Attila and His Conquerors. A Story of the Days of St. Patrick and St. Leo the Great

They sat together on a crag close to their home, the young brother and sister, Baithene and Ethne, only son and daughter of a chieftain of the great clan O’Neill. Prince and princess they might have been called in legendary story, and their father and mother king and queen. For there were many kings in Ireland in those early centuries, as afterwards many saints. And yet neither of these great titles, though counted by the score, were unmeaning. The saints were men and women vowed and consecrated to a holy life of devotion and service:—a true aristocracy in the Church. Homage was rendered them because nobleness was expected of them. And the kings were distinguished as really, in the minds of their people and clan, from all beneath them, as men of another


 stamp and metal from the rest, with a royal superscription. To serve them was honour; to obey them was imperative necessity and sacred duty; to live for them was life worth living; to die for them was death worth dying. Conan, king or chief of one branch of the O’Neills, father of Baithene and Ethne, and his wife, however poor their palace and small their kingdom, were served and honoured with a free, unquestioning loyalty altogether unknown in the servile, mercenary courts of their contemporary sovereigns in the palaces of Constantinople or Ravenna.

Therefore these children—for they were scarcely more, the boy seventeen, the maiden sixteen—had been surrounded from infancy with an atmosphere of loving homage. Their home, outside which they sat, overlooking the sea, was not much better than a settler’s lodge, built of mud and timber, with rough unhewn stones; yet it was essentially a palace, for those who dwelt in it were acknowledged to be royal. Outside, on the hill below, some of the clansmen guarded it night and day, and no stranger could enter unchallenged; it was the hall of feasting, the gathering-place for battle, the seat of judgment for the people. Except the brother and sister, and the guard watching on the hillside, out of sight at that moment, every one was asleep. For it was late; the sun had set an hour or two, the moon was making her long path of silvery light on the waves below, and the youth and maiden sat together in the soft evening air clad in the sacred white robes, Ethne still with the white veil on her head. For this had been a great


 day for them. There had been a Christian baptism on the hill of Tara, a few miles away, and in the well on the hillside the brother and sister, with their mother, had been baptized by the great missionary Patrick into the Christian name; and also, at the same time, numbers of their people, among them many of the Druids and bards, the priests and poets of their race. Their father had been present, but could not himself yet enter that solemn gate. He had too many wars on hand; too many clan wrongs that could not forego vengeance; too many enemies whom he was not quite clear he could include in the great peace which the Christ was said to bring. He was too sure of the rough work that might have to be done outside that gate of baptism, too doubtful of the kind of world he might find within, to venture yet to enter. But the message the Gallo-Roman bishop brought seemed so great, and from Powers so great, the story of compassion and sacrifice so beautiful, and his wife had adopted it with such joy, that he could not refuse that she and the children should enter a world that seemed so fair.

The mother had remained at Tara, with her husband and the chieftains, for the night; and the children were alone in the house, under the charge of the old nurse, with the rest of the household.

“I felt the bishop’s hands rest on my head,” said Baithene, in a low tone, “and his deep voice went through me. The words were Latin, but I think I understood most of them. We belong to the Father; He is the God of all men, of heaven


 and earth, of the sea and of the rivers, of the high mountains and the lowly valleys; above heaven, and in heaven, and under heaven. We are His children. And we belong to the Son. He is the King of all men. He died for us all. And we are His soldiers, and His clansmen, of His flesh and blood. And we belong to the Spirit. He is within our hearts, and will teach us and give us strength to be good children of the Father, and good soldiers of the Son, the Heavenly King. And this whole land of ours is only a little bit of His great kingdom. And this whole world of ours is only one of the halls of His great world. But it is worth while to be the son and daughter of an earthly king, for we may lead our whole people to the Heavenly King. Wonderful things have to be done, Ethne. Ireland has to be won for Him. The world has to be won for Him.”

“Is not the world His already?” said the maiden. “Beyond that sea are they not all Christians? Our Patrick was made a Christian there, like the rest, before he was taken captive and brought to our land to be a slave, that he might make our country free; just as the great Christ came to this world to suffer and to die like a slave, to set the world free. Beyond the sea are the Britains, where Patrick’s father lived. And beyond the Britains is Rome, the great Christian Empire of the world, and the great wonderful Christian city. We have been outside this Kingdom of God; but now we have come into it.”

