The Roots of the Mountains
by William Morris · English · Gutenberg #6050 · 841,932 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Roots of the Mountains
Author: William Morris
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6050]
Most recently updated: July 29, 2014
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6050
Credits: Transcribed from the 1896 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS ***
Transcribed from the 1896 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
THE ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS
WHEREIN IS TOLD SOMEWHAT OF
THE LIVES OF THE MEN OF BURG-
DALE THEIR FRIENDS THEIR
NEIGHBOURS THEIR FOEMEN AND
THEIR FELLOWS IN ARMS
BY WILLIAM MORRIS
Whiles carried o’er the iron road,
We hurry by some fair abode;
The garden bright amidst the hay,
The yellow wain upon the way,
The dining men, the wind that sweeps
Light locks from off the sun-sweet heaps—
The gable grey, the hoary roof,
Here now—and now so far aloof.
How sorely then we long to stay
And midst its sweetness wear the day,
And ’neath its changing shadows sit,
And feel ourselves a part of it.
Such rest, such stay, I strove to win
With these same leaves that lie herein.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY
MDCCCXCVI
* * * * *
_First Edition printed November_, 1889.
250 _copies were printed on Large Paper_.
_Second Edition_, _February_, 1893.
_CONTENTS_.
_Page_
_Chapter I_. _Of Burgstead and its Folk and its 1
Neighbours_
_II_. _Of Face-of-god and his Kindred_ 12
_III_. _They talk of divers matters in the Hall_ 18
_IV_. _Face-of-god fareth to the Wood again_ 25
_V_. _Face-of-god falls in with Menfolk on the 34
Mountain_
_VI_. _Of Face-of-god and those 39
Mountain-dwellers_
_VII_. _Face-of-god talketh with the Friend on the 50
Mountain_
_VIII_. _Face-of-god cometh home again to 57
Burgstead_
_IX_. _Those Brethren fare to the Yew-wood with 59
the Bride_
_X_. _New Tidings in the Dale_ 63
_XI_. _Men make Oath at Burgstead on the Holy 69
Boar_
_XII_. _Stone-face telleth concerning the 74
Wood-wights_
_XIII_. _They fare to the hunting of the elk_ 78
_XIV_. _Concerning Face-of-god and the Mountain_ 82
_XV_. _Murder amongst the Folk of the 87
Woodlanders_
_XVI_. _The Bride speaketh with Face-of-god_ 93
_XVII_. _The Token cometh from the Mountain_ 97
_XVIII_. _Face-of-god talketh with the Friend in 105
Shadowy Vale_
_XIX_. _The fair Woman telleth Face-of-god of her 109
Kindred_
_XX_. _Those two together hold the Ring of the 124
Earth-god_
_XXI_. _Face-of-god looketh on the Dusky Men_ 141
_XXII_. _Face-of-god cometh home to Burgstead_ 151
_XXIII_. _Talk in the Hall of the House of the Face_ 162
_XXIV_. _Face-of-god giveth that Token to the 165
Bride_
_XXV_. _Of the Gate-thing at Burgstead_ 170
_XXVI_. _The Ending of the Gate-thing_ 183
_XXVII_. _Face-of-god leadeth a Band through the 191
Wood_
_XXVIII_. _The Men of Burgdale meet the Runaways_ 202
_XXIX_. _They bring the Runaways to Burgstead_ 216
_XXX_. _Hall-face goeth toward Rose-dale_ 225
_XXXI_. _Of the Weapon-show of the Men of Burgdale 231
and their Neighbours_
_XXXII_. _The Men of Shadowy Vale come to the Spring 239
Market at Burgstead_
_XXXIII_. _The Alderman gives Gifts to them of 251
Shadowy Vale_
_XXXIV_. _The Chieftains take counsel in the Hall of 255
the Face_
_XXXV_. _Face-of-god talketh with the Sun-beam_ 268
_XXXVI_. _Folk-might speaketh with the Bride_ 275
_XXXVII_. _Of the Folk-mote of the Dalesmen_, _the 282
Shepherd-Folk_, _and the Woodland Carles_:
_the Banner of the Wolf displayed_
_XXXVIII_. _Of the Great Folk-mote_: _Atonements 287
given_, _and Men made sackless_
_XXXIX_. _Of the Great Folk-mote_: _Men take rede of 292
the War-faring_, _the Fellowship_, _and the
War-leader_. _Folk-might telleth whence
his People came_. _The Folk-mote sundered_
_XL_. _Of the Hosting in Shadowy Vale_ 301
_XLI_. _The Host departeth from Shadowy Vale_: 311
_the first Day’s journey_
_XLII_. _The Host cometh to the edges of 318
Silver-dale_
_XLIII_. _Face-of-god looketh on Silver-dale_: _the 322
Bowmen’s battle_
_XLIV_. _Of the Onslaught of the Men of the Steer_, 335
_the Bridge_, _and the Bull_
_XLV_. _Of Face-of-god’s Onslaught_ 343
_XLVI_. _Men meet in the Market of Silver-stead_ 352
_XLVII_. _The Kindreds win the Mote-house_ 363
_XLVIII_. _Men sing in the Mote-house_ 367
_XLIX_. _Dallach fareth to Rose-dale_: _Crow 372
telleth of his Errand_: _the Kindreds eat
their meat in Silver-dale_
_L_. _Folk-might seeth the Bride and speaketh 378
with her_
_LI_. _The Dead borne to bale_: _the Mote-house 382
re-hallowed_
_LII_. _Of the new Beginning of good Days in 384
Silver-dale_
_LIII_. _Of the Word which Hall-ward of the Steer 386
had for Folk-might_
_LIV_. _Tidings of Dallach_: _a Folk-mote in 391
Silver-dale_
_LV_. _Departure from Silver-dale_ 394
_LVI_. _Talk upon the Wild-wood Way_ 403
_LVII_. _How the Host came home again_ 404
_LVIII_. _How the Maiden Ward was held in Burgdale_ 409
_LIX_. _The Behest of Face-of-god to the Bride 418
accomplished_: _a Mote-stead appointed for
the three Folks_, _to wit_, _the Men of
Burgdale_, _the Shepherds_, _and the
Children of the Wolf_
CHAPTER I. OF BURGSTEAD AND ITS FOLK AND ITS NEIGHBOURS.
ONCE upon a time amidst the mountains and hills and falling streams of a
fair land there was a town or thorp in a certain valley. This was
well-nigh encompassed by a wall of sheer cliffs; toward the East and the
great mountains they drew together till they went near to meet, and left
but a narrow path on either side of a stony stream that came rattling
down into the Dale: toward the river at that end the hills lowered
somewhat, though they still ended in sheer rocks; but up from it, and
more especially on the north side, they swelled into great shoulders of
land, then dipped a little, and rose again into the sides of huge fells
clad with pine-woods, and cleft here and there by deep ghylls: thence
again they rose higher and steeper, and ever higher till they drew dark
and naked out of the woods to meet the snow-fields and ice-rivers of the
high mountains. But that was far away from the pass by the little river
into the valley; and the said river was no drain from the snow-fields
white and thick with the grinding of the ice, but clear and bright were
its waters that came from wells amidst the bare rocky heaths.
The upper end of the valley, where it first began to open out from the
pass, was rugged and broken by rocks and ridges of water-borne stones,
but presently it smoothed itself into mere grassy swellings and knolls,
and at last into a fair and fertile plain swelling up into a green wave,
as it were, against the rock-wall which encompassed it on all sides save
where the river came gushing out of the strait pass at the east end, and
where at the west end it poured itself out of the Dale toward the
lowlands and the plain of the great river.
Now the valley was some ten miles of our measure from that place of the
rocks and the stone-ridges, to where the faces of the hills drew somewhat
anigh to the river again at the west, and then fell aback along the edge
of the great plain; like as when ye fare a-sailing past two nesses of a
river-mouth, and the main-sea lieth open before you.
Besides the river afore-mentioned, which men called the Weltering Water,
there were other waters in the Dale. Near the eastern pass, entangled in
the rocky ground was a deep tarn full of cold springs and about two acres
in measure, and therefrom ran a stream which fell into the Weltering
Water amidst the grassy knolls. Black seemed the waters of that tarn
which on one side washed the rocks-wall of the Dale; ugly and aweful it
seemed to men, and none knew what lay beneath its waters save black
mis-shapen trouts that few cared to bring to net or angle: and it was
called the Death-Tarn.
Other waters yet there were: here and there from the hills on both sides,
but especially from the south side, came trickles of water that ran in
pretty brooks down to the river; and some of these sprang bubbling up
amidst the foot-mounds of the sheer-rocks; some had cleft a rugged and
strait way through them, and came tumbling down into the Dale at diverse
heights from their faces. But on the north side about halfway down the
Dale, one stream somewhat bigger than the others, and dealing with softer
ground, had cleft for itself a wider way; and the folk had laboured this
way wider yet, till they had made them a road running north along the
west side of the stream. Sooth to say, except for the strait pass along
the river at the eastern end, and the wider pass at the western, they had
no other way (save one of which a word anon) out of the Dale but such as
mountain goats and bold cragsmen might take; and even of these but few.
This midway stream was called the Wildlake, and the way along it
Wildlake’s Way, because it came to them out of the wood, which on that
north side stretched away from nigh to the lip of the valley-wall up to
the pine woods and the high fells on the east and north, and down to the
plain country on the west and south.
Now when the Weltering Water came out of the rocky tangle near the pass,
it was turned aside by the ground till it swung right up to the feet of
the Southern crags; then it turned and slowly bent round again northward,
and at last fairly doubled back on itself before it turned again to run
westward; so that when, after its second double, it had come to flowing
softly westward under the northern crags, it had cast two thirds of a
girdle round about a space of land a little below the grassy knolls and
tofts aforesaid; and there in that fair space between the folds of the
Weltering Water stood the Thorp whereof the tale hath told.
The men thereof had widened and deepened the Weltering Water about them,
and had bridged it over to the plain meads; and athwart the throat of the
space left clear by the water they had built them a strong wall though
not very high, with a gate amidst and a tower on either side thereof.
Moreover, on the face of the cliff which was but a stone’s throw from the
gate they had made them stairs and ladders to go up by; and on a knoll
nigh the brow had built a watch-tower of stone strong and great, lest war
should come into the land from over the hills. That tower was ancient,
and therefrom the Thorp had its name and the whole valley also; and it
was called Burgstead in Burgdale.
So long as the Weltering Water ran straight along by the northern cliffs
after it had left Burgstead, betwixt the water and the cliffs was a wide
flat way fashioned by man’s hand. Thus was the water again a good
defence to the Thorp, for it ran slow and deep there, and there was no
other ground betwixt it and the cliffs save that road, which was easy to
bar across so that no foemen might pass without battle, and this road was
called the Portway. For a long mile the river ran under the northern
cliffs, and then turned into the midst of the Dale, and went its way
westward a broad stream winding in gentle laps and folds here and there
down to the out-gate of the Dale. But the Portway held on still
underneath the rock-wall, till the sheer-rocks grew somewhat broken, and
were cumbered with certain screes, and at last the wayfarer came upon the
break in them, and the ghyll through which ran the Wildlake with
Wildlake’s Way beside it, but the Portway still went on all down the Dale
and away to the Plain-country.
That road in the ghyll, which was neither wide nor smooth, the wayfarer
into the wood must follow, till it lifted itself out of the ghyll, and
left the Wildlake coming rattling down by many steps from the east; and
now the way went straight north through the woodland, ever mounting
higher, (because the whole set of the land was toward the high fells,)
but not in any cleft or ghyll. The wood itself thereabout was thick, a
blended growth of diverse kinds of trees, but most of oak and ash; light
and air enough came through their boughs to suffer the holly and bramble
and eglantine and other small wood to grow together into thickets, which
no man could pass without hewing a way. But before it is told whereto
Wildlake’s Way led, it must be said that on the east side of the ghyll,
where it first began just over the Portway, the hill’s brow was clear of
wood for a certain space, and there, overlooking all the Dale, was the
Mote-stead of the Dalesmen, marked out by a great ring of stones, amidst
of which was the mound for the Judges and the Altar of the Gods before
it. And this was the holy place of the men of the Dale and of other folk
whereof the tale shall now tell.
For when Wildlake’s Way had gone some three miles from the Mote-stead,
the trees began to thin, and presently afterwards was a clearing and the
dwellings of men, built of timber as may well be thought. These houses
were neither rich nor great, nor was the folk a mighty folk, because they
were but a few, albeit body by body they were stout carles enough. They
had not affinity with the Dalesmen, and did not wed with them, yet it is
to be deemed that they were somewhat akin to them. To be short, though
they were freemen, yet as regards the Dalesmen were they well-nigh their
servants; for they were but poor in goods, and had to lean upon them
somewhat. No tillage they had among those high trees; and of beasts
nought save some flocks of goats and a few asses. Hunters they were, and
charcoal-burners, and therein the deftest of men, and they could shoot
well in the bow withal: so they trucked their charcoal and their smoked
venison and their peltries with the Dalesmen for wheat and wine and
weapons and weed; and the Dalesmen gave them main good pennyworths, as
men who had abundance wherewith to uphold their kinsmen, though they were
but far-away kin. Stout hands had these Woodlanders and true hearts as
any; but they were few-spoken and to those that needed them not somewhat
surly of speech and grim of visage: brown-skinned they were, but
light-haired; well-eyed, with but little red in their cheeks: their women
were not very fair, for they toiled like the men, or more. They were
thought to be wiser than most men in foreseeing things to come. They
were much given to spells, and songs of wizardry, and were very mindful
of the old story-lays, wherein they were far more wordy than in their
daily speech. Much skill had they in runes, and were exceeding deft in
scoring them on treen bowls, and on staves, and door-posts and roof-beams
and standing-beds and such like things. Many a day when the snow was
drifting over their roofs, and hanging heavy on the tree-boughs, and the
wind was roaring through the trees aloft and rattling about the close
thicket, when the boughs were clattering in the wind, and crashing down
beneath the weight of the gathering freezing snow, when all beasts and
men lay close in their lairs, would they sit long hours about the
house-fire with the knife or the gouge in hand, with the timber twixt
their knees and the whetstone beside them, hearkening to some tale of old
times and the days when their banner was abroad in the world; and they
the while wheedling into growth out of the tough wood knots and blossoms
and leaves and the images of beasts and warriors and women.
They were called nought save the Woodland-Carles in that day, though time
had been when they had borne a nobler name: and their abode was called
Carlstead. Shortly, for all they had and all they had not, for all they
were and all they were not, they were well-beloved by their friends and
feared by their foes.
Now when Wildlake’s Way was gotten to Carlstead, there was an end of it
toward the north; though beyond it in a right line the wood was thinner,
because of the hewing of the Carles. But the road itself turned west at
once and went on through the wood, till some four miles further it first
thinned and then ceased altogether, the ground going down-hill all the
way: for this was the lower flank of the first great upheaval toward the
high mountains. But presently, after the wood was ended, the land broke
into swelling downs and winding dales of no great height or depth, with a
few scattered trees about the hillsides, mostly thorns or scrubby oaks,
gnarled and bent and kept down by the western wind: here and there also
were yew-trees, and whiles the hillsides would be grown over with
box-wood, but none very great; and often juniper grew abundantly. This
then was the country of the Shepherds, who were friends both of the
Dalesmen and the Woodlanders. They dwelt not in any fenced town or
thorp, but their homesteads were scattered about as was handy for water
and shelter. Nevertheless they had their own stronghold; for amidmost of
their country, on the highest of a certain down above a bottom where a
willowy stream winded, was a great earthwork: the walls thereof were high
and clean and overlapping at the entering in, and amidst of it was a deep
well of water, so that it was a very defensible place: and thereto would
they drive their flocks and herds when war was in the land, for nought
but a very great host might win it; and this stronghold they called
Greenbury.
These Shepherd-Folk were strong and tall like the Woodlanders, for they
were partly of the same blood, but burnt they were both ruddy and brown:
they were of more words than the Woodlanders but yet not many-worded.
They knew well all those old story-lays, (and this partly by the
minstrelsy of the Woodlanders,) but they had scant skill in wizardry, and
would send for the Woodlanders, both men and women, to do whatso they
needed therein. They were very hale and long-lived, whereas they dwelt
in clear bright air, and they mostly went light-clad even in the winter,
so strong and merry were they. They wedded with the Woodlanders and the
Dalesmen both; at least certain houses of them did so. They grew no
corn; nought but a few pot-herbs, but had their meal of the Dalesmen; and
in the summer they drave some of their milch-kine into the Dale for the
abundance of grass there; whereas their own hills and bents and winding
valleys were not plenteously watered, except here and there as in the
bottom under Greenbury. No swine they had, and but few horses, but of
sheep very many, and of the best both for their flesh and their wool.
