had reasoned away, his own continual solitude; and he called to the
lovers in a trembling voice. They came from among the salley bushes
and threw themselves at his feet and prayed for pardon, and he
stooped down and plucked the feathers out of the hair of the woman
and then turned away towards the dun without a word. He strode into
the hall of assembly, and having gathered his poets and his men of
law about him, stood upon the dais and spoke in a loud, clear voice:
'Men of law, why did you make me sin against the laws of Eri? Men of
verse, why did you make me sin against the secrecy of wisdom, for law
was made by man for the welfare of man, but wisdom the gods have
made, and no man shall live by its light, for it and the hail and the
rain and the thunder follow a way that is deadly to mortal things?
Men of law and men of verse, live according to your kind, and call
Eocha of the Hasty Mind to reign over you, for I set out to find my
kindred.' He then came down among them, and drew out of the hair of
first one and then another the feathers of the grey hawk, and, having
scattered them over the rushes upon the floor, passed out, and none
dared to follow him, for his eyes gleamed like the eyes of the birds
of prey; and no man saw him again or heard his voice. Some believed
that he found his eternal abode among the demons, and some that he
dwelt henceforth with the dark and dreadful goddesses, who sit all
night about the pools in the forest watching the constellations
rising and setting in those desolate mirrors.




THE HEART OF THE SPRING.