“But if the Britons on the other side of the sea (whose coasts we can see sometimes from ours) are


 Christians, why did they not tell us the glad tidings before?” said Baithene.

“Perhaps they tried, and could not make us listen,” said Ethne. “People do not seem always to attend at first; father does not quite listen yet.”

“He is the chief. The rights and the wrongs of the clan are his, and he must not pass them by,” said Baithene.

“Must we not forgive?” said the girl. “Patrick forgave, and went first to those who had wronged him most and held him in bondage. And they tell us that the Christ when He rose went first to those who had murdered Him, the people of the Jews.”

“We must forgive our own wrongs, I suppose,” said Baithene, “but perhaps not other people’s wrongs. At least not kings. Kings have to set the wrongs right. And there is the great blood-feud with the other branch of the O’Neills who killed our grandfather.”

“It does not seem so very hard to forgive the people who killed our grandfather,” said Ethne. “For one thing, they must be dead. And how long have we to go on not forgiving their grandchildren, who did not kill our grandfather?”

“I cannot tell,” said Baithene, meditatively. “We have a great deal to learn; we must ask Patrick. We must learn more Latin, and read the Testaments of God.”

There was a pause. The sound of the waves on the sands far below came up in soft pulses to them, and, nearer, the rush of the little river falling from rock to rock through the glen beside them.


“We will ask mother first,” resumed Ethne. “She looked like one of those beautiful creatures, the angels, when she rose up out of the waters. Her eyes shone as if with light within, and she did not seem to need wings to take her straight up to the sky. And when they folded her in the white robes, no one need have asked us, as they say the two princesses of our race asked Patrick, ‘Has the King of Heaven daughters?’ so heavenly she looked and so queenly. She seemed shining all through with love, the love which seems the light of heaven! Perhaps that love is the secret of forgiveness and of everything.”

“Yet,” replied Baithene, “love is of many kinds, and has many ways. There is the love of the sheep who are cared for, and the love of the shepherd who guards the sheep, and the love of the faithful dogs who help the shepherd to fight the wolf. Perhaps the love of the king has sometimes to be of the fighting kind.”

At that moment the great Irish deer-hound at Ethne’s feet gave a low, suspicious growl.

“Quiet, Bran,” said Baithene; “it is only a rustle among the trees in the glen.”

“Do you ever feel,” he resumed, “a great longing to go and see that great world beyond the seas, where the great cities are, and above all Rome, with her palaces, her armies, and her Emperor, and the great temples? There is so much to see and to hear!”

“No,” said Ethne, “I never want to wander from home, and the dear people who love us so dearly, who would give their lives for us.”


As she spoke the old nurse came out with two large woollen plaids, and wrapped the girl round and round in their warm folds from head to foot, laying the other over the shoulders of Baithene, who crossed it around him.

“The mother would have you come in soon, I think,” she said.

“Soon—in an instant!” they answered. “But there will never be another day quite like this in all our lives, and we want to live it to the end.”

And when the old nurse had left, Ethne said—

“Every bit of the world seems so close to the heavenly King, why should I wish to be anywhere but where we are; where all our beloved are; where our father and mother have the homage of all; where all would die for us; where all would follow us in life and death; where a word from our lips is law, and a wish of our hearts is understood and obeyed before we can speak it?”

“It is for these, it is just because of their love, I sometimes wish to go afar and learn,” replied Baithene. “The world seems so wide and so wise there beyond—I want to bring back treasures, such as Patrick himself has brought to our Ireland.”

Ethne looked up in his face with a tender anxiety.

“Would you leave us, brother beloved?” said she.

“Only to enrich you all, darling,” he said, “to win back treasures for all.”

“But it is you we want,” said Ethne, “not anything you could bring. What could you bring to us to make up for the loss of what you are to


 us? And how could you learn to serve our people as well as by being with them always from boyhood to grey hairs?”

He smiled.

“Then you never wish to see the world beyond?”

“Why should I? Above all, now that we have found the gate into the great world beyond and above, and have learned that the Light of all the world is with us everywhere.”

