Niall

“ When this was done, Niall said abruptly:
"I will show you now what you have come here to see—the treasure which the earth has yielded up to me. Some of these things are from the tombs of kings or warriors; some buried at the time, perhaps, of the Danish invasion. They are all, I believe, of value, greater or less."
When he had thus spoken he began to creep around the cavern with a furtive, stealthy movement, examining every chink and cranny, as though unseen eyes were watching him. At last he approached a certain corner, withdrawing again, and looking all around him with eager, troubled eyes. ”

“ Niall muttered some exclamation in Irish, the meaning of which I did not know; then he turned upon me with a beaming smile.
"You are as the dawn that heralds a bright day, as the sun that peeps from out a dark cloud, as a flower thrusting its head through the snow!"
I sat watching the schoolmaster with real gratification at the pleasure I had given him. Then he asked:
"He never spoke to you of Winifred?"
"Never."
"Nor of Wicklow?"
"Nor of Wicklow."
"He has forgotten Ireland!" cried the old man bitterly. "He has become Americanized, as they all do." ”

“ I must first win her; and I must gain the confidence of Niall, if that were at all possible. He would understand far better than this child of nature the advantages of a journey to the New World and of a good education there.
"I wish you knew Niall!" Winifred said, with a suddenness which startled me,—it was so like the echo of my own thoughts.
"I wish so too!" I replied fervently.
"But it is very hard. He does not like strangers; and he seems to dislike people from America most of all." ”

“ The letter I had opened was, I knew, from Niall. I remembered the strange, crabbed characters, almost resembling Arabic, in which he had written my letter of instruction.
"The hills of Wicklow," he began, "are streaming with sunlight. Their spurs are all golden, and the streams are rushing in great gladness, for they are full of joy. They have been freed from the bondage of winter.
"There is joy in the hills. It is sounding in my ears and in my heart. Words I dare not speak, daughter of the stranger! I can not put on paper the thoughts that are burning in my brain. ”

“ Niall cried, with one of those quick flashes of intelligence which reminded me of Winifred.
"Do you?" I said, laughing outright. "Well, then, I may as well tell you I was smiling at the suspicion I saw in your eyes—smiling at the contrast between my gray hairs and wrinkles and Roderick O'Byrne as I saw him last."
"Yet Roderick is no boy," argued Niall. "Roderick is close to forty."
[Pg 92]
"He has the secret of perpetual youth," I said, warming at the remembrance. "Winifred has it too; she will never grow old. ”

“ Niall answered with a smile; "but there are some who might take you away against your will and with none to say them nay."
"I wish you would not talk so!" Winifred said petulantly, tearing to pieces with her slender, delicate fingers a daisy which she had picked up from the grass. She threw the stalk away impatiently. "There!" she cried. "By your foolish talk you have made me destroy one of my own little daisies; and I always think of them as little children playing in the long grass, hiding from one another, letting the wind blow them about, and loving the sun, as all children do." ”

“ Niall looked at me long and steadily, and my fear of him began to grow less. He had the voice and speech of an educated man—not educated in the sense which was common enough with country schoolmasters in Ireland, who sometimes combined a really wonderful knowledge with rustic simplicity. ”

“ When I returned and entered the hall, I found Niall seated in a high-backed armchair, like some king of olden days. Winifred was upon her knees beside him, leaning her head on his arm. He held out his hand to me, and I was struck by his altered expression. Scarce a trace of its former [Pg 211] wildness remained; and his face shone with a deep content, a radiating joy.
"Daughter of the stranger," he said, "you are one of us forever! Whether your home be here amongst our hills or the stormy sea divides us, it matters nothing." ”

“ This could not be Ireland, and Niall a prosaic, end-of-the-century Irishman! He must surely be a magician of old—one of the genii sprung from Aladdin's lamp; and the child beside him, in her delicate, aerial loveliness, some fairy showing the treasures of the earth to mortal eyes. ”

