The Water of the Wondrous Isles by William Morris (love letters to the dead txt) 📗

such matters, her heart told her that this new house was fashioned for battle.

She was downcast when she saw the isle so rugged and forbidding, but when the boat came aland in a stony bight, whence the ground went up somewhat steeply toward the heights, she went ashore straightway, and toiled up toward the white battlement.  Presently she found herself in a strait and rugged path betwixt two walls of rock, so that she lost sight of the castle a while, till she came out on to a level place which looked down from aloft on to the blue water, but all over against her close at hand were the great towers and walls.  She was worn by the rough road, and over helpless she felt her, and all too little to deal with that huge morsel of the world; and her valiancy gave way, and her trust in her errand.  She sat down on a stone and wept abundantly.

After a while she was amended, and she looked up and saw the huge hold, and said: Yea, but if it were less by the half than it is, it would still be big enough to cow me.  Yet she stood not up.  Then she put forth a foot of her, and said aloud: Sorely hath this rough road tried Atra’s shoon and their goodly window-work; if they are to be known I must be speedy on my journey or go barefoot.

As she spoke she stood up, and the sound of her own voice frighted her, though nought noiseless was the place; for the wind was there, and beat to and fro the castle and the rock, and ran baffled into every corner of that market-place of nothing.  For in that garth was neither knight nor squire nor sergeant; no spear-head glittered from the wall, no gleam of helm showed from the war-swales; no porter was at the gate; the drawbridge over the deep ghyll was down, the portcullis was up, and the great door cast wide open.

Birdalone steeled her heart and went forward swiftly, and over the bridge, and entered the basecourt, and came without more ado to the door of the great hall, and opened it easily, as with the door of yesterday, looking to find another show like unto that one; and even so it fell out.

Forsooth the hall was nought light and lovely, and gay with gold and bright colours, as that other, but beset with huge round pillars that bore aloft a wide vault of stone, and of stone were the tables; and the hallings that hung on the wall were terrible pictures of battle and death, and the fall of cities, and towers a-tumbling and houses a-flaming.

None the less there also were the shapes of folk that moved not nor spake, though not so thronged was that hall as the other one; and it seemed as if men were sitting there at a council rather than a feast.  Close by Birdalone’s right hand as she entered were standing in a row along the screen big men-at-arms all weaponed, and their faces hidden by their sallets; and down below the dais on either side of the high table was again a throng of all-armed men; and at the high-table itself; and looking down the hall, sat three crowned kings, each with his drawn sword lying across his knees, and three long-hoary wise men stood before them at the nether side of the board.

Birdalone looked on it all, striving with her fear: but yet more there was, for she deemed that needs must she go through the hall up to the dais, lest the Sending Boat deny its obedience.  Up toward the dais she went then, passing by weaponed men who sat as if abiding the council’s end at the end-long tables.  And now, though no shape of man there spake or breathed, yet sound lacked not; for within the hall went the wind as without, and beat about from wall to wall, and drave clang and clash from the weapons hung up, and waved the arras, and fared moaning in the nooks, and hummed in the vault above.

Came she up to the dais then, and stood beside one of the wise men, and looked on the kings, and saw the mightiness which had been in them, and quaked before them.  Then she turned from them and looked down to the floor, and lo! there, just below the dais, lay a woman on a golden bier; exceeding fair had she been, with long yellow hair streaming down from her head; but now waxen white she was, with ashen lips and sunken cheeks.  Clad was she in raiment of purple and pall, but the bosom of her was bared on one side, and therein was the road whereby the steel had fared which had been her bane.

Now when Birdalone had gazed thereon a while, she deemed that if she tarried there long amidst those fierce men by the dead woman, she should lose her wit full soon, so sore the fear, held back, beset her now.  Wherefore she turned and went hastily down the hall, and out-a-doors, and over the bridge, and ran fleet-foot down the rocky way whereby she had come, till she could run no further, and lay down under a great stone breathless and fordone; yet her heart upheld her and suffered her not to swoon, belike because she had given her limbs such hard work to do.

There she lay awake and troubled for an hour or more, and then she fell asleep, and slept till the day was worn toward sunset, and nought meddled with her.  She arose and went to her ship somewhat downhearted, wondering how many such terrors should befall her; nay, whether the Sending Boat would so lead her that henceforth she should happen on no children of Adam but such as were dead images of the living.  Had all the world died since she left the Isle of the Young and the Old?

Howsoever, she had nought to do save to board her ferry, and content its greedy soul with her blood, and drive it with the spell-words.  And thereafter, when it was speeding on, and the twilight dusking apace, she looked aback, and seemed to see the far-off woodland in the northern ort, and the oak-clad ridge, where she had met her wood-mother; and then it was as if Habundia were saying to her: Meet again we shall.  And therewith straightway became life sweeter unto her.

