Cormac had pictured him in robes of state in the great chair of a king, with the body guard of a king around him; and on his head the golden crown common to the bishops of Hibernia. Or, if indeed he had thought of him in sack-cloth, as was the custom amongst so many of the saints--he had imagined him as austere, and glorifying in his humility, with ashes on his head and his sack-cloth in rags. “Take time,” said Columba, “and gather your men about you--then cross the sea to Gwynned--to North Wales, and you will find men there in plenty to unite against the heathen!” Cormac was silent. A few hours ago he had felt the utmost fury against his late army. They had come that morning before the cote in which he lay and had sung a lament on the late event--a wild Hibernian wail telling of defeat and disaster, of the swift flight of horses pursuing and pursued, of the falling in trenches slippery with blood, of a black bog and hungry war-dogs, of showers of javelins and darts and the loss of gold and silver and fair women. The refrain ran: “Mead we drank--yellow, sweet, ensnaring! And under its bane fell prey to the foe-- Raining our red life-wine, in streams, in the valley!” They sang with mock tears, artfully trembling voices. Cormac, under the care of the man against whom they had conspired, writhed in shame as he heard them. After a time, under Columba’s pleading, he felt his heart soften to the bards. But, when he thought of Ethne, he grew like stone--for he knew hers was the treachery of which Columba had spoken. He remained obdurate when, later on, she implored him to allow her to accompany him to Wales. She protested that she was innocent, that she also had been deceived by the bards; but Cormac remained firm in his refusal to allow her to accompany him; he could run no risks in this second undertaking. He remained, for a time, in the little wattled cote; sharing the simple life of the saint who slept on a stone slab with a stone pillow beneath his head. Columba helped him to gather soldiers around him; and, by his powerful aid, made all the necessary arrangements for transporting his men to Wales. “Go, my son,” said the saint, as he gave him his blessing on his departure, “and God help you to restore the lost mother to the maid. But never think that, with the sword, the Saxons are to be conquered. The Cross, and not the Sword, will subdue them!” They were the prophetic words of one who had spent his life in converting a people almost as savage and invincible--the Picts. CHAPTER XII. THE FAIR. More than a year had gone by since his flight from Damnonia when Cormac found himself once more in Britain. Following the advice of S. Columba, he landed in Northern Wales; and, leaving the body of his warriors to follow, made haste to the great Fair on the banks of the Conway, in connection with the ancient assembly--the Gorsedd, from which arose, a little later, the Eisteddfod.