Yet were they nought so deft craftsmen at the loom as were the Dalesmen,
and their women were not very eager at the weaving, though they loathed
not the spindle and rock. Shortly, they were merry folk well-beloved of
the Dalesmen, quick to wrath, though it abode not long with them; not
very curious in their houses and halls, which were but little, and were
decked mostly with the handiwork of the Woodland-Carles their guests; who
when they were abiding with them, would oft stand long hours nose to
beam, scoring and nicking and hammering, answering no word spoken to them
but with aye or no, desiring nought save the endurance of the daylight.
Moreover, this shepherd-folk heeded not gay raiment over-much, but
commonly went clad in white woollen or sheep-brown weed.
But beyond this shepherd-folk were more downs and more, scantily peopled,
and that after a while by folk with whom they had no kinship or affinity,
and who were at whiles their foes. Yet was there no enduring enmity
between them; and ever after war and battle came peace; and all
blood-wites were duly paid and no long feud followed: nor were the
Dalesmen and the Woodlanders always in these wars, though at whiles they
were. Thus then it fared with these people.
But now that we have told of the folks with whom the Dalesmen had
kinship, affinity, and friendship, tell we of their chief abode,
Burgstead to wit, and of its fashion. As hath been told, it lay upon the
land made nigh into an isle by the folds of the Weltering Water towards
the uppermost end of the Dale; and it was warded by the deep water, and
by the wall aforesaid with its towers. Now the Dale at its widest, to
wit where Wildlake fell into it, was but nine furlongs over, but at
Burgstead it was far narrower; so that betwixt the wall and the wandering
stream there was but a space of fifty acres, and therein lay Burgstead in
a space of the shape of a sword-pommel: and the houses of the kinships
lay about it, amidst of gardens and orchards, but little ordered into
streets and lanes, save that a way went clean through everything from the
tower-warded gate to the bridge over the Water, which was warded by two
other towers on its hither side.
As to the houses, they were some bigger, some smaller, as the housemates
needed. Some were old, but not very old, save two only, and some quite
new, but of these there were not many: they were all built fairly of
stone and lime, with much fair and curious carved work of knots and
beasts and men round about the doors; or whiles a wale of such-like work
all along the house-front. For as deft as were the Woodlanders with
knife and gouge on the oaken beams, even so deft were the Dalesmen with
mallet and chisel on the face of the hewn stone; and this was a great
pastime about the Thorp. Within these houses had but a hall and solar,
with shut-beds out from the hall on one side or two, with whatso of
kitchen and buttery and out-bower men deemed handy. Many men dwelt in
each house, either kinsfolk, or such as were joined to the kindred.
Near to the gate of Burgstead in that street aforesaid and facing east
was the biggest house of the Thorp; it was one of the two abovesaid which
were older than any other. Its door-posts and the lintel of the door
were carved with knots and twining stems fairer than other houses of that
stead; and on the wall beside the door carved over many stones was an
image wrought in the likeness of a man with a wide face, which was
terrible to behold, although it smiled: he bore a bent bow in his hand
with an arrow fitted to its string, and about the head of him was a ring
of rays like the beams of the sun, and at his feet was a dragon, which
had crept, as it were, from amidst of the blossomed knots of the
door-post wherewith the tail of him was yet entwined. And this head with
the ring of rays about it was wrought into the adornment of that house,
both within and without, in many other places, but on never another house
of the Dale; and it was called the House of the Face. Thereof hath the
tale much to tell hereafter, but as now it goeth on to tell of the ways
of life of the Dalesmen.
In Burgstead was no Mote-hall or Town-house or Church, such as we wot of
in these days; and their market-place was wheresoever any might choose to
pitch a booth: but for the most part this was done in the wide street
betwixt the gate and the bridge. As to a meeting-place, were there any
small matters between man and man, these would the Alderman or one of the
Wardens deal with, sitting in Court with the neighbours on the wide space
just outside the Gate: but if it were to do with greater matters, such as
great manslayings and blood-wites, or the making of war or ending of it,
or the choosing of the Alderman and the Wardens, such matters must be put
off to the Folk-mote, which could but be held in the place aforesaid
where was the Doom-ring and the Altar of the Gods; and at that Folk-mote
both the Shepherd-Folk and the Woodland-Carles foregathered with the
Dalesmen, and duly said their say. There also they held their great
casts and made offerings to the Gods for the Fruitfulness of the Year,
the ingathering of the increase, and in Memory of their Forefathers.
Natheless at Yule-tide also they feasted from house to house to be glad
with the rest of Midwinter, and many a cup drank at those feasts to the
memory of the fathers, and the days when the world was wider to them, and
their banners fared far afield.
But besides these dwellings of men in the field between the wall and the
water, there were homesteads up and down the Dale whereso men found it
easy and pleasant to dwell: their halls were built of much the same
fashion as those within the Thorp; but many had a high garth-wall cast
about them, so that they might make a stout defence in their own houses
if war came into the Dale.
As to their work afield; in many places the Dale was fair with growth of
trees, and especially were there long groves of sweet chestnut standing
on the grass, of the fruit whereof the folk had much gain. Also on the
south side nigh to the western end was a wood or two of yew-trees very
great and old, whence they gat them bow-staves, for the Dalesmen also
shot well in the bow. Much wheat and rye they raised in the Dale, and
especially at the nether end thereof. Apples and pears and cherries and
plums they had in plenty; of which trees, some grew about the borders of
the acres, some in the gardens of the Thorp and the homesteads. On the
slopes that had grown from the breaking down here and there of the
Northern cliffs, and which faced the South and the Sun’s burning, were
rows of goodly vines, whereof the folk made them enough and to spare of
strong wine both white and red.
As to their beasts; swine they had a many, but not many sheep, since
herein they trusted to their trucking with their friends the Shepherds;
they had horses, and yet but a few, for they were stout in going afoot;
and, had they a journey to make with women big with babes, or with
children or outworn elders, they would yoke their oxen to their wains,
and go fair and softly whither they would. But the said oxen and all
their neat were exceeding big and fair, far other than the little beasts
of the Shepherd-Folk; they were either dun of colour, or white with black
horns (and those very great) and black tail-tufts and ear-tips. Asses
they had, and mules for the paths of the mountains to the east; geese and
hens enough, and dogs not a few, great hounds stronger than wolves,
sharp-nosed, long-jawed, dun of colour, shag-haired.
As to their wares; they were very deft weavers of wool and flax, and made
a shift to dye the thrums in fair colours; since both woad and madder
came to them good cheap by means of the merchants of the plain country,
and of greening weeds was abundance at hand. Good smiths they were in
all the metals: they washed somewhat of gold out of the sands of the
Weltering Water, and copper and tin they fetched from the rocks of the
eastern mountains; but of silver they saw little, and iron they must buy
of the merchants of the plain, who came to them twice in the year, to wit
in the spring and the late autumn just before the snows. Their wares
they bought with wool spun and in the fleece, and fine cloth, and skins
of wine and young neat both steers and heifers, and wrought copper bowls,
and gold and copper by weight, for they had no stamped money. And they
guested these merchants well, for they loved them, because of the tales
they told them of the Plain and its cities, and the manslayings therein,
and the fall of Kings and Dukes, and the uprising of Captains.
Thus then lived this folk in much plenty and ease of life, though not
delicately nor desiring things out of measure. They wrought with their
hands and wearied themselves; and they rested from their toil and feasted
and were merry: to-morrow was not a burden to them, nor yesterday a thing
which they would fain forget: life shamed them not, nor did death make
them afraid.
As for the Dale wherein they dwelt, it was indeed most fair and lovely,
and they deemed it the Blessing of the Earth, and they trod its flowery
grass beside its rippled streams amidst its green tree-boughs proudly and
joyfully with goodly bodies and merry hearts.
CHAPTER II. OF FACE-OF-GOD AND HIS KINDRED.
TELLS the tale, that on an evening of late autumn when the weather was
fair, calm, and sunny, there came a man out of the wood hard by the
Mote-stead aforesaid, who sat him down at the roots of the Speech-mound,
casting down before him a roe-buck which he had just slain in the wood.
He was a young man of three and twenty summers; he was so clad that he
had on him a sheep-brown kirtle and leggings of like stuff bound about
with white leather thongs; he bore a short-sword in his girdle and a
little axe withal; the sword with fair wrought gilded hilts and a
dew-shoe of like fashion to its sheath. He had his quiver at his back
and bare in his hand his bow unstrung. He was tall and strong, very fair
of fashion both of limbs and face, white-skinned, but for the sun’s
tanning, and ruddy-cheeked: his beard was little and fine, his hair
yellow and curling, cut somewhat close, but for its length so plenteous,
and so thick, that none could fail to note it. He had no hat nor hood
upon his head, nought but a fillet of golden beads.
As he sat down he glanced at the dale below him with a well-pleased look,
and then cast his eyes down to the grass at his feet, as though to hold a
little longer all unchanged the image of the fair place he had just seen.
The sun was low in the heavens, and his slant beams fell yellow all up
the dale, gilding the chestnut groves grown dusk and grey with autumn,
and the black masses of the elm-boughs, and gleaming back here and there
from the pools of the Weltering Water. Down in the midmost meadows the
long-horned dun kine were moving slowly as they fed along the edges of
the stream, and a dog was bounding about with exceeding swiftness here
and there among them. At a sharply curved bight of the river the man
could see a little vermilion flame flickering about, and above it a thin
blue veil of smoke hanging in the air, and clinging to the boughs of the
willows anear; about it were a dozen menfolk clear to see, some sitting,
some standing, some walking to and fro, but all in company together: four
of were brown-clad and short-skirted like himself, and from above the
hand of one came a flash of light as the sun smote upon the steel of his
spear. The others were long-skirted and clad gayer, and amongst them
were red and blue and green and white garments, and they were clear to be
seen for women. Just as the young man looked up again, those of them who
were sitting down rose up, and those that were strolling drew nigh, and
they joined hands together, and fell to dancing on the grass, and the dog
and another one with him came up to the dancers and raced about and
betwixt them; and so clear to see were they all and so little, being far
away, that they looked like dainty well-wrought puppets.
The young man sat smiling at it for a little, and then rose up and
shouldered his venison, and went down into Wildlake’s Way, and presently
was fairly in the Dale and striding along the Portway beside the northern
cliffs, whose greyness was gilded yet by the last rays of the sun, though
in a minute or two it would go under the western rim. He went fast and
cheerily, murmuring to himself snatches of old songs; none overtook him
on the road, but he overtook divers folk going alone or in company toward
Burgstead; swains and old men, mothers and maidens coming from the field
and the acre, or going from house to house; and one or two he met but not
many. All these greeted him kindly, and he them again; but he stayed not
to speak with any, but went as one in haste.
It was dusk by then he passed under the gate of Burgstead; he went
straight thence to the door of the House of the Face, and entered as one
who is at home, and need go no further, nor abide a bidding.
The hall he came into straight out of the open air was long and somewhat
narrow and not right high; it was well-nigh dark now within, but since he
knew where to look, he could see by the flicker that leapt up now and
then from the smouldering brands of the hearth amidmost the hall under
the luffer, that there were but three men therein, and belike they were
even they whom he looked to find there, and for their part they looked
for his coming, and knew his step.
He set down his venison on the floor, and cried out in a cheery voice:
‘Ho, Kettel! Are all men gone without doors to sleep so near the
winter-tide, that the Hall is as dark as a cave? Hither to me! Or art
thou also sleeping?’
A voice came from the further side of the hearth: ‘Yea, lord, asleep I
am, and have been, and dreaming; and in my dream I dealt with the
flesh-pots and the cake-board, and thou shalt see my dream come true
presently to thy gain.’
Quoth another voice: ‘Kettel hath had out that share of his dream already
belike, if the saw sayeth sooth about cooks. All ye have been away, so
belike he hath done as Rafe’s dog when Rafe ran away from the slain
buck.’
He laughed therewith, and Kettel with him, and a third voice joined the
laughter. The young man also laughed and said: ‘Here I bring the venison
which my kinsman desired; but as ye see I have brought it over-late: but
take it, Kettel. When cometh my father from the stithy?’
Quoth Kettel: ‘My lord hath been hard at it shaping the Yule-tide sword,
and doth not lightly leave such work, as ye wot, but he will be here
presently, for he has sent to bid us dight for supper straightway.’
Said the young man: ‘Where are there lords in the dale, Kettel, or hast
thou made some thyself, that thou must be always throwing them in my
teeth?’
‘Son of the Alderman,’ said Kettel, ‘ye call me Kettel, which is no name
of mine, so why should I not call thee lord, which is no dignity of
thine, since it goes well over my tongue from old use and wont? But here
comes my mate of the kettle, and the women and lads. Sit down by the
hearth away from their hurry, and I will fetch thee the hand-water.’
The young man sat down, and Kettel took up the venison and went his ways
toward the door at the lower end of the hall; but ere he reached it it
opened, and a noisy crowd entered of men, women, boys, and dogs, some
bearing great wax candles, some bowls and cups and dishes and trenchers,
and some the boards for the meal.
The young man sat quiet smiling and winking his eyes at the sudden flood
of light let into the dark place; he took in without looking at this or
the other thing the aspect of his Fathers’ House, so long familiar to
him; yet to-night he had a pleasure in it above his wont, and in all the
stir of the household; for the thought of the wood wherein he had
wandered all day yet hung heavy upon him. Came one of the girls and cast
fresh brands on the smouldering fire and stirred it into a blaze, and the
wax candles were set up on the daïs, so that between them and the
mew-quickened fire every corner of the hall was bright. As aforesaid it
was long and narrow, over-arched with stone and not right high, the
windows high up under the springing of the roof-arch and all on the side
toward the street; over against them were the arches of the shut-beds of
the housemates. The walls were bare that evening, but folk were wont to
hang up hallings of woven pictures thereon when feasts and high-days were
toward; and all along the walls were the tenter-hooks for that purpose,
and divers weapons and tools were hanging from them here and there.
About the daïs behind the thwart-table were now stuck for adornment leavy
boughs of oak now just beginning to turn with the first frosts. High up
on the gable wall above the tenter-hooks for the hangings were carven
fair imagery and knots and twining stems; for there in the hewn atone was
set forth that same image with the rayed head that was on the outside
wall, and he was smiting the dragon and slaying him; but here inside the
house all this was stained in fair and lively colours, and the sun-like
rays round the head of the image were of beaten gold. At the lower end
of the hall were two doors going into the butteries, and kitchen, and
other out-bowers; and above these doors was a loft upborne by stone
pillars, which loft was the sleeping chamber of the goodman of the house;
but the outward door was halfway between the said loft and the hearth of
the hall.
So the young man took the shoes from his feet and then sat watching the
women and lads arraying the boards, till Kettel came again to him with an
old woman bearing the ewer and basin, who washed his feet and poured the
water over his hands, and gave him the towel with fair-broidered ends to
dry them withal.
Scarce had he made an end of this ere through the outer door came in
three men and a young woman with them; the foremost of these was a man
younger by some two years than the first-comer, but so like him that none
might misdoubt that he was his brother; the next was an old man with a
long white beard, but hale and upright; and lastly came a man of
middle-age, who led the young woman by the hand. He was taller than the
first of the young men, though the other who entered with him outwent him
in height; a stark carle he was, broad across the shoulders, thin in the
flank, long-armed and big-handed; very noble and well-fashioned of
countenance, with a straight nose and grey eyes underneath a broad brow:
his hair grown somewhat scanty was done about with a fillet of golden
beads like the young men his sons. For indeed this was their father, and
the master of the House.
His name was Iron-face, for he was the deftest of weapon-smiths, and he
was the Alderman of the Dalesmen, and well-beloved of them; his kindred
was deemed the noblest of the Dale, and long had they dwelt in the House
of the Face. But of his sons the youngest, the new-comer, was named
Hall-face, and his brother the elder Face-of-god; which name was of old
use amongst the kindred, and many great men and stout warriors had borne
it aforetime: and this young man, in great love had he been gotten, and
in much hope had he been reared, and therefore had he been named after
the best of the kindred. But his mother, who was hight the Jewel, and
had been a very fair woman, was dead now, and Iron-face lacked a wife.
Face-of-god was well-beloved of his kindred and of all the Folk of the
Dale, and he had gotten a to-name, and was called Gold-mane because of
the abundance and fairness of his hair.
