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The Up-Bringing of Deirdre
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THE UP-BRINGING OF DEIRDRE
[201] AS soon as she was weaned, King Conor took the child away
from her own parents, as was the custom in those olden
days, and put her out to foster with a nurse, Levarcam,
a wise and skilful dame, who told the King from day to
day how Deirdre fared. And for the first seven years
Deirdre grew up within the royal household, petted and
loved by all, and she was richly fed and robed in silk,
and nourished like a princess, for all in the palace
knew that this young lovely child was destined to be
mated with their king. Often she spent her days upon
the playing fields, and watched the boy-corps
practising their sports, and joined their games and
laughed with glee like any other child. Thus happily
and gaily passed the years for Deirdre, till one day
when she was playing ball among the little lads, the
King came down to watch their play. He saw how like a
flower Deirdre grew, half like the opening daisy, pink
and white, half like the slender hairbell on its stem,
graceful and delicate; and though he was an old man,
and had been a widower for now many years, and the
child but a babe of seven years, a sudden jealousy
smote at his aged heart. He saw the girl surrounded by
the lads, who tossed the ball into her little lap or
into her small apron held out to catch it as it fell.
And every time she caught it, her ringing childish
laugh broke out, and all the boys cried,
[202] "Well, caught, O Deirdre; bravely caught, our little
Queen!" For to them all, it was well-known that this
small child was kept by Conor for himself, to share his
throne and home; so oft in play they called her "Little
Queen."
Then Conor called his Druid Caffa to him, and he said,
"Too long we leave this child at liberty among the
chieftain's sons. She must henceforth be kept apart
and quite forget that there are younger men than you or
me. If she grows up among these lads, most certainly
the day will come when she will wish to wed some chief
of her own age. See, even now, the lads bend to her
will; she rules them like a queen indeed, and gladly
they obey her. When she is grown to maidenhood, small
chance for me, an aged man, when comes the time to
woo."
"The King woos not," said Caffa, "he commands, and none
dare disobey." "Still I would rather have a willing
bride," the King replied; "I want no girl to be my
royal mate who craves and hankers for some other man
among my subjects. She shall come to tme of her own
free will, because she knows no other man but me. She
shall not even know what kind of thing a man may be,
for I will shut her up apart from men, and, save
yourself and me, she shall not ever see a manly face."
"The King commands," said Caffa, slowly, "and it must
be done as he desires. But yet I fear the maid will
pine in her captivity. The bride you wed will be a
lily pale as death, and not a maiden in her blooming
loveliness."
"She shall have space and air and garden-ground," the
King replied, "only she shall not ever see a human
face, save yours and mine, and nurse Levarcam's."
So for the girl he built a place apart, far off from
Emain in a lonely dell, surrounded by a wood. A simple
[203] stately house was reared, surrounded by an orchard of
rare fruits. Behind the house a garden and a piece of
barren moor, and through the wood a gently-flowing
stream that wandered amid carpets of bright flowers.
And all seemed fair enough, but round the place he
built a mighty wall, so high that none could climb it,
and a moat ran round within. Four savage man-hounds
sent by Conor were on constant guard, watching on every
side by night and day, so that no living thing could
enter or pass out, save with the knowledge of Levarcam.
And for a time the child was happy, for Levarcam, the
wise woman, taught her all she knew. She taught her
how each bird sings to its mate, each different note of
thrush or cuckoo or the soaring lark; she taught her of
the plants that spring towards heaven, their roots deep
hidden in the yielding soil, and of their names and
uses, and the way they fructified and sent out shoots,
and of the fruits they bore. And in the solemn night,
they went abroad and watched the motion of the stars,
and marked the wandering planets how they carved out
their own path among the rest, and all the changes of
the moon the maiden knew, and how to calculate the time
of day by shadows on the grass. There was no bird upon
the spray, nor herb among the plants, nor star in
heaven, but Deirdre had a name for each and all.
And ever and anon, King Conor came and sat with her and
talked, and brought her gifts to while away the time;
and because the days were long and passed one like the
other without any change, she liked his coming, and
would call him "Father," and make tales for him, and
sing her songs and show the little garden she had made
herself alone.
And Deirdre grew up tall and stately as the sapling
[204] of the forest, and lithe as the green moorland rush
that bows before the wind. Of all the women of the
world was Deirdre the gentlest and best, lovely of form
and lovely in her mind; light as the hind that leaps
upon the hill, and white and shapely as the snowy swan.
But though they tended her, and fed her with the best,
the maiden drooped and pined. And on a day Levarcam
said, "What ails thee, girl? Why is thy face so pale,
thy step so slow? Why dost thou sigh and mope?" And
Deirdre said, "I know not, nurse, what ails me; but I
think I should be well if once again I saw the boys
upon the playing fields, and heard their shouts, and
tossed the ball with them."
"Fie, fie," replied the nurse, "'tis seven full years
since on the green you played at ball. A child of but
seven years were you at that time, and now full
fourteen years have come and gone, and you are growing
into maidenhood." "Seven bitter years," said Deirdre,
"since I beheld the joyous playing field, and saw the
sports, and marked the manly face of Naisi, noblest and
bravest of the corps of boys."
