The Laird's Luck and Other Fireside Tales Part 31

"The Nazarite travels far; but this spot He overlooked on his travels, and the people had need. I brought them help; but they desert me now--for thee doubtless?"

The Saint bent his head. The Singer laughed.

"He is strong, but the old G.o.ds bear no malice. I go to-night to join their sleep, but I have loved this folk in a fashion. I pitied their woes and brought them solace: I taught them to forget--and in the forgetting maybe they have learned much that thou wilt have to unteach. Yet deal gently with them. They are children, and too often you holy men come with bands of iron. Shall we sit and talk awhile together, for their sakes?"

And the fable says that for a long day St. Leven sat on the sands of the Porth which now bears his name, and talked with the Singer; and, that in consequence, to this day the descendants of the people of Lyonnesse praise G.o.d in cheerfuller hymns than the rest of the world uses--so much so that a company of minstrels visiting them not long ago were surprised in the midst of a drinking-chorus to find the audience t.i.ttering, and to learn afterward that they had chanted the most popular local burying-tunes!

Twilight had fallen before the Stranger rose and took his farewell. On his way back he spied a company approaching along the dusky sh.o.r.e, and drew aside behind a rock while they pa.s.sed toward the Saint's dwelling. He found his own deserted. Of his old friends either none had come or none had waited; and away on a distant beach rose the faint chant of St. Patrick's Hymn of the Guardsman:

"_Christ the eye, the ear, the heart, Christ above, before, behind me; From the snare, the sword, the dart, On the Trinity I bind me-- Christi est salus, Christi est salus, Salus tua, Domine, sit semper n.o.bisc.u.m!_"