As for the young woman that was led in by Iron-face, she was the
betrothed of Face-of-god, and her name was the Bride. She looked with
such eyes of love on him when she saw him in the hall, as though she had
never seen him before but once, nor loved him but since yesterday; though
in truth they had grown up together and had seen each other most days of
the year for many years. She was of the kindred with whom the chiefs and
great men of the Face mostly wedded, which was indeed far away kindred of
them. She was a fair woman and strong: not easily daunted amidst perils
she was hardy and handy and light-foot: she could swim as well as any,
and could shoot well in the bow, and wield sword and spear: yet was she
kind and compassionate, and of great courtesy, and the very dogs and kine
trusted in her and loved her. Her hair was dark red of hue, long and
fine and plenteous, her eyes great and brown, her brow broad and very
fair, her lips fine and red: her cheek not ruddy, yet nowise sallow, but
clear and bright: tall she was and of excellent fashion, but well-knit
and well-measured rather than slender and wavering as the willow-bough.
Her voice was sweet and soft, her words few, but exceeding dear to the
listener. In short, she was a woman born to be the ransom of her Folk.
Now as to the names which the menfolk of the Face bore, and they an
ancient kindred, a kindred of chieftains, it has been said that in times
past their image of the God of the Earth had over his treen face a mask
of beaten gold fashioned to the shape of the image; and that when the
Alderman of the Folk died, he to wit who served the God and bore on his
arm the gold-ring between the people and the altar, this visor or face of
God was laid over the face of him who had been in a manner his priest,
and therewith he was borne to mound; and the new Alderman and priest had
it in charge to fashion a new visor for the God; and whereas for long
this great kindred had been chieftains of the people, they had been, and
were all so named, that the word Face was ever a part of their names.
CHAPTER III. THEY TALK OF DIVERS MATTERS IN THE HALL.
NOW Face-of-god, who is also called Gold-mane, rose up to meet the
new-comers, and each of them greeted him kindly, and the Bride kissed him
on the cheek, and he her in likewise; and he looked kindly on her, and
took her hand, and went on up the hall to the daïs, following his father
and the old man; as for him, he was of the kindred of the House, and was
foster-father of Iron-face and of his sons both; and his name was
Stone-face: a stark warrior had he been when he was young, and even now
he could do a man’s work in the battlefield, and his understanding was as
good as that of a man in his prime. So went these and four others up on
to the daïs and sat down before the thwart-table looking down the hall,
for the meat was now on the board; and of the others there were some
fifty men and women who were deemed to be of the kindred and sat at the
endlong tables.
So then the Alderman stood up and made the sign of the Hammer over the
meat, the token of his craft and of his God. Then they fell to with good
hearts, for there was enough and to spare of meat and drink. There was
bread and flesh (though not Gold-mane’s venison), and leeks and roasted
chestnuts of the grove, and red-cheeked apples of the garth, and honey
enough of that year’s gathering, and medlars sharp and mellow: moreover,
good wine of the western bents went up and down the hall in great gilded
copper bowls and in mazers girt and lipped with gold.
But when they were full of meat, and had drunken somewhat, they fell to
speech, and Iron-face spake aloud to his son, who had but been speaking
softly to the Bride as one playmate to the other: but the Alderman said:
‘Scarce are the wood-deer grown, kinsman, when I must needs eat sheep’s
flesh on a Thursday, though my son has lain abroad in the woods all night
to hunt for me.’
And therewith he smiled in the young man’s face; but Gold-mane reddened
and said: ‘So is it, kinsman, I can hit what I can see; but not what is
hidden.’
Iron-face laughed and said: ‘Hast thou been to the Woodland-Carles? are
their women fairer than our cousins?’
Face-of-god took up the Bride’s hand in his and kissed it and laid it to
his cheek; and then turned to his father and said: ‘Nay, father, I saw
not the Wood-carles, nor went to their abode; and on no day do I lust
after their women. Moreover, I brought home a roebuck of the fattest;
but I was over-late for Kettel, and the flesh was ready for the board by
then I came.’
‘Well, son,’ quoth Iron-face, for he was merry, ‘a roebuck is but a
little deer for such big men as are thou and I. But I rede thee take the
Bride along with thee the next time; and she shall seek whilest thou
sleepest, and hit when thou missest.’
Then Face-of-god smiled, but he frowned somewhat also, and he said: ‘Well
were that, indeed! But if ye must needs drag a true tale out of me: that
roebuck I shot at the very edge of the wood nigh to the Mote-stead as I
was coming home: harts had I seen in the wood and its lawns, and boars,
and bucks, and loosed not at them: for indeed when I awoke in the morning
in that wood-lawn ye wot of, I wandered up and down with my bow unbent.
So it was that I fared as if I were seeking something, I know not what,
that should fill up something lacking to me, I know not what. Thus I
felt in myself even so long as I was underneath the black boughs, and
there was none beside me and before me, and none to turn aback to: but
when I came out again into the sunshine, and I saw the fair dale, and the
happy abode lying before me, and folk abroad in the meads merry in the
eventide; then was I full fain of it, and loathed the wood as an empty
thing that had nought to give me; and lo you! all that I had been longing
for in the wood, was it not in this House and ready to my hand?—and that
is good meseemeth.’
Therewith he drank of the cup which the Bride put into his hand after she
had kissed the rim, but when he had set it down again he spake once more:
‘And yet now I am sitting honoured and well-beloved in the House of my
Fathers, with the holy hearth sparkling and gleaming down there before
me; and she that shall bear my children sitting soft and kind by my side,
and the bold lads I shall one day lead in battle drinking out of my very
cup: now it seems to me that amidst all this, the dark cold wood, wherein
abide but the beasts and the Foes of the Gods, is bidding me to it and
drawing me thither. Narrow is the Dale and the World is wide; I would it
were dawn and daylight, that I might be afoot again.’
And he half rose up from his place. But his father bent his brow on him
and said: ‘Kinsman, thou hast a long tongue for a half-trained whelp: nor
see I whitherward thy mind is wandering, but if it be on the road of a
lad’s desire to go further and fare worse. Hearken then, I will offer
thee somewhat! Soon shall the West-country merchants be here with their
winter truck. How sayest thou? hast thou a mind to fare back with them,
and look on the Plain and its Cities, and take and give with the
strangers? To whom indeed thou shalt be nothing save a purse with a few
lumps of gold in it, or maybe a spear in the stranger’s band on the
stricken field, or a bow on the wall of an alien city. This is a craft
which thou mayst well learn, since thou shalt be a chieftain; a craft
good to learn, however grievous it be in the learning. And I myself have
been there; for in my youth I desired sore to look on the world beyond
the mountains; so I went, and I filled my belly with the fruit of my own
desires, and a bitter meat was that; but now that it has passed through
me, and I yet alive, belike I am more of a grown man for having endured
its gripe. Even so may it well be with thee, son; so go if thou wilt;
and thou shalt go with my blessing, and with gold and wares and wain and
spearmen.’
‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘I thank thee, for it is well offered; but I
will not go, for I have no lust for the Plain and its Cities; I love the
Dale well, and all that is round about it; therein will I live and die.’
Therewith he fell a-musing; and the Bride looked at him anxiously, but
spake not. Sooth to say her heart was sinking, as though she foreboded
some new thing, which should thrust itself into their merry life.
But the old man Stone-face took up the word and said:
‘Son Gold-mane, it behoveth me to speak, since belike I know the
wild-wood better than most, and have done for these three-score and ten
years; to my cost. Now I perceive that thou longest for the wood and the
innermost of it; and wot ye what? This longing will at whiles entangle
the sons of our chieftains, though this Alderman that now is hath been
free therefrom, which is well for him. For, time was this longing came
over me, and I went whither it led me: overlong it were to tell of all
that befell me because of it, and how my heart bled thereby. So sorry
were the tidings that came of it, that now meseemeth my heart should be
of stone and not my face, had it not been for the love wherewith I have
loved the sons of the kindred. Therefore, son, it were not ill if ye
went west away with the merchants this winter, and learned the dealings
of the cities, and brought us back tales thereof.’
But Gold-mane cried out somewhat angrily, ‘I tell thee, foster-father,
that I have no mind for the cities and their men and their fools and
their whores and their runagates. But as for the wood and its wonders, I
have done with it, save for hunting there along with others of the Folk.
So let thy mind be at ease; and for the rest, I will do what the Alderman
commandeth, and whatso my father craveth of me.’
‘And that is well, son,’ said Stone-face, ‘if what ye say come to pass,
as sore I misdoubt me it will not. But well it were, well it were! For
such things are in the wood, yea and before ye come to its innermost, as
may well try the stoutest heart. Therein are Kobbolds, and Wights that
love not men, things unto whom the grief of men is as the sound of the
fiddle-bow unto us. And there abide the ghosts of those that may not
rest; and there wander the dwarfs and the mountain-dwellers, the dealers
in marvels, the givers of gifts that destroy Houses; the forgers of the
curse that clingeth and the murder that flitteth to and fro. There
moreover are the lairs of Wights in the shapes of women, that draw a
young man’s heart out of his body, and fill up the empty place with
desire never to be satisfied, that they may mock him therewith and waste
his manhood and destroy him. Nor say I much of the strong-thieves that
dwell there, since thou art a valiant sword; or of them who have been
made Wolves of the Holy Places; or of the Murder-Carles, the remnants and
off-scourings of wicked and wretched Folks—men who think as much of the
life of a man as of the life of a fly. Yet happiest is the man whom they
shall tear in pieces, than he who shall live burdened by the curse of the
Foes of the Gods.’
The housemaster looked on his son as the old carle spake, and a cloud
gathered on his face a while; and when Stone-face had made an end he
spake:
‘This is long and evil talk for the end of a merry day, O fosterer! Wilt
thou not drink a draught, O Redesman, and then stand up and set thy
fiddle-bow a-dancing, and cause it draw some fair words after it? For my
cousin’s face hath grown sadder than a young maid’s should be, and my
son’s eyes gleam with thoughts that are far away from us and abroad in
the wild-wood seeking marvels.’
Then arose a man of middle-age from the top of the endlong bench on the
east side of the hall: a man tall, thin and scant-haired, with a nose
like an eagle’s neb: he reached out his hand for the bowl, and when they
had given to him he handled it, and raised it aloft and cried:
‘Here I drink a double health to Face-of-god and the Bride, and the love
that lieth between them, and the love betwixt them twain and us.’
He drank therewith, and the wine went up and down the hall, and all men
drank, both carles and queens, with shouting and great joy. Then
Redesman put down the cup (for it had come into his hands again), and
reached his hand to the wall behind him, and took down his fiddle hanging
there in its case, and drew it out and fell to tuning it, while the hall
grew silent to hearken: then he handled the bow and laid it on the
strings till they wailed and chuckled sweetly, and when the song was well
awake and stirring briskly, then he lifted up his voice and sang:
_The Minstrel saith_:
‘O why on this morning, ye maids, are ye tripping
Aloof from the meadows yet fresh with the dew,
Where under the west wind the river is lipping
The fragrance of mint, the white blooms and the blue?
For rough is the Portway where panting ye wander;
On your feet and your gown-hems the dust lieth dun;
Come trip through the grass and the meadow-sweet yonder,
And forget neath the willows the sword of the sun.
_The Maidens answer_:
Though fair are the moon-daisies down by the river,
And soft is the grass and the white clover sweet;
Though twixt us and the rock-wall the hot glare doth quiver,
And the dust of the wheel-way is dun on our feet;
Yet here on the way shall we walk on this morning
Though the sun burneth here, and sweet, cool is the mead;
For here when in old days the Burg gave its warning,
Stood stark under weapons the doughty of deed.
Here came on the aliens their proud words a-crying,
And here on our threshold they stumbled and fell;
Here silent at even the steel-clad were lying,
And here were our mothers the story to tell.
Here then on the morn of the eve of the wedding
We pray to the Mighty that we too may bear
Such war-walls for warding of orchard and steading,
That the new days be merry as old days were dear.’
Therewith he made an end, and shouts and glad cries arose all about the
hall; and an old man arose and cried: ‘A cup to the memory of the Mighty
of the Day of the Warding of the Ways.’ For you must know this song told
of a custom of the Folk, held in memory of a time of bygone battle,
wherein they had overthrown a great host of aliens on the Portway betwixt
the river and the cliffs, two furlongs from the gate of Burgstead. So
now two weeks before Midsummer those maidens who were presently to be
wedded went early in the morning to that place clad in very fair raiment,
swords girt to their sides and spears in their hands, and abode there on
the highway from morn till even as though they were a guard to it. And
they made merry there, singing songs and telling tales of times past: and
at the sunsetting their grooms came to fetch them away to the Feast of
the Eve of the Wedding.
While the song was a-singing Face-of-god took the Bride’s hand in his and
caressed it, and was soft and blithe with her; and she reddened and
trembled for pleasure, and called to mind wedding feasts that had been,
and fair brides that she had seen thereat, and she forgot her fears and
her heart was at peace again.
And Iron-face looked well-pleased on the two from time to time, and
smiled, but forbore words to them.
But up and down the hall men talked with one another about things long
ago betid: for their hearts were high and they desired deeds; but in that
fair Dale so happy were the years from day to day that there was but
little to tell of. So deepened the night and waned, and Gold-mane and
the Bride still talked sweetly together, and at whiles kindly to the
others; and by seeming he had clean forgotten the wood and its wonders.
Then at last the Alderman called for the cup of good-night, and men drank
thereof and went their ways to bed.
CHAPTER IV. FACE-OF-GOD FARETH TO THE WOOD AGAIN.
WHEN it was the earliest morning and dawn was but just beginning,
Face-of-god awoke and rose up from his bed, and came forth into the hall
naked in his shirt, and stood by the hearth, wherein the piled-up embers
were yet red, and looked about and could see nothing stirring in the
dimness: then he fetched water and washed the night-tide off him, and
clad himself in haste, and was even as he was yesterday, save that he
left his bow and quiver in their place and took instead a short
casting-spear; moreover he took a leathern scrip and went therewith to
the buttery, and set therein bread and flesh and a little gilded beaker;
and all this he did with but little noise; for he would not be
questioned, lest he should have to answer himself as well as others.
Thus he went quietly out of doors, for the door was but latched, since no
bolts or bars or locks were used in Burgstead, and through the town-gate,
which stood open, save when rumours of war were about. He turned his
face straight towards Wildlake’s Way, walking briskly, but at whiles
looking back over his shoulder toward the East to note what way was made
by the dawning, and how the sky lightened above the mountain passes.
By then he was come to the place where the Maiden Ward was held in the
summer the dawn was so far forward that all things had their due colours,
and were clear to see in the shadowless day. It was a bright morning,
with an easterly air stirring that drave away the haze and dried the
meadows, which had otherwise been rimy; for it was cold. Gold-mane
lingered on the place a little, and his eyes fell on the road, as dusty
yet as in Redesman’s song; for the autumn had been very dry, and the
strip of green that edged the outside of the way was worn and dusty also.
On the edge of it, half in the dusty road, half on the worn grass, was a
long twine of briony red-berried and black-leaved; and right in the midst
of the road were two twigs of great-leaved sturdy pollard oak, as though
they had been thrown aside there yesterday by women or children
a-sporting; and the deep white dust yet held the marks of feet, some
bare, some shod, crossing each other here and there. Face-of-god smiled
as he passed on, as a man with a happy thought; for his mind showed him a
picture of the Bride as she would be leading the Maiden Ward next summer,
and singing first among the singers, and he saw her as clearly as he had
often seen her verily, and before him was the fashion of her hands and
all her body, and the little mark on her right wrist, and the place where
her arm whitened, because the sleeve guarded it against the sun, which
had long been pleasant unto him, and the little hollow in her chin, and
the lock of red-brown hair waving in the wind above her brow, and shining
in the sun as brightly as the Alderman’s cunningest work of golden wire.
Soft and sweet seemed that picture, till he almost seemed to hear her
sweet voice calling to him, and desire of her so took hold of the youth,
that it stirred him up to go swiftlier as he strode on, the day
brightening behind him.
Now was it nigh sunrise, and he began to meet folk on the way, though not
many; since for most their way lay afield, and not towards the Burg. The
first was a Woodlander, tall and gaunt, striding beside his ass, whose
panniers were laden with charcoal. The carle’s daughter, a little maiden
of seven winters, riding on the ass’s back betwixt the panniers, and
prattling to herself in the cold morning; for she was pleased with the
clear light in the east, and the smooth wide turf of the meadows, as one
who had not often been far from the shadow of the heavy trees of the
wood, and their dark wall round about the clearing where they dwelt.
Face-of-god gave the twain the sele of the day in merry fashion as he
passed them by, and the sober dark-faced man nodded to him but spake no
word, and the child stayed her prattle to watch him as he went by.
