For many years after that time, when he was not fighting against the
enemies of Ireland, Fionn was searching and hunting through the length and
breadth of the country in the hope that he might again chance on his
lovely lady from the Shi’. Through all that time he slept in misery each
night and he rose each day to grief. Whenever he hunted he brought only
the hounds that he trusted, Bran and Sceo’lan, Lomaire, Brod, and Lomlu;
for if a fawn was chased each of these five great dogs would know if that
was a fawn to be killed or one to be protected, and so there was small
danger to Saeve and a small hope of finding her.
Once, when seven years had passed in fruitless search, Fionn and the chief
nobles of the Fianna were hunting Ben Gulbain. All the hounds of the
Fianna were out, for Fionn had now given up hope of encountering the
Flower of Allen. As the hunt swept along the sides of the hill there arose
a great outcry of hounds from a narrow place high on the slope and, over
all that uproar there came the savage baying of Fionn’s own dogs.
“What is this for?” said Fionn, and with his companions he pressed to the
spot whence the noise came.
“They are fighting all the hounds of the Fianna,” cried a champion.
And they were. The five wise hounds were in a circle and were giving
battle to an hundred dogs at once. They were bristling and terrible, and
each bite from those great, keen jaws was woe to the beast that received
it. Nor did they fight in silence as was their custom and training, but
between each onslaught the great heads were uplifted, and they pealed
loudly, mournfully, urgently, for their master.
“They are calling on me,” he roared.
And with that he ran, as he had only once before run, and the men who were
nigh to him went racing as they would not have run for their lives. They
came to the narrow place on the slope of the mountain, and they saw the
five great hounds in a circle keeping off the other dogs, and in the
middle of the ring a little boy was standing. He had long, beautiful hair,
and he was naked. He was not daunted by the terrible combat and clamour of
the hounds. He did not look at the hounds, but he stared like a young
prince at Fionn and the champions as they rushed towards him scattering
the pack with the butts of their spears. When the fight was over, Bran and
Sceo’lan ran whining to the little boy and licked his hands.
“They do that to no one,” said a bystander. “What new master is this they
have found?”
Fionn bent to the boy. “Tell me, my little prince and pulse, what your
name is, and how you have come into the middle of a hunting-pack, and why
you are naked?”
But the boy did not understand the language of the men of Ireland. He put
his hand into Fionn’s, and the Chief felt as if that little hand had been
put into his heart. He lifted the lad to his great shoulder.
“We have caught something on this hunt,” said he to Caelte mac Rongn. “We
must bring this treasure home. You shall be one of the Fianna-Finn, my
darling,” he called upwards.
The boy looked down on him, and in the noble trust and fearlessness of
that regard Fionn’s heart melted away.
“My little fawn!” he said.
And he remembered that other fawn. He set the boy between his knees and
stared at him earnestly and long.
“There is surely the same look,” he said to his wakening heart; “that is
the very eye of Saeve.”
The grief flooded out of his heart as at a stroke, and joy foamed into it
in one great tide. He marched back singing to the encampment, and men saw
once more the merry Chief they had almost forgotten.
