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Deirdré heard, wondering and trembling, and Naisi must tell her the tale many times before she understood, so utter had been her solitude and so perfect was yet her ignorance of all things beyond the fort where she was captive, and of all the doings of men.
Then in her song she went over the glens of their lordship, naming them all, and calling to mind how here they hunted the stag, here they fished, here they slept, with the swaying fern for pillows, and here the cuckoo called to them. And "Never," she sang, "would I quit Alba were it not that Naisi sailed thence in his ship."
But Naisi would not be dissuaded; so they met secretly many times, in the twilight at the verge of the wood, Deirdré's golden hair catching the last gleam of sunlight and holding it long into the darkness, while the black locks of Naisi, even ere sunset, foreshadowed the coming night.
Therefore at their meetings two clouds lay upon the heart of Naisi: the presentment of the king's power and anger, and his relentless hand pursuing through the night, and the darker dread of the sightless doom pronounced of old at the birth of Deirdré, of which the will of Concobar was but the tool. There was gloom in his eyes and silence on his lips and a secret dread in his heart.
And all his men and himself went out for to chase Naisi and his two brothers. But they never caught up with them at all for ten years, and Naisi and Deirdre living all the time as happy as two birds in the springtime." "No fighting at all yet," said Dennis, "and ten years gone by. Musha, indeed, 'tis not much of a tale at all." "There was fighting enough when the years were up," Eileen said.
It is this which makes him find the masterly conclusion to Riders of the Sea, when old Maurya, lamenting the death of her sons, comforts herself, "No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied;" it is this which gives Naisi the ancient love of life, "It's a hard and bitter thing leaving the earth;" which produces so admirable a proverb as, "Who would listen to an old woman with one thing and she saying it over?"; and enables Pegeen, in The Playboy of the Western World, to perceive, if only from pique, the preposterousness of her infatuation "There's a great gap," she says and this is the gist of the matter "between a gallous story and a dirty deed."
She so won the love of those set in guard over her that they relaxed something of the strictness of their watch, letting her wander a little in the meadows and the verges of the woods, gathering flowers, and watching the life of birds and wild things there. Among the chieftains of the court of Emain was one Usnac, of whom were three sons, with Naisi strongest and handsomest of the three.
When Deirdre saw that, she sighed and said, "Would that I had a husband whose hair was as the color of the raven, his cheeks as blood, and his skin as snow." "There is such a one," said Lavarcam, "he is Naisi the son of Usnach." After that here was no rest for Deirdre until she had seen Naisi.
And Naisi ordered Ardan to go to meet Fergus. Then Deirdre declared she knew the first call sent forth by Fergus. "'Why didst thou conceal it, then, my Queen? says Naisi. "'A vision I saw last night, says Deirdre, 'namely that three birds came unto us having three sups of honey in their beaks, and that they left them with us, and that they took three sups of our blood with them.
In their hearts it was not otherwise; for Deirdré, full of wonder at the change that had come over her, at the song of the birds that echoed ever around her even in her dreams, at the radiance of the flowers and trees, the sunshine on the waters of the river, the vivid gladness over all, Deirdré knew nothing of the dread doom that was upon her, and was all joy and wonderment at the meetings with her lover, full of fancies and tender words and shy caresses; but Naisi, who knew well the fate that overshadowed them like a black cloud above a cliff of the sea, strove to be glad and show a bold face to his mistress, though his heart many a time grew cold within him, thinking on what had befallen and what might befall.
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