Then came the sound of the rattle of wheels, and, as he doubled an angle
of the rock-wall, he came upon a wain drawn by four dun kine, wherein lay
a young woman all muffled up against the cold with furs and cloths;
beside the yoke-beasts went her man, a well-knit trim-faced Dalesman clad
bravely in holiday raiment, girt with a goodly sword, bearing a bright
steel helm on his head, in his hand a long spear with a gay red and white
shaft done about with copper bands. He looked merry and proud of his
wain-load, and the woman was smiling kindly on him from out of her
scarlet and fur; but now she turned a weary happy face on Gold-mane, for
they knew him, as did all men of the Dale.
So he stopped when they met, for the goodman had already stayed his slow
beasts, and the goodwife had risen a little on her cushions to greet him,
yet slowly and but a little, for she was great with child, and not far
from her time. That knew Gold-mane well, and what was toward, and why
the goodman wore his fine clothes, and why the wain was decked with
oak-boughs and the yoke-beasts with their best gilded bells and
copper-adorned harness. For it was a custom with many of the kindreds
that the goodwife should fare to her father’s house to lie in with her
first babe, and the day of her coming home was made a great feast in the
house. So then Face-of-god cried out: ‘Hail to thee, O Warcliff! Shrewd
is the wind this morning, and thou dost well to heed it carefully, this
thine orchard, this thy garden, this thy fair apple-tree! To a good hall
thou wendest, and the Wine of Increase shall be sweet there this even.’
Then smiled Warcliff all across his face, and the goodwife hung her head
and reddened. Said the goodman: ‘Wilt thou not be with us, son of the
Alderman, as surely thy father shall be?’
‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘though I were fain of it: my own matters carry
me away.’
‘What matters?’ said Warcliff; ‘perchance thou art for the cities this
autumn?’
Face-of-god answered somewhat stiffly: ‘Nay, I am not;’ and then more
kindly, and smiling, ‘All roads lead not down to the Plain, friend.’
‘What road then farest thou away from us?’ said the goodwife.
‘The way of my will,’ he answered.
‘And what way is that?’ said she; ‘take heed, lest I get a longing to
know. For then must thou needs tell me, or deal with the carle there
beside thee.’
‘Nay, goodwife,’ said Face-of-god, ‘let not that longing take thee; for
on that matter I am even as wise as thou. Now good speed to thee and to
the new-comer!’
Therewith he went close up to the wain, and reached out his hand to her,
and she gave him hers and he kissed it, and so went his ways smiling
kindly on them. Then the carle cried to his kine, and they bent down
their heads to the yoke; and presently, as he walked on, he heard the
rumble of the wain mingling with the tinkling of their bells, which in a
little while became measured and musical, and sounded above the creaking
of the axles and the rattle of the gear and the roll of the great wheels
over the road: and so it grew thinner and thinner till it all died away
behind him.
He was now come to where the river turned away from the sheer rock-wall,
which was not so high there as in most other places, as there had been in
old time long screes from the cliff, which had now grown together, with
the waxing of herbs and the washing down of the earth on to them, and
made a steady slope or low hill going down riverward. Over this the road
lifted itself above the level of the meadows, keeping a little way from
the cliffs, while on the other side its bank was somewhat broken and
steep here and there. As Face-of-god came up to one of these broken
places, the sun rose over the eastern pass, and the meadows grew golden
with its long beams. He lingered, and looked back under his hand, and as
he did so heard the voices and laughter of women coming up from the slope
below him, and presently a young woman came struggling up the broken bank
with hand and knee, and cast herself down on the roadside turf laughing
and panting. She was a long-limbed light-made woman, dark-faced and
black-haired: amidst her laughter she looked up and saw Gold-mane, who
had stopped at once when he saw her; she held out her hands to him, and
said lightly, though her face flushed withal:
‘Come hither, thou, and help the others to climb the bank; for they are
beaten in the race, and now must they do after my will; that was the
forfeit.’
He went up to her, and took her hands and kissed them, as was the custom
of the Dale, and said:
‘Hail to thee, Long-coat! who be they, and whither away this morning
early?’
She looked hard at him, and fondly belike, as she answered slowly: ‘They
be the two maidens of my father’s house, whom thou knowest; and our
errand, all three of us, is to Burgstead, the Feast of the Wine of
Increase which shall be drunk this even.’
As she spake came another woman half up the bank, to whom went
Face-of-god, and, taking her hands, drew her up while she laughed merrily
in his face: he saluted her as he had Long-coat, and then with a laugh
turned about to wait for the third; who came indeed, but after a little
while, for she had abided, hearing their voices. Her also Gold-mane drew
up, and kissed her hands, and she lay on the grass by Long-coat, but the
second maiden stood up beside the young man. She was white-skinned and
golden-haired, a very fair damsel, whereas the last-comer was but comely,
as were well-nigh all the women of the Dale.
Said Face-of-god, looking on the three: ‘How comes it, maidens, that ye
are but in your kirtles this sharp autumn morning? or where have ye left
your gowns or your cloaks?’
For indeed they were clad but in close-fitting blue kirtles of fine wool,
embroidered about the hems with gold and coloured threads.
The last-comer laughed and said: ‘What ails thee, Gold-mane, to be so
careful of us, as if thou wert our mother or our nurse? Yet if thou must
needs know, there hang our gowns on the thorn-bush down yonder; for we
have been running a match and a forfeit; to wit, that she who was last on
the highway should go down again and bring them up all three; and now
that is my day’s work: but since thou art here, Alderman’s son, thou
shalt go down instead of me and fetch them up.’
But he laughed merrily and outright, and said: ‘That will I not, for
there be but twenty-four hours in the day, and what between eating and
drinking and talking to fair maidens, I have enough to do in every one of
them. Wasteful are ye women, and simple is your forfeit. Now will I,
who am the Alderman’s son, give forth a doom, and will ordain that one of
you fetch up the gowns yourselves, and that Long-coat be the one; for she
is the fleetest-footed and ablest thereto. Will ye take my doom? for
later on I shall not be wiser.’
‘Yea,’ said the fair woman, ‘not because thou art the Alderman’s son, but
because thou art the fairest man of the Dale, and mayst bid us poor souls
what thou wilt.’
Face-of-god reddened at her words, and the speaker and the last-comer
laughed; but Long-coat held her peace: she cast one very sober look on
him, and then ran lightly down the bent; he drew near the edge of it, and
watched her going; for her light-foot slimness was fair to look on: and
he noted that when she was nigh the thorn-bush whereon hung the
bright-broidered gowns, and deemed belike that she was not seen, she
kissed both her hands where he had kissed them erst.
Thereat he drew aback and turned away shyly, scarce looking at the other
twain, who smiled on him with somewhat jeering looks; but he bade them
farewell and departed speedily; and if they spoke, it was but softly, for
he heard their voices no more.
He went on under the sunlight which was now gilding the outstanding
stones of the cliffs, and still his mind was set upon the Bride; and his
meeting with the mother of the yet unborn baby, and with the three women
with their freshness and fairness, did somehow turn his thought the more
upon her, since she was the woman who was to be his amongst all women,
for she was far fairer than any one of them; and through all manner of
life and through all kinds of deeds would he be with her, and know more
of her fairness and kindness than any other could: and him-seemed he
could see pictures of her and of him amidst all these deeds and ways.
Now he went very swiftly; for he was eager, though he knew not for what,
and he thought but little of the things on which his eyes fell. He met
none else on the road till he was come to Wildlake’s Way, though he saw
folk enough down in the meadows; he was soon amidst the first of the
trees, and without making any stay set his face east and somewhat north,
that is, toward the slopes that led to the great mountains. He said to
himself aloud, as he wended the wood: ‘Strange! yestereven I thought much
of the wood, and I set my mind on not going thither, and this morning I
thought nothing of it, and here am I amidst its trees, and wending
towards its innermost.’
His way was easy at first, because the wood for a little space was all of
beech, so that there was no undergrowth, and he went lightly betwixt the
tall grey and smooth boles; albeit his heart was nought so gay as it was
in the dale amidst the sunshine. After a while the beech-wood grew
thinner, and at last gave out altogether, and he came into a space of
rough broken ground with nought but a few scrubby oaks and thorn-bushes
growing thereon here and there. The sun was high in the heavens now, and
shone brightly down on the waste, though there were a few white clouds
high up above him. The rabbits scuttled out of the grass before him;
here and there he turned aside from a stone on which lay coiled an adder
sunning itself; now and again both hart and hind bounded away from before
him, or a sounder of wild swine ran grunting away toward closer covert.
But nought did he see but the common sights and sounds of the woodland;
nor did he look for aught else, for he knew this part of the woodland
indifferent well.
He held on over this treeless waste for an hour or more, when the ground
began to be less rugged, and he came upon trees again, but thinly
scattered, oak and ash and hornbeam not right great, with thickets of
holly and blackthorn between them. The set of the ground was still
steadily up to the east and north-east, and he followed it as one who
wendeth an assured way. At last before him seemed to rise a wall of
trees and thicket; but when he drew near to it, lo! an opening in a
certain place, and a little path as if men were wont to thread the tangle
of the wood thereby; though hitherto he had noted no slot of men, nor any
sign of them, since he had plunged into the deep of the beech-wood. He
took the path as one who needs must, and went his ways as it led. In
sooth it was well-nigh blind, but he was a deft woodsman, and by means of
it skirted many a close thicket that had otherwise stayed him. So on he
went, and though the boughs were close enough overhead, and the sun came
through but in flecks, he judged that it was growing towards noon, and he
wotted well that he was growing aweary. For he had been long afoot, and
the more part of the time on a rough way, or breasting a slope which was
at whiles steep enough.
At last the track led him skirting about an exceeding close thicket into
a small clearing, through which ran a little woodland rill amidst rushes
and dead leaves: there was a low mound near the eastern side of this
wood-lawn, as though there had been once a dwelling of man there, but no
other sign or slot of man was there.
So Face-of-god made stay in that place, casting himself down beside the
rill to rest him and eat and drink somewhat. Whatever thoughts had been
with him through the wood (and they been many) concerning his House and
his name, and his father, and the journey he might make to the cities of
the Westland, and what was to befall him when he was wedded, and what war
or trouble should be on his hands—all this was now mingled together and
confused by this rest amidst his weariness. He laid down his scrip, and
drew his meat from it and ate what he would, and dipping his gilded
beaker into the brook, drank water smacking of the damp musty savour of
the woodland; and then his head sank back on a little mound in the short
turf, and he fell asleep at once. A long dream he had in short space;
and therein were blent his thoughts of the morning with the deeds of
yesterday; and other matters long forgotten in his waking hours came back
to his slumber in unordered confusion: all which made up for him pictures
clear, but of little meaning, save that, as oft befalls in dreams,
whatever he was a-doing he felt himself belated.
When he awoke, smiling at something strange in his gone-by dream, he
looked up to the heavens, thinking to see signs of the even at hand, for
he seemed to have been dreaming so long. The sky was thinly overcast by
now, but by his wonted woodcraft he knew the whereabouts of the sun, and
that it was scant an hour after noon. He sat there till he was wholly
awake, and then drank once more of the woodland water; and he said to
himself, but out loud, for he was fain of the sound of a man’s voice,
though it were but his own:
‘What is mine errand hither? Whither wend I? What shall I have done
to-morrow that I have hitherto left undone? Or what manner of man shall
I be then other than I am now?’
Yet though he said the words he failed to think the thought, or it left
him in a moment of time, and he thought but of the Bride and her
kindness. Yet that abode with him but a moment, and again he saw himself
and those two women on the highway edge, and Long-coat lingering on the
slope below, kissing his kisses on her hands; and he was sorry that she
desired him over-much, for she was a fair woman and a friendly. But all
that also flowed from him at once, and he had no thought in him but that
he also desired something that he lacked: and this was a burden to him,
and he rose up frowning, and said to himself, ‘Am I become a mere sport
of dreams, whether I sleep or wake? I will go backward—or forward, but
will think no more.’
Then he ordered his gear again, and took the path onward and upward
toward the Great Mountains; and the track was even fainter than before
for a while, so that he had to seek his way diligently.
CHAPTER V. FACE-OF-GOD FALLS IN WITH MENFOLK ON THE MOUNTAIN.
NOW he plodded on steadily, and for a long time the forest changed but
little, and of wild things he saw only a few of those that love the
closest covert. The ground still went up and up, though at whiles were
hollows, and steeper bents out of them again, and the half-blind path or
slot still led past the close thickets and fallen trees, and he made way
without let or hindrance. At last once more the wood began to thin, and
the trees themselves to be smaller and gnarled and ill-grown: therewithal
the day was waning, and the sky was quite clear again as the afternoon
grew into a fair autumn evening.
Now the trees failed altogether, and the slope grown steeper was covered
with heather and ling; and looking up, he saw before him quite near by
seeming in the clear even (though indeed they were yet far away) the
snowy peaks flushed with the sinking sun against the frosty dark-grey
eastern sky; and below them the dark rock-mountains, and below these
again, and nigh to him indeed, the fells covered with pine-woods and
looking like a wall to the heaths he trod.
He stayed a little while and turned his head to look at the way whereby
he had come; but that way a swell of the oak-forest hid everything but
the wood itself, making a wall behind him as the pine-wood made a wall
before. There came across him then a sharp memory of the boding words
which Stone-face had spoken last night, and he felt as if he were now
indeed within the trap. But presently he laughed and said: ‘I am a fool:
this comes of being alone in the dark wood and the dismal waste, after
the merry faces of the Dale had swept away my foolish musings of
yesterday and the day before. Lo! here I stand, a man of the Face, sword
and axe by my side; if death come, it can but come once; and if I fear
not death, what shall make me afraid? The Gods hate me not, and will not
hurt me; and they are not ugly, but beauteous.’
Therewith he strode on again, and soon came to a place where the ground
sank into a shallow valley and the ling gave place to grass for a while,
and there were tall old pines scattered about, and betwixt them grey
rocks; this he passed through, climbing a steep bent out of it, and the
pines were all about him now, though growing wide apart, till at last he
came to where they thickened into a wood, not very close, wherethrough he
went merrily, singing to himself and swinging his spear. He was soon
through this wood, and came on to a wide well-grassed wood-lawn, hedged
by the wood aforesaid on three sides, but sloping up slowly toward the
black wall of the thicker pine-wood on the fourth side, and about half a
furlong overthwart and endlong. The sun had set while he was in the last
wood, but it was still broad daylight on the wood-lawn, and as he stood
there he was ware of a house under the pine-wood on the other side, built
long and low, much like the houses of the Woodland-Carles, but rougher
fashioned and of unhewn trees. He gazed on it, and said aloud to himself
as his wont was:
‘Marvellous! here is a dwelling of man, scarce a day’s journey from
Burgstead; yet have I never heard tell of it: may happen some of the
Woodland-Carles have built it, and are on some errand of hunting peltries
up in the mountains, or maybe are seeking copper and tin among the rocks.
Well, at least let us go see what manner of men dwell there, and if they
are minded for a guest to-night; for fain were I of a bed beneath a roof,
and of a board with strong meat and drink on it.’
Therewith he set forward, not heeding much that the wood he had passed
through was hard on his left hand; but he had gone but twenty paces when
he saw a red thing at the edge of the wood, and then a glitter, and a
spear came whistling forth, and smote his own spear so hard close to the
steel that it flew out of his hand; then came a great shout, and a man
clad in a scarlet kirtle ran forth on him. Face-of-god had his axe in
his hand in a twinkling, and ran at once to meet his foe; but the man had
the hill on his side as he rushed on with a short-sword in his hand. Axe
and sword clashed together for a moment of time, and then both the men
rolled over on the grass together, and Face-of-god as he fell deemed that
he heard the shrill cry of a woman. Now Face-of-god found that he was
the nethermost, for if he was strong, yet was his foe stronger; the axe
had flown out of his hand also, while the strange man still kept a hold
of his short-sword; and presently, though he still struggled all he
could, he saw the man draw back his hand to smite with the said sword;
and at that nick of time the foeman’s knee was on his breast, his left
hand was doubled back behind him, and his right wrist was gripped hard in
the stranger’s left hand. Even therewith his ears, sharpened by the
coming death, heard the sound of footsteps and fluttering raiment drawing
near; something dark came between him and the sky; there was the sound of
a great stroke, and the big man loosened his grip and fell off him to one
side.
