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

its four corners.  Tell me, fair child, sawest thou ever here at night-tide the shape of a youngling crowned with a garland straying about the house?

Nay, never at all, said Birdalone.  Said the wood-wife: Then maybe thou hast hallowed it with the wisdom and love of thee, and I may venture; and moreover I note that it is all builded of trees and the grass of the earth; and thou art free to use them by my leave.  But if aught befall of my coming under thy roof, heed it not too much, but think, whatsoever my aspect may be, I am thy wood-mother and wisdom-mother that loveth thee.  And I bid thee also wish with all thy might that my aspect may not change to thee.  Also, if I eat, thou wert best not to sign the meat as Adam’s sons are wont.  Lead in then; for now am I grown wilful, and will enter whatever betide.

Birdalone marvelled at those words, but she fell to wishing strongly that her friend might not lose her lovely youthful shape either then or ever, and she took her hand, which trembled somewhat, and led her over the threshold; and when they were under the roof herseemed that the wood-mother dwindled in a wondrous way, though her face was as sweet and her limbs as shapely as ever; and she laughed shrilly yet sweetly, and spake in a thin clear voice: Birdalone, my dear, wish strongly, wish strongly! though thou shalt see nothing worse of me than this.  And she was scarce three feet high, but as pretty as a picture.

Thereat indeed was Birdalone affrighted, but she wished all she might, and stooped down to kiss this little creature; and therewith again the wood-wife seemed to wax again as great and tall as ever she was, and her voice came full and strong again, as she laughed and said: Now is it all over for this time, and I see how well thou lovest me; and I pray thee love me no less for this wonder thou hast seen in me.  But now it were better that I never go under a roof again.  And she took her arms about Birdalone and clipped her lovingly; and glad was Birdalone to feel her so strong and solid again.

Then they sat to the board and ate a simple meal of bread and cheese and wood-berries, and drank milk withal; and the wood-mother was merry, and the smiles danced over her face as she looked on Birdalone with all loving-kindness, so that Birdalone wondered what was toward; but so light-hearted and happy she grew, that she deemed it might be nought save good.

But when they had eaten, then Birdalone did off her old coat, which she said was meet enough for her daily toil, and did on the fair green hunting-gown and the sandal-shoon, and girt her with the fair girdle which Habundia had fetched her, and drew up the laps of her gown therethrough till her legs were all free of the skirts.  And Habundia looked on her, and laughed and said: Now are these white and smooth legs as bad as the gleam-gown for the lying hid; but it may no better be, and thou must draw thy skirts down and stumble, if needs must be, when we come to the ambushment.

Birdalone reddened as she laughed at the word, and took down her bow and hung her quiver at her back and thrust her sharp knife into her girdle, and forth they went both of them, and were presently past the bent which went up from the meadows and in amongst Habundia’s trees.

p. 472CHAPTER XXII.  BIRDALONE WENDETH THE WILDWOOD IN FELLOWSHIP WITH HABUNDIA.

Now as they went their ways lightly through the wood, spake Habundia and said: Birdalone, my child, fair is the gold ring with the sapphire stone that the third finger of thy right hand beareth; seldom have I seen so fair a stone as that deep blue one; hangeth any tale thereby?  Said Birdalone: Did I not tell thee thereof, wood-mother, how that my beloved who is lost gave it unto me the very last time I saw him, woe worth the while?  Nay, said Habundia, I mind not the tale.  But deemest thou he would know it again if he saw it?  Yea, surely, said Birdalone, hanging her head; for when first he gave it, the gift was not to me, but to another woman.  And she held her peace, and went on with hanging head and all the glee faded out of her a while.

At last she turned to Habundia, and said: I have now bethought me to ask thee whither we be going and on what errand; for at first I was so glad at heart, I know not why, and it was so merry to be wending the wood with thee freely, that I had no thought in me as to whither and wherefore.  But now wilt thou tell me?

Said the wood-wife: How if I were to tell thee we were going a-hunting?  Birdalone said: Then I should ask thee what like the quarry were.  And suppose it were men? said the wood-wife.  Birdalone turned somewhat pale.  My mother, she said, if we be going against some of those men of the Red Bands, I am not happy over it.  I am no warrior, and fear strokes.  Said Habundia, laughing: Yet art thou a fell archer; and thou mayest shoot from an ambush of the thick leaves, since June is in to-day.  But neither would I slay or hurt any man, said Birdalone, but it were to save me from present death.

Habundia looked on her with a sly smile and said: Well maybe though we take cover and get within wind of our quarry thou shalt not need to speed an arrow to him.  Have patience therefore.  For this is a strange beast which I have marked down; he is not ill to look on, and his voice, which we may well hearken, for whiles he singeth, is rather sweet than surly.  What meanest thou, mother? said Birdalone, growing red and then paler yet; what man is it? since thy calling him a beast is a jest, is it not?