"Naisi, the son of Usna?" asked Levarcam, much
surprised. "Naisi was his name, he told me so," said
Deirdre; "but I did not ask whose son he was." "He
told you so?" Levarcam asked again. "He told me so,"
said Deirdre, "when he threw the ball, by a miscast,
backward, across the heads of the group of maidens who
were standing on the edge of the green, and I rose up
among them all, picked up the ball, and gave it back to
him. He pressed my hand and smiled, and promised he
would see me oft again; but never since that day, that
fatal day, when Conor brought me to this lonely place,
have he or I beheld each other more. Bring
[205] Naisi here, O nurse, that I may once again behold his
face, so bright and boyish, with its winning smile;
then shall I live and laugh and love my life again."
"Speak not like this, O Maiden," exclaimed the nurse.
"To-day the King comes for his visit. We are in winter
now, but in the budding of the spring, he takes you
hence to Emain, there to claim you as his wife."
"The king no doubt is kind," the girl replied, "and
means me well, but he is old and grey, and in his face
is something that I do not like. I think he could be
cruel, and that if any man stood in his way, he would
not hesitate to lay a trap to catch him, as Caffa
snared the little mouse that ran about my room and kept
me company. Yet will I go with him to Emain, for I
think that somewhere among the people of the court, I
shall find Naisi out."
"Hush, hush," the nurse replied, "Naisi is not a little
boy no longer, but the foremost of all Ulster's younger
chiefs, the hero of the Red Branch, and the favourite
of the King. Speak not of Naisi to King Conor, or
mayhap some harm will come to him." "Then will I never
speak his name, or tell of him," the girl replied,
"though in my dreams I see him every night playing at
ball with me; but when he flings the ball for me to
catch, 'tis ever the same thing. King Conor comes
between and seizes it, and throws it back at Naisi. So
can I never catch and hold it in my hands, and I am
vexed and weep. But last night, O good nurse, King
Conor flung the ball craftily at his head, and Naisi
fell all red and stained with blood, like that poor
calf that Caffa slew, thinking that I could eat it for
my food. The little tender calf that played with me!
Upon the winter's frost floor I saw its blood, all
crimson-red upon the driven snow,
[206] and as I looked I saw a raven that stooped down to sip
the blood; and, O dear nurse, I thought of Naisi then,
for all his hair, as I remember it, was dark and glossy
like the raven's wing, and in his cheeks the ruddy glow
of health and beauty, like the blood, and white his
skin like snow. Dear nurse, dear nurse, let me see
Naisi once again, and send the King away." "Alas!
alas!" Levarcam said; "most difficult indeed is thy
desire, for far away is Naisi, and he dare not come
within this fort. High is the wall and deep the moat,
and fierce the blood-hounds watching at the gates."
"At least," said Deirdre, "procure for me from Caffa
that I may once in a while wander without the fort and
breathe the open air upon the moor; this wall frowns on
me like an enemy holding me in his grasp and stifling
me, surely I die e'er long within these heavy walls.
But on the moor, where no man comes (if you must have
it so), I'd see at least the grouse winging its flight,
and hear the plover and the peeweet call, and pluck the
heather and the yellow gorse in summer time. O nurse,
dear nurse, have pity on your child." When Levarcam
saw the misery of the maid, she feared that Conor would
upbraid her with neglect because her cheek grew pale,
and her young joy seemed gone; and so that night she
spoke to Caffa, and he said, "I think no harm could
come if we should let the maiden walk out upon the wild
hillside. No human creature, save a stray hunter
following the deer, or a poor shepherd garnering his
sheep, or some strange homeless wanderer, e'er sets his
foot upon this lonesome moor. Far off are we from any
human habitation; and the maid droops, indeed. Let her
go out, but keep her well in sight; to climb the
hilltop and to roam the heather moor as spring comes
on,
[207] will bring fresh colour into her pale cheeks, and fit
her for the wooing of the king."
So from that time, Deirdre went out upon the upland
moor, and soon she knew each nook and stream and bit of
forest-land for miles around. She learned the zig-zag
flight of the long-billed snipe, she knew the otter's
marshy lair, and where the grouse and wild-duck made
their nests. She fed the timid fawn, wild, trustful as
herself, and made a dear companion of a fox that
followed her as though it were a dog; and once, while
Levarcam stayed below, she climbed the dizzy height
where golden eagles had built their nest upon the
mountain's crest, and smoothed the eaglets with her own
soft hand. And so she grew in health, and all her
spirit came to her again, and when King Conor came to
visit her, he thought that in his dreams and in the
long life he had passed among the best of Erin's women,
he had never seen or dreamed of a girl so lovely as
this blood-drop of the moor. Eagerly he began to
reckon up the days until, her fifteenth birthday being
passed, he should bring her down to Emain, and take her
as his wife. But of her walks he knew not, only Caffa
and Levarcam knew.
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