Face-of-god leapt up and ran to his axe and got hold of it; but turning
round found himself face to face with a tall woman holding in her hand a
stout staff like the limb of a tree. She was calm and smiling, though
forsooth it was she who had stricken the stroke and stayed the sword from
his throat. His hand and axe dropped down to his side when he saw what
it was that faced him, and that the woman was young and fair; so he spake
to her and said:
‘What aileth, maiden? is this man thy foe? doth he oppress thee? shall I
slay him?’
She laughed and said: ‘Thou art open-handed in thy proffers: he might
have asked the like concerning thee but a minute ago.’
‘Yea, yea,’ said Gold-mane, laughing also, ‘but he asked it not of thee.’
‘That is sooth,’ she said, ‘but since thou hast asked me, I will tell
thee that if thou slay him it will be my harm as well as his; and in my
country a man that taketh a gift is not wont to break the giver’s head
with it straightway. The man is my brother, O stranger, and presently,
if thou wilt, thou mayst be eating at the same board with him. Or if
thou wilt, thou mayst go thy ways unhurt into the wood. But I had liefer
of the twain that thou wert in our house to-night; for thou hast a wrong
against us.’
Her voice was sweet and clear, and she spake the last words kindly, and
drew somewhat nigher to Gold-mane. Therewithal the smitten man sat up,
and put his hand to his head, and quoth he:
‘Angry is my sister! good it is to wear the helm abroad when she shaketh
the nut-trees.’
‘Nay,’ said she, ‘it is thy luck that thou wert bare-headed, else had I
been forced to smite thee on the face. Thou churl, since when hath it
been our wont to thrust knives into a guest, who is come of great kin, a
man of gentle heart and fair face? Come hither and handsel him self-doom
for thy fool’s onset!’
The man rose to his feet and said: ‘Well, sister, least said, soonest
mended. A clout on the head is worse than a woman’s chiding; but since
ye have given me one, ye may forbear the other.’
Therewith he drew near to them. He was a very big-made man, most
stalwarth, with dark red hair and a thin pointed beard; his nose was
straight and fine, his eyes grey and well-opened, but somewhat fierce
withal. Yet was he in nowise evil-looking; he seemed some thirty summers
old. He was clad in a short scarlet kirtle, a goodly garment, with a
hood of like web pulled off his head on to his shoulders: he bore a great
gold ring on his left arm, and a collar of gold came down on to his
breast from under his hood.
As for the woman, she was clad in a long white linen smock, and over it a
short gown of dark blue woollen, and she had skin shoes on her feet.
Now the man came up to Face-of-god, and took his hand and said: ‘I deemed
thee a foe, and I may not have over-many foes alive: but it seems that
thou art to be a friend, and that is well and better; so herewith I
handsel thee self-doom in the matter of the onslaught.’
Then Face-of-god laughed and said: ‘The doom is soon given forth; against
the tumble on the grass I set the clout on the head; there is nought left
over to pay to any man’s son.’
Said the scarlet-clad man: ‘Belike by thine eyes thou art a true man, and
wilt not bewray me. Now is there no foeman here, but rather maybe a
friend both now and in time to come.’ Therewith he cast his arms about
Face-of-god and kissed him. But Face-of-god turned about to the woman
and said: ‘Is the peace wholly made?’
She shook her head and said soberly: ‘Nay, thou art too fair for a woman
to kiss.’
He flushed red, as his wont was when a woman praised him; yet was his
heart full of pleasure and well-liking. But she laid her hand on his
shoulder and said: ‘Now is it for thee to choose betwixt the wild-wood
and the hall, and whether thou wilt be a guest or a wayfarer this night.’
As she touched him there took hold of him a sweetness of pleasure he had
never felt erst, and he answered: ‘I will be thy guest and not thy
stranger.’
‘Come then,’ she said, and took his hand in hers, so that he scarce felt
the earth under his feet, as they went all three together toward the
house in the gathering dusk, while eastward where the peaks of the great
mountains dipped was a light that told of the rising of the moon.
CHAPTER VI. OF FACE-OF-GOD AND THOSE MOUNTAIN-DWELLERS.
A YARD or two from the threshold Gold-mane hung back a moment, entangled
in some such misgiving as a man is wont to feel when he is just about to
do some new deed, but is not yet deep in the story; his new friends noted
that, for they smiled each in their own way, and the woman drew her hand
away from his. Face-of-god held out his still as though to take hers
again, and therewithal he changed countenance and said as though he had
stayed but to ask that question:
‘Tell me thy name, tall man; and thou, fair woman, tell me thine; for how
can we talk together else?’
The man laughed outright and said: ‘The young chieftain thinks that this
house also should be his! Nay, young man, I know what is in thy thought,
be not ashamed that thou art wary; and be assured! We shall hurt thee no
more than thou hast been hurt. Now as to my name; the name that was born
with me is gone: the name that was given me hath been taken from me: now
I belike must give myself a name, and that shall be Wild-wearer; but it
may be that thou thyself shalt one day give me another, and call me
Guest.’
His sister gazed at him solemnly as he spoke, and Face-of-god beholding
her the while, deemed that her beauty grew and grew till she seemed as
aweful as a Goddess; and into his mind it came that this over-strong man
and over-lovely woman were nought mortal, and they withal dealing with
him as father and mother deal with a wayward child: then for a moment his
heart failed him, and he longed for the peace of Burgdale, and even the
lonely wood. But therewith she turned to him and let her hand come into
his again, and looked kindly on him and said: ‘And as for me, call me the
Friend; the name is good and will serve for many things.’
He looked down from her face and his eyes lighted on her hand, and when
he noted even amid the evening dusk how fair and lovely it was fashioned,
and yet as though it were deft in the crafts that the daughters of
menfolk use, his fear departed, and the pleasure of his longing filled
his heart, and he drew her hand to him to kiss it; but she held it back.
Then he said: ‘It is the custom of the Dale to all women.’
So she let him kiss her hand, heeding the kiss nothing, and said soberly:
‘Then art thou of Burgdale, and if it were lawful to guess, I would say
that thy name is Face-of-god, of the House of the Face.’
‘Even so it is,’ said he, ‘but in the Dale those that love me do mostly
call me Gold-mane.’
‘It is well named,’ she said, ‘and seldom wilt thou be called otherwise,
for thou wilt be well-beloved. But come in now, Gold-mane, for night is
at hand, and here have we meat and lodging such as an hungry and weary
man may take; though we be broken people, dwellers in the waste.’
Therewith she led him gently over the threshold into the hall, and it
seemed to him as if she were the fairest and the noblest of all the
Queens of ancient story.
When he was in the house he looked and saw that, rough as it was without
it lacked not fairness within. The floor was of hard-trodden earth
strewn with pine-twigs, and with here and there brown bearskins laid on
it: there was a standing table near the upper end athwart the hall, and a
days beyond that, but no endlong table. Gold-mane looked to the
shut-beds, and saw that they were large and fair, though there were but a
few of them; and at the lower end was a loft for a sleeping chamber dight
very fairly with broidered cloths. The hangings on the walls, though
they left some places bare which were hung with fresh boughs, were fairer
than any he had ever seen, so that he deemed that they must come from far
countries and the City of Cities: therein were images wrought of warriors
and fair women of old time and their dealings with the Gods and the
Giants, and Wondrous wights; and he deemed that this was the story of
some great kindred, and that their token and the sign of their banner
must needs be the Wood-wolf, for everywhere was it wrought in these
pictured webs. Perforce he looked long and earnestly at these fair
things, for the hall was not dark yet, because the brands on the hearth
were flaming their last, and when Wild-wearer beheld him so gazing, he
stood up and looked too for a moment, and then smote his right hand on
the hilt of his sword, and turned away and strode up and down the hall as
one in angry thought.
But the woman, even the Friend, bestirred herself for the service of the
guest, and brought water for his hands and feet, and when she had washed
him, bore him the wine of Welcome and drank to him and bade him drink;
and he all the while was shamefaced; for it was to him as if one of the
Ladies of the Heavenly Burg were doing him service. Then she went away
by a door at the lower end of the hall, and Wild-wearer came and sat down
by Gold-mane, and fell a-talking with him about the ways of the Dalesmen,
and their garths, and the pastures and growths thereof; and what temper
the carles themselves were of; which were good men, which were ill, which
was loved and which scorned; no otherwise than if he had been the goodman
of some neighbouring dale; and Gold-mane told him whatso he knew, for he
saw no harm therein.
After a while the outer door opened, and there came in a woman of some
five-and-twenty winters, trimly and strongly built; short-skirted she was
and clad as a hunter, with a bow in her hand and a quiver at her back:
she unslung a pouch, which she emptied at Wild-wearer’s feet of a leash
of hares and two brace of mountain grouse; of Face-of-god she took but
little heed.
Said Wild-wearer: ‘This is good for to-morrow, not for to-day; the meat
is well-nigh on the board.’
Then Gold-mane smiled, for he called to mind his home-coming of
yesterday. But the woman said:
‘The fault is not mine; she told me of the coming guest but three hours
agone.’
‘Ay?’ said Wild-wearer, ‘she looked for a guest then?’
‘Yea, certes,’ said the woman, ‘else why went I forth this afternoon, as
wearied as I was with yesterday?’
‘Well, well,’ said Wild-wearer, ‘get to thy due work or go play; I meddle
not with meat! and for thee all jests are as bitter earnest.’
‘And with thee, chief,’ she said, ‘it is no otherwise; surely I am made
on thy model.’
‘Thy tongue is longer, friend,’ said he; ‘now tarry if thou wilt, and if
the supper’s service craveth thee not.’
She turned away with one keen look at Face-of-god, and departed through
the door at the lower end of the hall.
By this time the hall was dusk, for there were no candles there, and the
hearth-fire was but smouldering. Wild-wearer sat silent and musing now,
and Face-of-god spake not, for he was deep in wild and happy dreams. At
last the lower door opened and the fair woman came into the hall with a
torch in either hand, after whom came the huntress, now clad in a dark
blue kirtle, and an old woman yet straight and hale; and these twain bore
in the victuals and the table-gear. Then the three fell to dighting the
board, and when it was all ready, and Gold-mane and Wild-wearer were set
down to it, and with them the fair woman and the huntress, the old woman
threw good store of fresh brands on the hearth, so that the light shone
into every corner; and even therewith the outer door opened, and four
more men entered, whereof one was old, but big and stalwarth, the other
three young: they were all clad roughly in sheep-brown weed, but had
helms upon their heads and spears in their hands and great swords girt to
their sides; and they seemed doughty men and ready for battle. One of
the young men cast down by the door the carcass of a big-horned mountain
sheep, and then they all trooped off to the out-bower by the lower door,
and came back presently fairly clad and without their weapons.
Wild-wearer nodded to them kindly, and they sat at table paying no more
heed to Face-of-god than to cast him a nod for salutation.
Then said the old woman to them: ‘Well, lads, have ye been doing or
sleeping?’
‘Sleeping, mother,’ said one of the young men, ‘as was but due after last
night was, and to-morrow shall be.’
Said the huntress: ‘Hold thy peace, Wood-wise, and let thy tongue help
thy teeth to deal with thy meat; for this is not the talking hour.’
‘Nay, Bow-may,’ said another of the swains, ‘since here is a new man, now
is the time to talk to him.’
Said the huntress: ‘’Tis thine hands that talk best, Wood-wont; it is not
they that shall bring thee to shame.’
Spake the third: ‘What have we to do with shame here, far away from dooms
and doomers, and elders, and wardens, and guarded castles? If the new
man listeth to speak, let him speak; or to fight, then let him; it shall
ever be man to man.’
Then spake the old woman: ‘Son Wood-wicked, hold thy peace, and forget
the steel that ever eggeth thee on to draw.’
Therewith she set the last matters on the board, while the three swains
sat and eyed Gold-mane somewhat fiercely, now that words had stirred
them, and he had sat there saying nothing, as one who was better than
they, and contemned them; but now spake Wild-wearer:
‘Whoso hungreth let him eat! Whoso would slumber, let him to bed. But
he who would bicker, it must needs be with me. Here is a man of the
Dale, who hath sought the wood in peace, and hath found us. His hand is
ready and his heart is guileless: if ye fear him, run away to the wood,
and come back when he is gone; but none shall mock him while I sit by:
now, lads, be merry and blithe with the guest.’
Then the young men greeted Gold-mane, and the old man said: ‘Art thou of
Burgstead? then wilt thou be of the House of the Face, and thy name will
be Face-of-god; for that man is called the fairest of the Dale, and there
shall be none fairer than thou.’
Face-of-god laughed and said: ‘There be but few mirrors in Burgdale, and
I have no mind to journey west to the cities to see what manner of man I
be: that were ill husbandry. But now I have heard the names of the three
swains, tell me thy name, father!’
Spake the huntress: ‘This is my father’s brother, and his name is
Wood-father; or ye shall call him so: and I am called Bow-may because I
shoot well in the bow: and this old carline is my eme’s wife, and now
belike my mother, if I need one. But thou, fair-faced Dalesman, little
dost thou need a mirror in the Dale so long as women abide there; for
their faces shall be instead of mirrors to tell thee whether thou be fair
and lovely.’
Thereat they all laughed and fell to their victual, which was abundant,
of wood-venison and mountain-fowl, but of bread was no great plenty; wine
lacked not, and that of the best; and Gold-mane noted that the cups and
the apparel of the horns and mazers were not of gold nor gilded copper,
but of silver; and he marvelled thereat, for in the Dale silver was rare.
So they ate and drank, and Gold-mane looked ever on the Friend, and spake
much with her, and he deemed her friendly indeed, and she seemed most
pleased when he spoke best, and led him on to do so. Wild-wearer was but
of few words, and those somewhat harsh; yet was he as a man striving to
be courteous and blithe; but of the others Bow-may was the greatest
speaker.
Wild-wearer called healths to the Sun, and the Moon, and the Hosts of
Heaven; to the Gods of the Earth; to the Woodwights; and to the Guest.
Other healths also he called, the meaning of which was dark to Gold-mane;
to wit, the Jaws of the Wolf; the Silver Arm; the Red Hand; the Golden
Bushel; and the Ragged Sword. But when he asked the Friend concerning
these names what they might signify, she shook her head and answered not.
At last Wild-wearer cried out: ‘Now, lads, the night weareth and the
guest is weary: therefore whoso of you hath in him any minstrelsy, now
let him make it, for later on it shall be over-late.’
Then arose Wood-wont and went to his shut-bed and groped therein, and
took from out of it a fiddle in its case; and he opened the case and drew
from it a very goodly fiddle, and he stood on the floor amidst of the
hall and Bow-may his cousin with him; and he laid his bow on the fiddle
and woke up song in it, and when it was well awake she fell a-singing,
and he to answering her song, and at the last all they of the house sang
together; and this is the meaning of the words which they sang:
_She singeth_.
Now is the rain upon the day,
And every water’s wide;
Why busk ye then to wear the way,
And whither will ye ride?
_He singeth_.
Our kine are on the eyot still,
The eddies lap them round;
All dykes the wind-worn waters fill,
And waneth grass and ground.
_She singeth_.
O ride ye to the river’s brim
In war-weed fair to see?
Or winter waters will ye swim
In hauberks to the knee?
_He singeth_.
Wild is the day, and dim with rain,
Our sheep are warded ill;
The wood-wolves gather for the plain,
Their ravening maws to fill.
_She singeth_.
Nay, what is this, and what have ye,
A hunter’s band, to bear
The Banner of our Battle-glee
The skulking wolves to scare?
_He singeth_.
O women, when we wend our ways
To deal with death and dread,
The Banner of our Fathers’ Days
Must flap the wind o’erhead.
_She singeth_.
Ah, for the maidens that ye leave!
Who now shall save the hay?
What grooms shall kiss our lips at eve,
When June hath mastered May?
_He singeth_.
The wheat is won, the seed is sown,
Here toileth many a maid,
And ere the hay knee-deep hath grown
Your grooms the grass shall wade.
_They sing all together_.
Then fair befall the mountain-side
Whereon the play shall be!
And fair befall the summer-tide
That whoso lives shall see.
Face-of-god thought the song goodly, but to the others it was well known.
Then said Wood-father:
‘O foster-son, thy foster-brother hath sung well for a wood abider; but
we are deeming that his singing shall be but as a starling to a throstle
matched against thy new-come guest. Therefore, Dalesman, sing us a song
of the Dale, and if ye will, let it be of gardens and pleasant houses of
stone, and fair damsels therein, and swains with them who toil not
over-much for a scant livelihood, as do they of the waste, whose heads
may not be seen in the Holy Places.’
Said Gold-mane: ‘Father, it is ill to set the words of a lonely man afar
from his kin against the song that cometh from the heart of a noble
house; yet may I not gainsay thee, but will sing to thee what I may call
to mind, and it is called the Song of the Ford.’
