens pluck out their eyes, and the wolves tear their hearts out of the riven harness? Aye, by that token, many and many a one. I see them there, the proudest, the mightiest, the bravest: I see them in their blood: and I see the handful that flee over heath and hill, in their shame and their sorrow, terror-stricken before the sword of England and trembling beneath the spear of the stranger, fleeing to their lairs in the mountains and to all the wild-wood fastnesses: and I hear the wail of the mourner, and the scream of the captive, and the curse of the mother that bore the coward and the coward’s son.”

“Ah, my life, go not out to this battle,” cried Aluinn, clinging to him. “Stay by us in peace: and if evil must come, let it roll over thy head, lying hidden here in safety.”

“What!” said Domhnaill, “shirk the play for a girl’s vision and a woman’s fears?”

“King,” said Gartnaidh, “for thou, lord, may’st be king before this moon has waned,—these are no idle counsels. A brave heart is the praise of youth, but a seeing eye is the glory of a king. Hear me. Gartnaidh mac Tairneach is no coward, but he is old: and life is good to him in the woods: is it not good to thee in the city and in the court? And if blood must be shed, why should the blood of father and son redden one field together? Stay by us here, and claim from king Owain the wardenship of these marches. It is a post of honour. And so we shall keep the seed corn while we spend the reapings of the harvest.”

Thus they talked until morning, and it was resolved that Domhnaill, nothing loath, for the sake of Aluinn if not to save his own skin, should withhold himself from the battle. Gartnaidh, because he knew the land, and was cunning as a spy, got the ear of King Owain next day; and saying nothing of the vision, bade the king go in peace, and begged that Domhnaill might be left with the defenders of the border, to keep them in heart, and to be king of the land in his father’s room, to do justice upon the upstarts and peacebreakers, who always showed their heads when the king’s back is turned. Such advice was held to be good, and the army went on its way to fight Athelstan at Brunanburg.