Deepened then the dusk, and became night, and she floated on through it, and was asleep alone on the bosom of the water.

p. 141CHAPTER XII.  OF BIRDALONE, HOW SHE CAME UNTO THE ISLE OF NOTHING.

Long before sunrise, in the very morn-dusk, she awoke and found that her ferry had taken land again.  Little might she see what the said land was like; so she sat patiently and abode the day in the boat; but when day was come, little more was to see than erst.  For flat was the isle, and scarce raised above the wash of the leeward ripple on a fair day; nor was it either timbered or bushed or grassed, and, so far as Birdalone might see, no one foot of it differed in aught from another.  Natheless she deemed that she was bound to go ashore and seek out the adventure, or spoil her errand else.

Out of the boat she stepped then, and found the earth all paved of a middling gravel, and nought at all growing there, not even the smallest of herbs; and she stooped down and searched the gravel, and found neither worm nor beetle therein, nay nor any one of the sharp and slimy creatures which are wont in such ground.

A little further she went, and yet a little further, and no change there was in the land; and yet she went on and found nothing; and she wended her ways southward by the sun, and the day was windless.

At last she had gone a long way and had no sight of water south of the isle, nor had she seen any hill, nay, not so much as an ant-heap, whence she might look further around; and it seemed to her that she might go on for ever, and reach the heart of Nowhither at last.  Wherefore she thought she would turn back and depart this ugly isle, and that no other adventure abided her therein.  And by now it was high noon; and she turned about and took a few steps on the backward road.

But even therewith it seemed as if the sun, which heretofore had been shining brightly in the heavens, went out as a burnt-down candle, and all was become dull grey over head, as all under foot was a dull dun.  But Birdalone deemed she could follow a straight course back again, and so walked on sturdily.  Hour after hour she went and stayed not, but saw before her no glimpse of the northern shore, and no change in the aspect of the ground about her.

It had so happened that a little before she had turned to go back, she had eaten her dinner of a piece of bread and a morsel of cheese, and now as she stooped and peered on the ground, looking for some sign of the way, as her foot-prints going south, and had her eyes low anigh the earth, she saw something white at her feet in the gathering dusk (for the day was wearing), and she put her hand to it and lifted it, and found it a crumb of bread, and knew that it must have come from her dinner of’ seven hours ago, whereas till that time her bread had lain unbroken in her scrip.  Fear and anguish smote her therewith, for she saw that in that dull land, every piece whereof was like every other piece, she must have gone about in a ring, and come back again to where she first turned to make for the northern shore.

Yet would she not cast aside all hope, but clad herself in her valiancy.  Forsooth she knew it availed nought to try to move on in the twilight; so she laid herself down on that waste, and made up her mind to sleep if she might, and abide the new day there, and then to strive with the way once more, for belike, she thought, it may be fair to-morrow, and the sun shining.  And as she was very weary with tramping the waste all day, she fell asleep at once, and slept the short night through.

But when she awoke, and saw what the new day was, her heart fell indeed, for now was she encompassed and shut in with a thick dark mist (though it seemed to be broad day), so that had there been aught to see she would not have seen it her own length away from her.  So there she stood, hanging her head, and striving to think; but the master-thought of death drawing nigh scattered all other thoughts, or made them dim and feeble.

Long she stood there; but suddenly something came into her mind.  She set her hand to the fair-broidered pouch which hung from Viridis’ loin-girdle, and drew out thence flint and steel and tinder, which matters, forsooth, had served her before in the boat to make fire withal.  Then she set her hand to her head, and drew forth the tress of hair which Habundia had given her, and which was coiled up in the crown of her own abundant locks which decked her so gloriously; she drew two hairs from the said tress, and held them between her lips while she did up the tress in its place again, and then, pale and trembling, fell to striking a light, and when she had the tinder burning, she cried out:

O wood-mother, wood-mother!  How then may we meet again as thou didst promise me, if I die here in this empty waste?  O wood-mother, if thou mightest but come hither for my deliverance!

Then she burned the hairs one after another, and stood waiting, but nought befell a great while, and her heart sickened, and there she stood like a stone.

But in awhile, lo! there came as it were a shadow amidst the mist, or rather lying thereon, faint and colourless, and it was of the shape of the wood-mother, with girt-up gown and bow in hand.  Birdalone cried aloud with joy, and hastened toward the semblance, but came to it no nigher, and still she went, and the semblance still escaped her, and she followed on and on; and this lasted long, and faster and faster must she follow lest it vanish, and she gathered her skirts into her girdle, and fell to running fleet-foot after the fleeing shadow, which she loved dearly even amidst the jaws of death; and all her fleetness of foot had Birdalone to put forth in following up the chase; but even to die in the pain would