Therewith he sang in a sweet and clear voice: and this is the meaning of
his words:
In hay-tide, through the day new-born,
Across the meads we come;
Our hauberks brush the blossomed corn
A furlong short of home.
Ere yet the gables we behold
Forth flasheth the red sun,
And smites our fallow helms and cold
Though all the fight be done.
In this last mend of mowing-grass
Sweet doth the clover smell,
Crushed neath our feet red with the pass
Where hell was blent with hell.
And now the willowy stream is nigh,
Down wend we to the ford;
No shafts across its fishes fly,
Nor flasheth there a sword.
But lo! what gleameth on the bank
Across the water wan,
As when our blood the mouse-ear drank
And red the river ran?
Nay, hasten to the ripple clear,
Look at the grass beyond!
Lo ye the dainty band and dear
Of maidens fair and fond!
Lo how they needs must take the stream!
The water hides their feet;
On fair kind arms the gold doth gleam,
And midst the ford we meet.
Up through the garden two and two,
And on the flowers we drip;
Their wet feet kiss the morning dew
As lip lies close to lip.
Here now we sing; here now we stay:
By these grey walls we tell
The love that lived from out the fray,
The love that fought and fell.
When he was done they all said that he had sung well, and that the song
was sweet. Yet did Wild-wearer smile somewhat; and Bow-may said
outright: ‘Soft is the song, and hath been made by lads and minstrels
rather than by warriors.’
‘Nay, kinswoman,’ said Wood-father, ‘thou art hard to please; the guest
is kind, and hath given us that I asked for, and I give him all thanks
therefor.’
Face-of-god smiled, but he heeded little what they said, for as he sang
he had noted that the Friend looked kindly on him; and he thought he saw
that once or twice she put out her hand as if to touch him, but drew it
back again each time. She spake after a little and said:
‘Here now hath been a stream of song running betwixt the Mountain and the
Dale even as doth a river; and this is good to come between our dreams of
what hath been and what shall be.’ Then she turned to Gold-mane, and
said to him scarce loud enough for all to hear:
‘Herewith I bid thee good-night, O Dalesman; and this other word I have
to thee: heed not what befalleth in the night, but sleep thy best, for
nought shall be to thy scathe. And when thou wakest in the morning, if
we are yet here, it is well; but if we are not, then abide us no long
while, but break thy fast on the victual thou wilt find upon the board,
and so depart and go thy ways home. And yet thou mayst look to it to see
us again before thou diest.’
Therewith she held out her hand to him, and he took it and kissed it; and
she went to her chamber-aloft at the lower end of the hall. And when she
was gone, once more he had a deeming of her that she was of the kindred
of the Gods. At her departure him-seemed that the hall grew dull and
small and smoky, and the night seemed long to him and doubtful the coming
of the day.
CHAPTER VII. FACE-OF-GOD TALKETH WITH THE FRIEND ON THE MOUNTAIN.
SO now went all men to bed; and Face-to-god’s shut-bed was over against
the outer door and toward the lower end of the hall, and on the panel
about it hung the weapons and shields of men. Fair was that chamber and
roomy, and the man was weary despite his eagerness, so that he went to
sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow; but within a while (he
deemed about two hours after midnight) he was awaked by the clattering of
the weapons against the panel, and the sound of men’s hands taking them
down; and when he was fully awake, he heard withal men going up and down
the house as if on errands: but he called to mind what the Friend had
said to him, and he did not so much as turn himself toward the hall; for
he said: ‘Belike these men are outlaws and Wolves of the Holy Places, yet
by seeming they are good fellows and nought churlish, nor have I to do
with taking up the feud against them. I will abide the morning. Yet
meseemeth that she drew me hither: for what cause?’
Therewith he fell asleep again, and dreamed no more. But when he awoke
the sun was shining broad upon the hall-floor, and he sat up and
listened, but could hear no sound save the moaning of the wind in the
pine-boughs and the chatter of the starlings about the gables of the
house; and the place seemed so exceeding lonely to him that he was in a
manner feared by that loneliness.
Then he arose and clad himself, and went forth into the hall and gazed
about him, and at first he deemed indeed that there was no one therein.
But at last he looked and beheld the upper gable and there underneath a
most goodly hanging was the glorious shape of a woman sitting on a bench
covered over with a cloth of gold and silver; and he looked and looked to
see if the woman might stir, and if she were alive, and she turned her
head toward him, and lo it was the Friend; and his heart rose to his
mouth for wonder and fear and desire. For now he doubted whether the
other folk were aught save shows and shadows, and she the Goddess who had
fashioned them out of nothing for his bewilderment, presently to return
to nothing.
Yet whatever he might fear or doubt, he went up the hall towards her till
he was quite nigh to her, and there he stood silent, wondering at her
beauty and desiring her kindness.
Grey-eyed she was like her brother; but her hair the colour of red wheat:
her lips full and red, her chin round, her nose fine and straight. Her
hands and all her body fashioned exceeding sweetly and delicately; yet
not as if she were an image of which the like might be found if the
craftsman were but deft enough to make a perfect thing, but in such a way
that there was none like to her for those that had eyes to behold her as
she was; and none could ever be made like to her, even by such a
master-craftsman as could fashion a body without a blemish.
She was clad in a white smock, whose hems were broidered with gold wire
and precious gems of the Mountains, and over that a gown woven of gold
and silver: scarce hath the world such another. On her head was a fillet
of gold and gems, and there were wondrous gold rings on her arms: her
feet lay bare on the dark grey wolf-skin that was stretched before her.
She smiled kindly upon his solemn and troubled face, and her voice
sounded strangely familiar to him coming from all that loveliness, as she
said: ‘Hail, Face-of-god! here am I left alone, although I deemed last
night that I should be gone with the others. Therefore am I fain to show
myself to thee in fairer array than yesternight; for though we dwell in
the wild-wood, from the solace of folk, yet are we not of thralls’ blood.
But come now, I bid thee break thy fast and talk with me a little while;
and then shalt thou depart in peace.’
Spake Face-of-god, and his voice trembled as he spake: ‘What art thou?
Last night I deemed at whiles once and again that thou wert of the Gods;
and now that I behold thee thus, and it is broad daylight, and of those
others is no more to be seen than if they had never lived, I cannot but
deem that it is even so, and that thou comest from the City that shall
never perish. Now if thou be a goddess, I have nought to pray thee, save
to slay me speedily if thou hast a mind for my death. But if thou art a
woman—’
She broke in: ‘Gold-mane, stay thy prayer and hold thy peace for this
time, lest thou repent when repentance availeth not. And this I say
because I am none of the Gods nor akin to them, save far off through the
generations, as art thou also, and all men of goodly kindred. Now I bid
thee eat thy meat, since ’tis ill talking betwixt a full man and a
fasting; and I have dight it myself with mine own hands; for Bow-may and
the Wood-mother went away with the rest three hours before dawn. Come
sit and eat as thou hast a hardy heart; as forsooth thou shouldest do if
I were a very goddess. Take heed, friend, lest I take thee for some
damsel of the lower Dale arrayed in Earl’s garments.’
She laughed therewith, and leaned toward him and put forth her hand to
him, and he took it and caressed it; and the exceeding beauty of her body
and of the raiment which was as it were a part of her and her loveliness,
made her laughter and her friendly words strange to him, as if one did
not belong to the other; as in a dream it might be. Nevertheless he did
as she bade him, and sat at the board and ate, while she leaned forward
on the arm of her chair and spake to him in friendly wise. And he
wondered as she spake that she knew so much of him and his: and he kept
saying to himself: ‘She drew me hither; wherefore did she so?’
But she said: ‘Gold-mane, how fareth thy father the Alderman? is he as
good a wright as ever?’
He told her: Yea, that ever was his hammer on the iron, the copper, and
the gold, and that no wright in the Dale was as deft as he.
Said she: ‘Would he not have had thee seek to the Cities, to see the ways
of the outer world?’
‘Yea,’ said he.
She said: ‘Thou wert wise to naysay that offer; thou shalt have enough to
do in the Dale and round about it in twelve months’ time.’
‘Art thou foresighted?’ said he.
‘Folk have called me so,’ she said, ‘but I wot not. But thy brother
Hall-face, how fareth he?’
‘Well;’ said he, ‘to my deeming he is the Sword of our House, and the
Warrior of the Dale, if the days were ready for him.’
‘And Stone-face, that stark ancient,’ she said, ‘doth he still love the
Folk of the Dale, and hate all other folks?’
‘Nay,’ he said, ‘I know not that, but I know that he loveth as, and above
all me and my father.’
Again she spake: ‘How fareth the Bride, the fair maid to whom thou art
affianced?’
As she spake, it was to him as if his heart was stricken cold; but he put
a force upon himself, and neither reddened nor whitened, nor changed
countenance in any way; so he answered:
‘She was well the eve of yesterday.’ Then he remembered what she was,
and her beauty and valour, and he constrained himself to say: ‘Each day
she groweth fairer; there is no man’s son and no daughter of woman that
does not love her; yea, the very beasts of field and fold love her.’
The Friend looked at him steadily and spake no word, but a red flush
mounted to her cheeks and brow and changed her face; and he marvelled
thereat; for still he misdoubted that she was a Goddess. But it passed
away in a moment, and she smiled and said:
‘Guest, thou seemest to wonder that I know concerning thee and the Dale
and thy kindred. But now shalt thou wot that I have been in the Dale
once and again, and my brother oftener still; and that I have seen thee
before yesterday.’
‘That is marvellous,’ quoth he, ‘for sure am I that I have not seen
thee.’
‘Yet thou hast seen me,’ she said; ‘yet not altogether as I am now;’ and
therewith she smiled on him friendly.
‘How is this?’ said he; ‘art thou a skin-changer?’
‘Yea, in a fashion,’ she said. ‘Hearken! dost thou perchance remember a
day of last summer when there was a market holden in Burgstead; and there
stood in the way over against the House of the Face a tall old carle who
was trucking deer-skins for diverse gear; and with him was a queen, tall
and dark-skinned, somewhat well-liking, her hair bound up in a white coif
so that none of it could be seen; by the token that she had a large stone
of mountain blue set in silver stuck in the said coif?’
As she spoke she set her hand to her bosom and drew something from it,
and held forth her hand to Gold-mane, and lo amidst the palm the great
blue stone set in silver.
‘Wondrous as a dream is this,’ said Face-of-god, ‘for these twain I
remember well, and what followed.’
She said: ‘I will tell thee that. There came a man of the Shepherd-Folk,
drunk or foolish, or both, who began to chaffer with the big carle; but
ever on the queen were his eyes set, and presently he put forth his hand
to her to clip her, whereon the big carle hove up his fist and smote him,
so that he fell to earth noseling. Then ran the folk together to hale
off the stranger and help the shepherd, and it was like that the stranger
should be mishandled. Then there thrust through the press a young man
with yellow hair and grey eyes, who cried out, “Fellows, let be! The
stranger had the right of it; this is no matter to make a quarrel or a
court case of. Let the market go on! This man and maid are true folk.”
So when the folk heard the young man and his bidding, they forebore and
let the carle and the queen be, and the shepherd went his ways little
hurt. Now then, who was this young man?’
Quoth Gold-mane: ‘It was even I, and meseemeth it was no great deed to
do.’
‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and the big carle was my brother, and the tall queen,
it was myself.’
‘How then,’ said he, ‘for she was as dark-skinned as a dwarf, and thou so
bright and fair?’
She said: ‘Well, if the woods are good for nothing else, yet are they
good for the growing of herbs, and I know the craft of simpling; and with
one of these herbs had I stained my skin and my brother’s also. And it
showed the darker beneath the white coif.’
‘Yea,’ said he, ‘but why must ye needs fare in feigned shapes? Ye would
have been welcome guests in the Dale howsoever ye had come.’
‘I may not tell thee hereof as now,’ said she.
Said Gold-mane: ‘Yet thou mayst belike tell me wherefore was that thy
brother desired to slay me yesterday, if he knew me, who I was.’
‘Gold-mane,’ she said, ‘thou art not slain, so little story need be made
of that: for the rest, belike he knew thee not at that moment. So it
falls with us, that we look to see foes rather than friends in the
wild-woods. Many uncouth things are therein. Moreover, I must tell thee
of my brother that whiles he is as the stalled bull late let loose, and
nothing is good to him save battle and onset; and then is he blind and
knows not friend from foe.’ Said Face-of-god: ‘Thou hast asked of me and
mine; wilt thou not tell me of thee and thine?’
‘Nay,’ she said, ‘not as now; thou must betake thee to the way. Whither
wert thou wending when thou happenedst upon us?’
He said: ‘I know not; I was seeking something, but I knew not
what—meseemeth that now I have found it.’
‘Art thou for the great mountains seeking gems?’ she said. ‘Yet go not
thither to-day: for who knoweth what thou shalt meet there that shall be
thy foe?’
He said: ‘Nay, nay; I have nought to do but to abide here as long as I
may, looking upon thee and hearkening to thy voice.’
Her eyes were upon his, but yet she did not seem to see him, and for a
while she answered not; and still he wondered that mere words should come
from so fair a thing; for whether she moved foot, or hand, or knee, or
turned this way or that, each time she stirred it was a caress to his
very heart.
He spake again: ‘May I not abide here a while? What scathe may be in
that?’
‘It is not so,’ she said; ‘thou must depart, and that straightway: lo,
there lieth thy spear which the Wood-mother hath brought in from the
waste. Take thy gear to thee and wend thy ways. Have patience! I will
lead thee to the place where we first met and there give thee farewell.’
Therewith she arose and he also perforce, and when they came to the
doorway she stepped across the threshold and then turned back and gave
him her hand and so led him forth, the sun flashing back from her golden
raiment. Together they went over the short grey grass of that hillside
till they came to the place where he had arisen from that wrestle with
her brother. There she stayed him and said:
‘This is the place; here must we part.’
But his heart failed him and he faltered in his speech as he said:
‘When shall I see thee again? Wilt thou slay me if I seek to thee hither
once more?’
‘Hearken,’ she said, ‘autumn is now a-dying into winter: let winter and
its snows go past: nor seek to me hither; for me thou should’st not find,
but thy death thou mightest well fall in with; and I would not that thou
shouldest die. When winter is gone, and spring is on the land, if thou
hast not forgotten us thou shalt meet us again. Yet shalt thou go
further than this Woodland Hall. In Shadowy Vale shalt thou seek to me
then, and there will I talk with thee.’
‘And where,’ said he, ‘is Shadowy Vale? for thereof have I never heard
tell.’
She said: ‘The token when it cometh to thee shall show thee thereof and
the way thither. Art thou a babbler, Gold-mane?’
He said: ‘I have won no prize for babbling hitherto.’
She said: ‘If thou listest to babble concerning what hath befallen thee
on the Mountain, so do, and repent it once only, that is, thy life long.’
‘Why should I say any word thereof?’ said he. ‘Dost thou not know the
sweetness of such a tale untold?’
He spake as one who is somewhat wrathful, and she answered humbly and
kindly:
‘Well is that. Bide thou the token that shall lead thee to Shadowy Vale.
Farewell now.’
She drew her hand from his, and turned and went her ways swiftly to the
house: he could not choose but gaze on her as she went glittering-bright
and fair in that grey place of the mountains, till the dark doorway
swallowed up her beauty. Then he turned away and took the path through
the pine-woods, muttering to himself as he went:
‘What thing have I done now that hitherto I had not done? What manner of
man am I to-day other than the man I was yesterday?’
CHAPTER VIII. FACE-OF-GOD COMETH HOME AGAIN TO BURGSTEAD.
FACE-OF-GOD went back through the wood by the way he had come, paying
little heed to the things about him. For whatever he thought of strayed
not one whit from the image of the Fair Woman of the Mountain-side.
He went through the wood swiftlier than yesterday, and made no stay for
noon or aught else, nor did he linger on the road when he was come into
the Dale, either to speak to any or to note what they did. So he came to
the House of the Face about dusk, and found no man within the hall either
carle or queen. So he cried out on the folk, and there came in a damsel
of the house, whom he greeted kindly and she him again. He bade her
bring the washing-water, and she did so and washed his feet and his
hands. She was a fair maid enough, as were most in the Dale, but he
heeded her little; and when she was done he kissed not her cheek for her
pains, as his wont was, but let her go her ways unthanked. But he went
to his shut-bed and opened his chest, and drew fair raiment from it, and
did off his wood-gear, and did on him a goodly scarlet kirtle fairly
broidered, and a collar with gems of price therein, and other braveries.
