CHAPTER X
"Delight and strength came to me again,and now I explored all the inland ways,the great lakes of Ireland,and her swift brown rivers.
"What a joy to lie under an inch of water basking in the sun,or beneath a shady ledge to watch the small creatures that speed like lightning on the rippling top.I saw the dragon-flies flash and dart and turn,with a poise,with a speed that no other winged thing knows:I saw the hawk hover and stare and swoop:he fell like a falling stone,but he could not catch the king of the salmon:I saw the cold-eyed cat stretching along a bough level with the water,eager to hook and lift the creatures of the river.And I saw men.
"They saw me also.They came to know me and look for me.They lay in wait at the waterfalls up which I leaped like a silver flash.
They held out nets for me;they hid traps under leaves;they made cords of the colour of water,of the colour of weeds--but this salmon had a nose that knew how a weed felt and how a string--they drifted meat on a sightless string,but I knew of the hook;they thrust spears at me,and threw lances which they drew back again with a cord."Many a wound I got from men,many a sorrowful scar.
"Every beast pursued me in the waters and along the banks;the barking,black-skinned otter came after me in lust and gust and swirl;the wild cat fished for me;the hawk and the steep-winged,spear-beaked birds dived down on me,and men crept on me with nets the width of a river,so that I got no rest.My life became a ceaseless scurry and wound and escape,a burden and anguish of watchfulness--and then I was caught."
CHAPTER XI
"THE fisherman of Cairill,the King of Ulster,took me in his net.Ah,that was a happy man when he saw me!He shouted for joy when he saw the great salmon in his net.
"I was still in the water as he hauled delicately.I was still in the water as he pulled me to the bank.My nose touched air and spun from it as from fire,and I dived with all my might against the bottom of the net,holding yet to the water,loving it,mad with terror that I must quit that loveliness.But the net held and I came up.
"'Be quiet,King of the River,'said the fisherman,'give in to Doom,'said he.
"I was in air,and it was as though I were in fire.The air pressed on me like a fiery mountain.It beat on my scales and scorched them.It rushed down my throat and scalded me.It weighed on me and squeezed me,so that my eyes felt as though they must burst from my head,my head as though it would leap from my body,and my body as though it would swell and expand and fly in a thousand pieces.
"The light blinded me,the heat tormented me,the dry air made me shrivel and gasp;and,as he lay on the grass,the great salmon whirled his desperate nose once more to the river,and leaped,leaped,leaped,even under the mountain of air.He could leap upwards,but not forwards,and yet he leaped,for in each rise he could see the twinkling waves,the rippling and curling waters.
"'Be at ease,O King,'said the fisherman.'Be at rest,my beloved.Let go the stream.Let the oozy marge be forgotten,and the sandy bed where the shades dance all in green and gloom,and the brown flood sings along.'
"And as he carried me to the palace he sang a song of the river,and a song of Doom,and a song in praise of the King of the Waters.
"When the king's wife saw me she desired me.I was put over a fire and roasted,and she ate me.And when time passed she gave birth to me,and I was her son and the son of Cairill the king.Iremember warmth and darkness and movement and unseen sounds.All that happened I remember,from the time I was on the gridiron until the time I was born.I forget nothing of these things.""And now,"said Finnian,"you will be born again,for I shall baptize you into the family of the Living God."--So far the story of Tuan,the son of Cairill.
No man knows if he died in those distant ages when Finnian was Abbot of Moville,or if he still keeps his fort in Ulster,watching all things,and remembering them for the glory of God and the honour of Ireland.