“ Niall cried wildly—"oh, there may be; but no one must know of it till I have got my portion! Besides, as all gold-seekers know, the gold is as uncertain as a fickle woman. Sometimes in a stream there is but a little, or there will be much in one portion of the river's bed and none at all in the other."
"Did Roderick know?" I asked.
"Never. I was but beginning my search when he went away. I would not have told him in any case. He would have wanted to share our good fortune with every one."
"Winifred knows?"
"Yes, she knows. I could trust her with my secret." ”

“ The territories of the sons of Niall were separated by Breifne and Oriel into two groups, a north-western group and a Meath group. The north-western group of Niall's descendants are called the Northern Ui Néill, the Meath group the Southern Ui Néill. One frequently meets with the error of supposing Ui Néill to mean the Ó'Néills—I find it in a paper of Zimmer's published after his death. It is true that Ui Néill, as a matter of grammar, is the plural of Ó'Néill, but it is not the plural of the surname Ó'Néill in Irish usage. ”

“ She seemed mollified, and I went on:
"Your intelligence will show you it is for the best, your love for Winifred will make you wish the best for her, while your fear of Niall—"
"Speak lower, ma'am: he may be in hearin'!" she said anxiously. "He's that strange he does be appearin' when least you expect."
"Well, in any case, I knew you would not oppose her going with me to America."
"To America, is it?" cried the woman, bristling up as fiercely almost as Niall himself. "Oh, then, how am I to know that you're playin' me no tricks—that you haven't been sent to take her away from us?" ”

“ O'NEILL, the name of an Irish family tracing descent from Niall, king of Ireland early in the 5th century, and known in Irish history and legend as Niall of the Nine Hostages. He is said to have made war not only against lesser rulers in Ireland, but also in Britain and Gaul, stories of his exploits being related in the Book of Leinster and the Book of Ballymote, both of which, however, are many centuries later than the time of Niall. ”

“ Many poems are attributed to her. In one she mentions that Anlaff was the name of the Dane who slew Niall. Having been wife successively of a king of Munster, a king of Leinster, and a king of Ireland, she wandered for many years as a mendicant, and died in 946 of a wound of the chest, caused by falling upon the sharp-pointed post to which her bed was tied. An ancient lament for Niall, beginning ‘Bronach indiu Eirinn huag’ (‘Mournful to-day is noble Ireland’) , and a poem on the battle beginning ‘Ba duabhais an chedain chruaidh’ (‘Gloomy was the hard Wednesday’) , are extant. ”

“ Niall, encouraged by the number of his captives and the success of his arms in France, resolved upon another expedition, and accordingly raised a grand army of his Irish subjects for that purpose, and sent a commission to the General of the Dalraida in Scotland to follow him with his choicest troops and assist him in the invasion. Niall having prepared a sufficient number of transports and a full supply of provisions, weighed anchor with his victorious Irish, and steering his course directly to France, had the advantage of a prosperous wind, and in a few days landed upon the coast. ”

“ We will speak no more of what is painful. Now all is peace and joy."
Father Owen entered just at that moment, full of genial sympathy and heartfelt, simple delight; and with his coming the reconciliation was perfect. It took Winifred some time indeed to understand her new relation to Niall; but she said that in any case she could not love him any better, though she was glad he belonged to the old castle and the old race.
The ornaments from Niall's cavern were disposed of to advantage, and it was a great day when we all went with Roderick to the cavern of the Phoul-a-Phooka to examine them. ”

“ Niall raised the clans of both Tyrone and Tyrconnell, a proof of his great power in the north at the time, and fought a battle with the Oirghialla and the Ulidians near Armagh. He defeated them after a severe contest, and replaced Eoghan in his bishopric. In 833 he succeeded Conchobhar, son of Donnchadh, as king of Ireland. ”

“ A boat was now lowered from the side of Niall’s galley, and he went on board that of his brother. After some inquiries and salutations, Fahune questioned Niall concerning his voyages and adventures. This Niall commenced, and Fahune seemed to rejoice, and a smile, as if of triumph, crossed his features when he learnt that Corgeana was safe; but when Niall proceeded, and told of the nuptials, the countenance of Fahune became as pale as death.
“Miserable man,” said he, “prepare to die! You have broken through our solemn vow ”