And when he was so attired he came out into the hall, and there was old
Stone-face standing by the hearth, which was blazing brightly with fresh
brands, so that things were clear to see.
Stone-face noted Gold-mane’s gay raiment, for he was not wont to wear
such attire, save on the feasts and high days when he behoved to. So the
old man smiled and said:
‘Welcome back from the Wood! But what is it? Hast thou been wedded
there, or who hath made thee Earl and King?’
Said Face-of-god: ‘Foster-father, sooth it is that I have been to the
wood, but there have I seen nought of manfolk worse than myself. Now as
to my raiment, needs must I keep it from the moth. And I am weary
withal, and this kirtle is light and easy to me. Moreover, I look to see
the Bride here again, and I would pleasure her with the sight of gay
raiment upon me.’
‘Nay,’ said Stone-face, ‘hast thou not seen some woman in the wood
arrayed like the image of a God? and hath she not bidden thee thus to
worship her to-night? For I know that such wights be in the wood, and
that such is their wont.’
Said Gold-mane: ‘I worship nought save the Gods and the Fathers. Nor saw
I in the wood any such as thou sayest.’
Therewith Stone-face shook his head; but after a while he said:
‘Art thou for the wood to-morrow?’
‘Nay,’ said Gold-mane angrily, knitting his brows.
‘The morrow of to-morrow,’ said Stone-face, ‘is the day when we look to
see the Westland merchants: after all, wilt thou not go hence with them
when they wend their ways back before the first snows fall?’
‘Nay,’ said he, ‘I have no mind to it, fosterer; cease egging me on
hereto.’
Then Stone-face shook his head again, and looked on him long, and
muttered: ‘To the wood wilt thou go to-morrow or next day; or some day
when doomed is thine undoing.’
Therewith entered the service and torches, and presently after came the
Alderman with Hall-face; and Iron-face greeted his son and said to him:
‘Thou hast not hit the time to do on thy gay raiment, for the Bride will
not be here to-night; she bideth still at the Feast at the Apple-tree
House: or wilt thou be there, son?’
‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘I am over-weary. And as for my raiment, it is
well; it is for thine honour and the honour of the name.’
So to table they went, and Iron-face asked his son of his ways again, and
whether he was quite fixed in his mind not to go down to the Plain and
the Cities: ‘For,’ said he, ‘the morrow of to-morrow shall the merchants
be here, and this were great news for them if the son of the Alderman
should be their faring-fellow back.’
But Face-of-god answered without any haste or heat: ‘Nay, father, it may
not be: fear not, thou shalt see that I have a good will to work and live
in the Dale.’
And in good sooth, though he was a young man and loved mirth and the ways
of his own will, he was a stalwarth workman, and few could mow a match
with him in the hay-month and win it; or fell trees as certainly and
swiftly, or drive as straight and clean a furrow through the stiff land
of the lower Dale; and in other matters also was he deft and sturdy.
CHAPTER IX. THOSE BRETHREN FARE TO THE YEWWOOD WITH THE BRIDE.
NEXT morning Face-of-god dight himself for work, and took his axe; for
his brother Hall-face had bidden him go down with him to the Yew-wood and
cut timber there, since he of all men knew where to go straight to the
sticks that would quarter best for bow-staves; whereas the Alderman had
the right of hewing in that wood. So they went forth, those brethren,
from the House of the Face, but when they were gotten to the gate, who
should be there but the Bride awaiting them, and she with an ass duly
saddled for bearing the yew-sticks. Because Hall-face had told her that
he and belike Gold-mane were going to hew in the wood, and she thought it
good to be of the company, as oft had befallen erst. When they met she
greeted Face-of-god and kissed him as her wont was; and he looked upon
her and saw how fair she was, and how kind and friendly were her eyes
that beheld him, and how her whole face was eager for him as their lips
parted. Then his heart failed him, when he knew that he no longer
desired her as she did him, and he said within himself:
‘Would that she had been of our nighest kindred! Would that I had had a
sister and that this were she!’
So the three went along the highway down the Dale, and Hall-face and the
Bride talked merrily together and laughed, for she was happy, since she
knew that Gold-mane had been to the wood and was back safe and much as he
had been before. So indeed it seemed of him; for though at first he was
moody and of few words, yet presently he cursed himself for a mar-sport,
and so fell into the talk, and enforced himself to be merry; and soon he
was so indeed; for he thought: ‘She drew me thither: she hath a deed for
me to do. I shall do the deed and have my reward. Soon will the
spring-tide be here, and I shall be a young man yet when it comes.’
So came they to the place where he had met the three maidens yesterday;
there they also turned from the highway; and as they went down the bent,
Gold-mane could not but turn his eyes on the beauty of the Bride and the
lovely ways of her body: but presently he remembered all that had betid,
and turned away again as one who is noting what it behoves him not to
note. And he said to himself: ‘Where art thou, Gold-mane? Whose art
thou? Yea, even if that had been but a dream that I have dreamed, yet
would that this fair woman were my sister!’
So came they to the Yew-wood, and the brethren fell to work, and the
Bride with them, for she was deft with the axe and strong withal. But at
midday they rested on the green slope without the Yew-wood; and they ate
bread and flesh and onions and apples, and drank red wine of the Dale.
And while they were resting after their meat, the Bride sang to them, and
her song was a lay of time past; and here ye have somewhat of it:
’Tis over the hill and over the dale
Men ride from the city fast and far,
If they may have a soothfast tale,
True tidings of the host of war.
And first they hap on men-at-arms,
All clad in steel from head to foot:
Now tell true tale of the new-come harms,
And the gathered hosts of the mountain-root.
Fair sirs, from murder-carles we flee,
Whose fashion is as the mountain-trolls’;
No man can tell how many they be,
And the voice of their host as the thunder rolls.
They were weary men at the ending of day,
But they spurred nor stayed for longer word.
Now ye, O merchants, whither away?
What do ye there with the helm and the sword?
O we must fight for life and gear,
For our beasts are spent and our wains are stayed,
And the host of the Mountain-men draws near,
That maketh all the world afraid.
They left the chapmen on the hill,
And through the eve and through the night
They rode to have true tidings still,
And were there on the way when the dawn was bright.
O damsels fair, what do ye then
To loiter thus upon the way,
And have no fear of the Mountain-men,
The host of the carles that strip and slay?
O riders weary with the road,
Come eat and drink on the grass hereby!
And lay you down in a fair abode
Till the midday sun is broad and high;
Then unto you shall we come aback,
And lead you forth to the Mountain-men,
To note their plenty and their lack,
And have true tidings there and then.
’Tis over the hill and over the dale
They ride from the mountain fast and far;
And now have they learned a soothfast tale,
True tidings of the host of war.
It was summer-tide and the Month of Hay,
And men and maids must fare afield;
But we saw the place were the bow-staves lay,
And the hall was hung with spear and shield.
When the moon was high we drank in the hall,
And they drank to the guests and were kind and blithe,
And they said: Come back when the chestnuts fall,
And the wine-carts wend across the hythe.
Come oft and o’er again, they said;
Wander your ways; but we abide
For all the world in the little stead;
For wise are we, though the world be wide.
Yea, come in arms if ye will, they said;
And despite your host shall we abide
For life or death in the little stead;
For wise are we, though the world be wide.
So she made an end and looked at the fairness of the dale spreading wide
before her, and a robin came nigh from out of a thorn-bush and sung his
song also, the sweet herald of coming winter; and the lapwings wheeled
about, black and white, above the meadow by the river, sending forth
their wheedling pipe as they hung above the soft turf.
She felt the brothers near her, and knew their friendliness from of old,
and she was happy; nor had she looked closer at Gold-mane would she have
noted any change in him belike; for the meat and the good wine, and the
fair sunny time, and the Bride’s sweet voice, and the ancient song
softened his heart while it fed the desire therein.
So in a while they arose from their rest and did what was left them of
their work, and so went back to Burgstead through the fair afternoon; by
seeming all three in all content. But yet Gold-mane, as from time to
time he looked upon the Bride, kept saying to himself: ‘O if she had been
but my sister! sweet had the kinship been!’
CHAPTER X. NEW TIDINGS IN THE DALE.
IT was three days thereafter that Gold-mane, leading an ass, went along
the highway to fetch home certain fleeces which were needed for the house
from a stead a little west of Wildlake; but he had gone scant half a mile
ere he fell in with a throng of folk going to Burgstead. They were of
the Shepherds; they had weapons with them, and some were clad in coats of
fence. They went along making a great noise, for they were all talking
each to each at the same time, and seemed very hot and eager about some
matter. When they saw Gold-mane anigh, they stopped, and the throng
opened as if to let him into their midmost; so he mingled with them, and
they stood in a ring about him and an old man more ill-favoured than it
was the wont of the Dalesmen to be.
For he was long, stooping, gaunt and spindle-shanked, his hands big and
crippled with gout: his cheeks were red after an old man’s fashion,
covered with a crimson network like a pippin; his lips thin and not well
hiding his few teeth; his nose long like a snipe’s neb. In short, a
shame and a laughing-stock to the Folk, and a man whom the kindreds had
in small esteem, and that for good reasons.
Face-of-god knew him at once for a notable close-fist and starve-all fool
of the Shepherds; and his name was now become Penny-thumb the Lean,
whatever it might once have been.
So Face-of-god greeted all men, and they him again; and he said: ‘What
aileth you, neighbours? Your weapons, are bare, but I see not that they
be bloody. What is it, goodman Penny-thumb?’
Penny-thumb did but groan for all answer; but a stout carle who stood by
with a broad grin on his face answered and said:
‘Face-of-god, evil tidings be abroad; the strong-thieves of the wood are
astir; and some deem that the wood-wights be helping them.’
‘Yea, and what is the deed they have done?’ said Gold-mane.
Said the carle: ‘Thou knowest Penny-thumb’s abode?’
‘Yea surely,’ said Face-of-god; ‘fair are the water-meadows about it;
great gain of cheese can be gotten thence.’
‘Hast thou been within the house?’ said the carle.
‘Nay,’ said Gold-mane.
Then spake Penny-thumb: ‘Within is scant gear: we gather for others to
scatter; we make meat for others’ mouths.’
The carle laughed: ‘Sooth is that,’ said he, ‘that there is little gear
therein now; for the strong-thieves have voided both hall and bower and
byre.’
‘And when was that?’ said Face-of-god.
‘The night before last night,’ said the carle, ‘the door was smitten on,
and when none answered it was broken down.’
‘Yea,’ quoth Penny-thumb, ‘a host entered, and they in arms.’
‘No host was within,’ said the carle, ‘nought but Penny-thumb and his
sister and his sister’s son, and three carles that work for him; and one
of them, Rusty to wit, was the worst man of the hill-country. These then
the host whereof the goodman telleth bound, but without doing them any
scathe; and they ransacked the house, and took away much gear; yet left
some.’
‘Thou liest,’ said Penny-thumb; ‘they took little and left none.’
Thereat all men laughed, for this seemed to them good game, and another
man said: ‘Well, neighbour Penny-thumb, if it was so little, thou hast
done unneighbourly in giving us such a heap of trouble about it.’
And they laughed again, but the first carle said: ‘True it is, goodman,
that thou wert exceeding eager to raise the hue and cry after that little
when we happed upon thee and thy housemates bound in your chairs
yesterday morning. Well, Alderman’s son, short is the tale to tell: we
could not fail to follow the gear, and the slot led us into the wood, and
ill is the going there for us shepherds, who are used to the bare downs,
save Rusty, who was a good woodsman and lifted the slot for us; so he
outwent us all, and ran out of sight of us, so presently we came upon him
dead-slain, with the manslayer’s spear in his breast. What then could we
do but turn back again, for now was the wood blind now Rusty was dead,
and we knew not whither to follow the fray; and the man himself was but
little loss: so back we turned, and told goodman Penny-thumb of all this,
for we had left him alone in his hall lamenting his gear; so we bided
to-day’s morn, and have come out now, with our neighbour and the spear,
and the dead corpse of Rusty. Stand aside, neighbours, and let the
Alderman’s son see it.’
They did so, and there was the corpse of a thin-faced tall wiry man,
somewhat foxy of aspect, lying on a hand-bier covered with black cloth.
‘Yea, Face-of-god,’ said the carle, ‘he is not good to see now he is
dead, yet alive was he worser: but, look you, though the man was no good
man, yet was he of our people, and the feud is with us; so we would see
the Alderman, and do him to wit of the tidings, that he may call the
neighbours together to seek a blood-wite for Rusty and atonement for the
ransacking. Or what sayest thou?’
‘Have ye the spear that ye found in Rusty?’ quoth Gold-mane.
‘Yea verily,’ said the carle. ‘Hither with it, neighbours; give it to
the Alderman’s son.’
So the spear came into his hand, and he looked at it and said:
‘This is no spear of the smiths’ work of the Dale, as my father will tell
you. We take but little keep of the forging of spearheads here, so that
they be well-tempered and made so as to ride well on the shaft; but this
head, daintily is it wrought, the blood-trench as clean and trim as
though it were an Earl’s sword. See you withal this inlaying of runes on
the steel? It is done with no tin or copper, but with very silver; and
these bands about the shaft be of silver also. It is a fair weapon, and
the owner hath a loss of it greater than his gain in the slaying of
Rusty; and he will have left it in the wound so that he might be known
hereafter, and that he might be said not to have murdered Rusty but to
have slain him. Or how think ye?’
They all said that this seemed like to be; but that if the man who had
slain Rusty were one of the ransackers they might have a blood-wite of
him, if they could find him. Gold-mane said that so it was, and
therewithal he gave the shepherds good-speed and went on his way.
But they came to Burgstead and found the Alderman, and in due time was a
Court held, and a finding uttered, and outlawry given forth for the
manslaying and the ransacking against certain men unknown. As for the
spear, it was laid up in the House of the Face.
But Face-of-god pondered these matters in his mind, for such ransackings
there had been none of in late years; and he said to himself that his
friends of the Mountain must have other folk, of which the Dalesmen knew
nought, whose gear they could lift, or how could they live in that place.
And he marvelled that they should risk drawing the Dalesmen’s wrath upon
them; whereas they of the Dale were strong men not easily daunted, albeit
peaceable enough if not stirred to wrath. For in good sooth he had no
doubt concerning that spear, whose it was and whence it came: for that
very weapon had been leaning against the panel of his shut-bed the night
he slept on the Mountain, and all the other spears that he saw there were
more or less of the same fashion, and adorned with silver.
Albeit all that he knew, and all that he thought of, he kept in his own
heart and said nothing of it.
So wore the autumn into early winter; and the Westland merchants came in
due time, and departed without Face-of-god, though his father made him
that offer one last time. He went to and fro about his work in the Dale,
and seemed to most men’s eyes nought changed from what he had been. But
the Bride noted that he saw her less often than his wont was, and abode
with her a lesser space when he met her; and she could not think what
this might mean; nor had she heart to ask him thereof, though she was
sorry and grieved, but rather withdrew her company from him somewhat; and
when she perceived that he noted it not, and made no question of it, then
was she the sorrier.
But the first winter-snow came on with a great storm of wind from the
north-east, so that no man stirred abroad who was not compelled thereto,
and those who went abroad risked life and limb thereby. Next morning all
was calm again, and the snow was deep, but it did not endure long, for
the wind shifted to the southwest and the thaw came, and three days
after, when folk could fare easily again up and down the Dale, came
tidings to Burgstead and the Alderman from the Lower Dale, how a house
called Greentofts had been ransacked there, and none knew by whom. Now
the goodman of Greentofts was little loved of the neighbours: he was
grasping and overbearing, and had often cowed others out of their due: he
was very cross-grained, both at home and abroad: his wife had fled from
his hand, neither did his sons find it good to abide with him:
therewithal he was wealthy of goods, a strong man and a deft man-at-arms.
When his sons and his wife departed from him, and none other of the
Dalesmen cared to abide with him, he went down into the Plain, and got
thence men to be with him for hire, men who were not well seen to in
their own land. These to the number of twelve abode with him, and did
his bidding whenso it pleased them. Two more had he had who had been
slain by good men of the Dale for their masterful ways; and no blood-wite
had been paid for them, because of their ill-doings, though they had not
been made outlaws. This man of Greentofts was called Harts-bane after
his father, who was a great hunter.