Nay, said Habundia, I neither name him nor know him; only I deem him by no means to be one of the Red Band.  For the rest, he may be a man in a beast’s skin, or a beast in a man’s skin, for aught I know; whereas he seems, so far as I have seen him, to be not wholly man-like or wholly beast-like.  But now let us hold our peace of him till we be come nigher to his haunt.

So they went on their way, and Birdalone said but little, while the wood-wife was of many words and gay.  They made all diligence, for Birdalone was not soon wearied, and moreover as now she was anxious and eager to see what would befall, which she might not but deem would be something great.

They went without stay till past noon, when they were come to a little shady dale wherethrough ran a clear stream; there they rested and bathed them, and thereafter sat under the boughs and ate the dainty meat which the wood-wife provided, howsoever she came by it; and when they had rested a while, the wood-wife turned the talk once more unto Arthur the Black Squire, and would have Birdalone tell her all nicely what manner of man he was; and Birdalone was nothing loth thereto; for had she her will she had talked of him day-long.

p. 475CHAPTER XXIII.  THE WOOD-WIFE BRINGETH BIRDALONE TO THE SIGHT OF ARTHUR IN THE WILDWOOD.

Now they go on again, no less speedily than before, and rest but little, until it was hard on an hour before sunset.  And now Habundia began to go warily, as if they were come anigh to their journey’s end and the thing that they sought.  They were come by now to a long bent of the forest well grown with big-boled oak-trees, not very close together, so that short fine greensward was all underneath them; and Habundia went heedfully from bole to bole, as if she would be ready to cover herself if need were; and Birdalone went after her, and was now flushed of face, and her eyes glittered, and her heart beat fast, and her legs trembled under her, as she went running from tree to tree.

So came they nigh to the crown of the bent, and before them were the oak-trees sparser and smaller as they went down the further side, which seemed by their sudden shortening to be steeper than the hither side; and betwixt them showed the topmost of thorn and whitebeam and logwood, intertwined with eglantine and honeysuckle and the new shoots of the traveller’s joy.  There the wood-wife put forth her hand to bid Birdalone stay, who came up to her friend and stood before her eager and quivering: and anon came the sound of a man’s voice singing, though they could hear no words in it as yet amidst the rustle of the trees and the tumult of song which the blackbirds and throstles raised in the dale below them.

Then spake the wood-wife softly: Hearken, we are right and the time is good, our beast is giving tongue: now below us is the bent-side steep, and goeth down into a very little dale with a clear stream running amidst; and therein is the very lair of the thing that we are hunting.  Wherefore now let us slip warily down between the bushes till we get close to the bottom, and then belike we shall see the very creature quite close, and we shall then consider and think what we shall do with him.

Birdalone had no voice wherewith to answer her, but she stole quietly along by her side till they came to the bank of the dale and plunged into the thicket that flourished there, and fell to threading it, making them as small as might be.  But ere they had gone but a little way the wordless song of what was below had ceased, and they heard the sweet tingle of the string-play, and the wood-wife stayed her to hearken, and the smiles went rippling over her face and she beat time with her fingers; but Birdalone, she stared wildly before her, and would have scrambled down the bank straightway at all hazards, for that string-play was a melody of the Castle of the Quest, but Habundia withheld her by the arm.  And then suddenly the music died, and there came up a voice of wailing and lamenting, and Birdalone put her hands and held the palms tight against her ears, and was at point to cry out aloud herself; but Habundia drew a hand of her down and whispered into her ear: Child, child, make thyself strong and forbear, and then perchance joy may come to thee; hold thy peace and come softly along with me!

So Birdalone forbore, and strove with her passion, though the sobs rent her bosom for a while; and by then the loud lamenting waned and was done, and the sound of sobbing came up from below, as it had been an echo of Birdalone’s grief.

Then Habundia drew her on again till they saw the level of the dale and its stream piecemeal betwixt the leaves, and they had a glimpse of a man on the hither side of the stream; and again they went lower, till they were well-nigh on a level with the greensward of the dale; and as Birdalone knelt with head bent low, and her hands covering her eyes, the wood-wife put away from before her the thick leaves of a hazel-bush, and whispering said: Child, child! look forth now and see what is before thee, and see if thou knowest him, or if he be strange to thee, and thy mother hath done nought for thee when all is said.

Birdalone looked up, pale and wild-eyed, and into the dale, and saw a man sitting on the grass by the stream-side with his head bowed down on to his knees and his face covered with his hands; he was clad but in two or three deerskins hung about him, with a strip of skin for a girdle, wherein was thrust a short sword; his brown hair hung down long and shaggy over his face.  Close by his side lay a little harp, and further off a short spear roughly hefted with an ash-staff.  He was beating the earth with his feet and writhing him about over them.  And Birdalone looked, and her breath well-nigh failed her.  For presently he sat more quietly, and lifted up his head, and she saw his face that it was Arthur, her beloved; and now she durst not move lest he should spring up and flee away; and the mingled pain and longing within her was sweet indeed, but well-nigh deadly.

Now his hand sought round