“ Those enemies were not asleep, and they rose up presently to take advantage of the favourable time. At this point we encounter an Irish king, whose name is famous in the obscure history of his own land. King Niall was the High-king of Ireland in the days of the rebellion of Maximus, and may possibly have joined in the marauding expeditions which vexed Britain during those years. His deeds are enveloped in legend, but the exalted notion which his countrymen formed of his prowess is expressed in the vain tale that he invaded Gaul and conquered as far as the Alps. ”

“ Docwra about this time received ‘many informations against’ Niall, but confessed that he ‘behaued himselfe deservinglie,’ and ‘had many of his men slaine at the siege of Kinsale, and amongst the rest a brother of his owne.’ After the defeat of the Spaniards and O'Donnell's departure into Spain, Niall began to insist on conditions that were deemed by the government incompatible with his position as a subject. News of his insubordination reached Mountjoy, who summoned him to Dublin, with the intention apparently of granting him a patent of Tyrconnel. ”

“ To this Niall answered, “Oh, Corgeana, my awful parting from Fahune my brother frequently recurs to me; I begin to fear his life is most unhappy; he thinks me dead, and the injustice of his mad decree must certainly be fearfully apparent to him also; it is therefore my intention, shouldst thou approve of it, to prepare an expedition to revisit the land of my birth, my beloved Kylestafeen; and wouldst thou not also wish to see again the lovely O’Brassil? I am now powerful, and would go attended by a large fleet; so that if Fahune should still be vindictive, I might be supported ”

“ You see, Niall may get too lonesome and send for you any time."
"I would love to see him and Granny and Father Owen and the others!" she exclaimed. "But if we went away to Ireland, I would like the dark gentleman to come too. Perhaps he would if you asked him."
"Everything will come right, I hope," I answered, [Pg 190] evasively. "And I am very glad you like the dark gentleman, because you may see him very often when you are older." ”

“ As her father, the High-king, would do nothing for her when she besought him to wipe out the insult, and procure her reparation from so unworthy a husband, her young kinsman Niall Glún-dubh, or the Black-Kneed, took up her cause, and obtained for her a separation from her husband and restoration of her dowry. When her husband was killed, the year after this, by the Danes, she married Niall, who in time succeeded to the throne as High-king of all Ireland, and who was one of the noblest of her monarchs. ”

“ Ailill Molt was son of Nath-Í, that king of Ireland who died somewhere on the Continent, whither he had led an expedition in 429, and whose body was brought back to Ireland by his men and buried at Cruachain in the ancient cemetery of the kings of Connacht. Nath-Í, who succeeded Niall of the Nine Hostages, was the son of Niall's brother Fiachra, whose descendants were settled in Fiachra's Lands in the north-west and south-west of Connacht. ”

“ This Niall was surnamed "of the Nine Hostages," from his having extorted hostages from nine minor kings. He mercilessly plundered Britain and Gaul. The Picts and Irish [Pg 35] Gaels combined had at one time penetrated as far as London and Kent, when Theodosius drove them back. [28] It was probably against Niall that Stilicho gained those successes so magniloquently eulogised by Claudian, "when the Scot moved all Ierne against us and the sea foamed under his hostile oars." Niall had eight sons, from whom the famous Ui [Ee] Neill are all descended. ”

“ Upon Tara's rampart his fair hair shone against
his ruddy face:
Like unto the colour of his hair is red gold or the
yellow iris.
Torna
'Twas great delight, 'twas great peace to be in the
company of my dear foster-son, [4]
When with Echu's son—it was no small thing—
we used to go to the gathering.
Tuirn son of Torna
Darling hero of the white shoulder! whose tribes
are vast, a beloved host:
Every man was under protection when we used to
go to forgather with him.
↑ Niall's father. ↑ Niall's mother. ↑ Niall's grandfather. ↑ i.e. Niall. ”

“ You are content to lead this wandering, aimless existence, when life has real duties, and, as you must find, real cares and sorrows."
This reproach seemed to touch her; for, with one of those strange flashes of intuition, she seemed at once to catch my meaning.
"But how can Niall help that?" she cried. "He has been very kind to me. He told Granny to teach me my prayers, and took me to Father Owen himself, so that I could go to confession and make my first communion; and he spends his whole life working for me. What should I do without him? ”