And in a low sweet voice she began to chant Patrick’s Irish hymn—

“Christ beside me, Christ before me;

Christ behind me, Christ within me;

Christ beneath me, Christ above me;

Christ on my right hand, Christ on my left.”

Again the deer-hound gave a growl, but this time louder, and followed by a short anxious bark. There was again a soft rustle among the trees in the glen below them, but it ceased, and there was silence again, and Ethne threw her arm round the dog, and said—

“Hush, Bran darling; you must no longer be a suspicious heathen dog. Quiet!”

He lay down again with his head on her knee, licking her hand in response to her caress, yet still with ears pricked up, and an occasional anxious quiver through his whole frame.

The brother and sister turned from the glen and looked again towards the sea. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and only a fitful gleam came now and then over the waves. In a low, sweet voice Ethne began again to chant Patrick’s Irish hymn—


“I bind to myself to-day,

The Power of God to guide me;

The Might of God to uphold me;

The Wisdom of God to teach me;

The Eye of God to watch over me;

The Ear of God to hear me;

The Word of God to give me speech;

The Hand of God to protect me;

The Way of God to prevent me;

The Shield of God to shelter me;

The Hosts of God to defend me—

Against the snares of demons;

Against the temptations of vices;

Against every man who meditates injury to me,

Whether far or near,

With few or with many.”

The words had scarcely left her lips, when through the dark, with the suddenness and the silence of lightning, which the thunder does not precede to warn, but follows, to increase its terror, a band of armed men came on them from the glen behind, folded their plaids around both brother and sister, and with the practised skill of professional pirates, muffled their faces so that not a cry could escape; then bound their limbs with ropes, and swept them away helpless as branches of felled trees. Bran, the dog, made indeed all the noise he could, flew at the throat of one of the band, barked and yelled savagely. One of them tried to drive him away with a club, and another was on the point of cleaving his skull with a battle-axe, when the leader stopped him, saying—

“Let the brute be, he is worth more than either of them; I sold one such once in Rome for well-nigh his weight in gold.”

“What is your gold to me, if the brute gets at


 my throat?” was the angry answer; “he has bitten my leg to the bone already.”

“What matters a scratch in your leg? you are no babe to cry for a little blood-letting. Let the brute be. They are faithful to death. Keep hold of his master, and the beast will follow.”

“A bad catch altogether,” muttered the man. “These are two more of these new Christians; I saw the white robes of baptism underneath the plaids, and I heard the Sacred Name on the girl’s lips,” and he crossed himself in fear.

“What is that to thee or me?” exclaimed the leader. “What are these Roman Christians to us? Did they not leave us to the heathen Saxons?”

All this Ethne and Baithene heard and partly understood, the language being akin to their own, as they were dragged and carried helplessly down together to the little creek below, where the British pirate vessel was drawn up on the shingle. There they were lifted into the flat-bottomed boat, and laid bound and gagged and half-stifled at the bottom. Bran swam after them, jumped into the boat, and lay down at their feet.

When they had rowed out of reach and hearing of the shore the ropes were slackened, and the folds of the plaid around their faces were loosened. They could not stir, but they could look at each other; and as the night wore on, and the sails were set, and some of the crew fell asleep, and others were busy with the steering and rigging, Ethne whispered, with the tears she could no longer keep back, nor raise her hands to wipe away, streaming down her cheeks—


“Brother, I am coming with thee to the lands beyond. It will all be well; we are not forgotten.”

But Baithene could only murmur in his anguish,

“It is my fault, all mine—the punishment of my restless discontent.”

“It was no restless discontent, it was the instinct in the swallows when they have to fly south,” she said. “We will learn our lessons and come home to rest.”

And softly smiling through her tears, she crooned the words of the Irish hymn—

“Christ in the chariot;

Christ in the ship;”

and then in her broken Latin the conclusion—

“Domini est salus,

Christi est salus,

Salus tua, Domine,

Sit semper nobiscum.”

But Baithene could only heave one long sob.

“Darling,” she said, “I think it will be all right for us all. We will learn Latin together, and come back together to the home.” She tried to add, “to our father and mother,” but the dear names seemed to choke her, and were lost in tears.