Now the full tidings of the ransacking were these: The storm began two
hours before sunset, and an hour thereafter, when it was quite dark, for
without none could see because the wind was at its height and the drift
of the snow was hard and full, the hall-door flew open; and at first men
thought it had been the wind, until they saw in the dimness (for all
lights but the fire on the hearth had been quenched) certain things
tumbling in which at first they deemed were wolves; but when they took
swords and staves against them, lo they were met by swords and axes, and
they saw that the seeming wolves were men with wolf-skins drawn over
them. So the new-comers cowed them that they threw down their weapons,
and were bound in their places; but when they were bound, and had had
time to note who the ransackers were, they saw that there were but six of
them all told, who had cowed and bound Harts-bane and his twelve
masterful men; and this they deemed a great shaming to them, as might
well be.
So then the stead was ransacked, and those wolves took away what they
would, and went their ways through the fierce storm, and none could tell
whether they had lived or died in it; but at least neither the men nor
their prey were seen again; nor did they leave any slot, for next morning
the snow lay deep over everything.
No doubt had Gold-mane but that these ransackers were his friends of the
Mountain; but he held his peace, abiding till the winter should be over.
CHAPTER XI. MEN MAKE OATH AT BURGSTEAD ON THE HOLY BOAR.
A WEEK after the ransacking at Greentofts the snow and the winter came on
in earnest, and all the Dale lay in snow, and men went on skids when they
fared up and down the Dale or on the Mountain.
All was now tidingless till Yule over, and in Burgstead was there
feasting and joyance enough; and especially at the House of the Face was
high-tide holden, and the Alderman and his sons and Stone-face and all
the kindred and all their men sat in glorious attire within the hall; and
many others were there of the best of the kindreds of Burgstead who had
been bidden.
Face-of-god sat between his father and Stone-face; and he looked up and
down the tables and the hall and saw not the Bride, and his heart misgave
him because she was not there, and he wondered what had befallen and if
she were sick of sorrow.
But Iron-face beheld him how he gazed about, and he laughed; for he was
exceeding merry that night and fared as a young man. Then he said to his
son: ‘Whom seekest thou, son? is there someone lacking?’
Face-of-god reddened as one who lies unused to it, and said:
‘Yea, kinsman, so it is that I was seeking the Bride my kinswoman.’
‘Nay,’ said Iron-face, ‘call her not kinswoman: therein is ill-luck, lest
it seem that thou art to wed one too nigh thine own blood. Call her the
Bride only: to thee and to me the name is good. Well, son, desirest thou
sorely to see her?’
‘Yea, yea, surely,’ said Face-of-god; but his eyes went all about the
hall still, as though his mind strayed from the place and that home of
his.
Said Iron-face: ‘Have patience, son, thou shalt see her anon, and that in
such guise as shall please thee.’
Therewithal came the maidens with the ewers of wine, and they filled all
horns and beakers, and then stood by the endlong tables on either side
laughing and talking with the carles and the older women; and the hall
was a fair sight to see, for the many candles burned bright and the fire
on the hearth flared up, and those maids were clad in fair raiment, and
there was none of them but was comely, and some were fair, and some very
fair: the walls also were hung with goodly pictured cloths, and the image
of the God of the Face looked down smiling terribly from the gable-end
above the high-seat.
Thus as they sat they heard the sound of a horn winded close outside the
hall door, and the door was smitten on. Then rose Iron-face smiling
merrily, and cried out:
‘Enter ye, whether ye be friends or foes: for if ye be foemen, yet shall
ye keep the holy peace of Yule, unless ye be the foes of all kindreds and
nations, and then shall we slay you.’
Thereat some who knew what was toward laughed; but Gold-mane, who had
been away from Burgstead some days past, marvelled and knit his brows,
and let his right hand fall on his sword-hilt. For this folk, who were
of merry ways, were wont to deal diversely with the Yule-tide customs in
the manner of shows; and he knew not that this was one of them.
Now was the Outer door thrown open, and there entered seven men, whereof
two were all-armed in bright war-gear, and two bore slug-horns, and two
bore up somewhat on a dish covered over with a piece of rich cloth, and
the seventh stood before them all wrapped up in a dark fur mantle.
Thus they stood a moment; and when he saw their number, back to
Gold-mane’s heart came the thought of those folk on the Mountain: for
indeed he was somewhat out of himself for doubt and longing, else would
he have deemed that all this was but a Yule-tide play.
Now the men with the slug-horns set them to their mouths and blew a long
blast; while the first of the new-comers set hand to the clasps of the
fur cloak and let it fall to the ground, and lo! a woman exceeding
beauteous, clad in glistering raiment of gold and fine web; her hair
wreathed with bay, and in her hand a naked sword with goodly-wrought
golden hilt and polished blue-gleaming blade.
Face-of-god started up in his sear, and stared like a man new-wakened
from a strange dream: because for one moment he deemed verily that it was
the Woman of the Mountain arrayed as he had last seen her, and he cried
aloud ‘The Friend, the Friend!’
His father brake out into loud laughter thereat, and clapped his son on
the shoulder and said: ‘Yea, yea, lad, thou mayst well say the Friend;
for this is thine old playmate whom thou hast been looking round the hall
for, arrayed this eve in such fashion as is meet for her goodliness and
her worthiness. Yea, this is the Friend indeed!’
Then waxed Face-of-god as red as blood for shame, and he sat him down in
his place again: for now he wotted what was toward, and saw that this
fair woman was the Bride.
But Stone-face from the other side looked keenly on him.
Then blew the horns again, and the Bride stepped daintily up the hall,
and the sweet odour of her raiment went from her about the fire-warmed
dwelling, and her beauty moved all hearts with love. So stood she at the
high-table; and those two who bore the burden set it down thereon and
drew off the covering, and lo! there was the Holy Boar of Yule on which
men were wont to make oath of deeds that they would do in the coming
year, according to the custom of their forefathers. Then the Bride laid
the goodly sword beside the dish, and then went round the table and sat
down betwixt Face-of-god and Stone-face, and turned kindly to Gold-mane,
and was glad; for now was his fair face as its wont was to be. He in
turn smiled upon her, for she was fair and kind and his fellow for many a
day.
Now the men-at-arms stood each side the Boar, and out from them on each
side stood the two hornsmen: then these blew up again, whereon the
Alderman stood up and cried:
‘Ye sons of the brave who have any deed that ye may be desirous of doing,
come up, come lay your hand on the sword, and the point of the sword to
the Holy Beast, and swear the oath that lieth on your hearts.’
Therewith he sat down, and there strode a man up the hall, strong-built
and sturdy, but short of stature; black-haired, red-bearded, and
ruddy-faced: and he stood on the daïs, and took up the sword and laid its
point on the Boar, and said:
‘I am Bristler, son of Brightling, a man of the Shepherds. Here by the
Holy Boar I swear to follow up the ransackers of Penny-thumb and the
slayers of Rusty. And I take this feud upon me, although they be no good
men, because I am of the kin and it falleth to me, since others forbear;
and when the Court was hallowed hereon I was away out of the Dale and the
Downs. So help me the Warrior, and the God of the Earth.’
Then the Alderman nodded his head to him kindly, and reached him out a
cup of wine, and as he drank there went up a rumour of praise from the
hall; and men said that his oath was manly and that he was like to keep
it; for he was a good man-at-arms and a stout heart.
Then came up three men of the Shepherds and two of the Dale and swore to
help Bristler in his feud, and men thought it well sworn.
After that came a braggart, a man very gay of his raiment, and swore with
many words that if he lived the year through he would be a captain over
the men of the Plain, and would come back again with many gifts for his
friends in the Dale. This men deemed foolishly sworn, for they knew the
man; so they jeered at him and laughed as he went back to his place
ashamed.
Then swore three others oaths not hard to be kept, and men laughed and
were merry.
At last uprose the Alderman, and said: ‘Kinsmen, and good fellows, good
days and peaceable are in the Dale as now; and of such days little is the
story, and little it availeth to swear a deed of derring-do: yet three
things I swear by this Beast; and first to gainsay no man’s asking if I
may perform it; and next to set right above law and mercy above custom;
and lastly, if the days change and war cometh to us or we go to meet it,
I will be no backwarder in the onset than three fathoms behind the
foremost. So help me the Warrior, and the God of the Face and the Holy
Earth!’
Therewith he sat down, and all men shouted for joy of him, and said that
it was most like that he would keep his oath.
Last of all uprose Face-of-god and took up the sword and looked at it;
and so bright was the blade that he saw in it the image of the golden
braveries which the Bride bore, and even some broken image of her face.
Then he handled the hilt and laid the point on the Boar, and cried:
‘Hereby I swear to wed the fairest woman of the Earth before the year is
worn to an end; and that whether the Dalesmen gainsay me or the men
beyond the Dale. So help me the Warrior, and the God of the Face and the
Holy Earth!’
Therewith he sat down; and once more men shouted for the love of him and
of the Bride, and they said he had sworn well and like a chieftain.
But the Bride noted him that neither were his eyes nor his voice like to
their wont as he swore, for she knew him well; and thereat was she ill at
ease, for now whatever was new in him was to her a threat of evil to
come.
Stone-face also noted him, and he knew the young man better than all
others save the Bride, and he saw withal that she was ill-pleased, and he
said to himself: ‘I will speak to my fosterling to-morrow if I may find
him alone.’
So came the swearing to an end, and they fell to on their meat and
feasted on the Boar of Atonement after they had duly given the Gods their
due share, and the wine went about the hall and men were merry till they
drank the parting cup and fared to rest in the shut-beds, and whereso
else they might in the Hall and the House, for there were many men there.
CHAPTER XII. STONE-FACE TELLETH CONCERNING THE WOOD-WIGHTS.
EARLY on the morrow Gold-mane arose and clad himself and went out-a-doors
and over the trodden snow on to the bridge over the Weltering Water, and
there betook himself into one of the coins of safety built over the
up-stream piles; there he leaned against the wall and turned his face to
the Thorp, and fell to pondering on his case. And first he thought about
his oath, and how that he had sworn to wed the Mountain Woman, although
his kindred and her kindred should gainsay him, yea and herself also.
Great seemed that oath to him, yet at that moment he wished he had made
it greater, and made all the kindred, yea and the Bride herself, sure of
the meaning of the words of it: and he deemed himself a dastard that he
had not done so. Then he looked round him and beheld the winter, and he
fell into mere longing that the spring were come and the token from the
Mountain. Things seemed too hard for him to deal with, and he between a
mighty folk and two wayward women; and he went nigh to wish that he had
taken his father’s offer and gone down to the Cities; and even had he met
his bane: well were that! And, as young folk will, he set to work making
a picture of his deeds there, had he been there. He showed himself the
stricken fight in the plain, and the press, and the struggle, and the
breaking of the serried band, and himself amidst the ring of foemen doing
most valiantly, and falling there at last, his shield o’er-heavy with the
weight of foemen’s spears for a man to uphold it. Then the victory of
his folk and the lamentation and praise over the slain man of the
Mountain Dales, and the burial of the valiant warrior, the praising
weeping folk meeting him at the City-gate, laid stark and cold in his
arms on the gold-hung garlanded bier.
There ended his dream, and he laughed aloud and said: ‘I am a fool! All
this were good and sweet if I should see it myself; and forsooth that is
how I am thinking of it, as if I still alive should see myself dead and
famous!’
Then he turned a little and looked at the houses of the Thorp lying dark
about the snowy ways under the starlit heavens of the winter morning:
dark they were indeed and grey, save where here and there the half-burned
Yule-fire reddened the windows of a hall, or where, as in one place, the
candle of some early waker shone white in a chamber window. There was
scarce a man astir, he deemed, and no sound reached him save the crowing
of the cocks muffled by their houses, and a faint sound of beasts in the
byres.
Thus he stood a while, his thoughts wandering now, till presently he
heard footsteps coming his way down the street and turned toward them,
and lo it was the old man Stone-face. He had seen Gold-mane go out, and
had risen and followed him that he might talk with him apart. Gold-mane
greeted him kindly, though, sooth to say, he was but half content to see
him; since he doubted, what was verily the case, that his foster-father
would give him many words, counselling him to refrain from going to the
wood, and this was loathsome to him; but he spake and said:
‘Meseems, father, that the eastern sky is brightening toward dawn.’
‘Yea,’ quoth Stone-face.
‘It will be light in an hour,’ said Face-of-god.
‘Even so,’ said Stone-face.
‘And a fair day for the morrow of Yule,’ said the swain.
‘Yea,’ said Stone-face, ‘and what wilt thou do with the fair day? Wilt
thou to the wood?’
‘Maybe, father,’ said Gold-mane; ‘Hall-face and some of the swains are
talking of elks up the fells which may be trapped in the drifts, and if
they go a-hunting them, I may go in their company.’
‘Ah, son,’ quoth Stone-face, ‘thou wilt look to see other kind of beasts
than elks. Things may ye fall in with there who may not be impounded in
the snow like to elks, but can go light-foot on the top of the soft drift
from one place to another.’
Said Gold-mane: ‘Father, fear me not; I shall either refrain me from the
wood, or if I go, I shall go to hunt the wood-deer with other hunters.
But since thou hast come to me, tell me more about the wood, for thy
tales thereof are fair.’
‘Yea,’ said Stone-face, ‘fair tales of foul things, as oft it befalleth
in the world. Hearken now! if thou deemest that what thou seekest shall
come readier to thine hand because of the winter and the snow, thou
errest. For the wights that waylay the bodies and souls of the mighty in
the wild-wood heed such matters nothing; yea and at Yule-tide are they
most abroad, and most armed for the fray. Even such an one have I seen
time agone, when the snow was deep and the wind was rough; and it was in
the likeness of a woman clad in such raiment as the Bride bore last
night, and she trod the snow light-foot in thin raiment where it would
scarce bear the skids of a deft snow-runner. Even so she stood before
me; the icy wind blew her raiment round about her, and drifted the hair
from her garlanded head toward me, and she as fair and fresh as in the
midsummer days. Up the fell she fared, sweetest of all things to look
on, and beckoned on me to follow; on me, the Warrior, the Stout-heart;
and I followed, and between us grief was born; but I it was that fostered
that child and not she. Always when she would be, was she merry and
lovely; and even so is she now, for she is of those that be long-lived.
And I wot that thou hast seen even such an one!’
‘Tell me more of thy tales, foster-father,’ said Gold-mane, ‘and fear not
for me!’
‘Ah, son,’ he said, ‘mayst thou have no such tales to tell to those that
shall be young when thou art old. Yet hearken! We sat in the hall
together and there was no third; and methought that the birds sang and
the flowers bloomed, and sweet was their savour, though it was midwinter.
A rose-wreath was on her head; grapes were on the board, and fair
unwrinkled summer apples on the day that we feasted together. When was
the feast? sayst thou. Long ago. What was the hall, thou sayest,
wherein ye feasted? I know not if it were on the earth or under it, or
if we rode the clouds that even. But on the morrow what was there but
the stark wood and the drift of the snow, and the iron wind howling
through the branches, and a lonely man, a wanderer rising from the
ground. A wanderer through the wood and up the fell, and up the high
mountain, and up and up to the edges of the ice-river and the green caves
of the ice-hills. A wanderer in spring, in summer, autumn and winter,
with an empty heart and a burning never-satisfied desire; who hath seen
in the uncouth places many an evil unmanly shape, many a foul hag and
changing ugly semblance; who hath suffered hunger and thirst and wounding
and fever, and hath seen many things, but hath never again seen that fair
woman, or that lovely feast-hall.
‘All praise and honour to the House of the Face, and the bounteous
valiant men thereof! and the like praise and honour to the fair women
whom they wed of the valiant and goodly House of the Steer!’
‘Even so say I,’ quoth Gold-mane calmly; ‘but now wend we aback to the
House, for it is morning indeed, and folk will be stirring there.’
So they turned from the bridge together; and Stone-face was kind and
fatherly, and was telling his foster-son many wise things concerning the
life of a chieftain, and the giving-out of dooms and the gathering for
battle; to all which talk Face-of-god seemed to hearken gladly, but
indeed hearkened not at all; for verily his eyes were beholding that
snowy waste, and the fair woman upon it; even such an one as Stone-face
had told of.
CHAPTER XIII. THEY FARE TO THE HUNTING OF THE ELK.
WHEN they came into the Hall, the hearth-fire had been quickened, and the
sleepers on the floor had been wakened, and all folk were astir. So the
old man sat down by the hearth while Gold-mane busied himself in fetching
wood and water, and in sweeping out the Hall, and other such works of the
early morning. In a little while Hall-face and the other young men and
warriors were afoot duly clad, and the Alderman came from his chamber and
greeted all men kindly. Soon meat was set upon the boards, and men broke
their fast; and day dawned while they were about it, and ere it was all
done the sun rose clear and golden, so that all men knew that the day
would be fair, for the frost seemed hard and enduring.
Then the eager young men and the hunters, and those who knew the mountain
best drew together about the hearth, and fell to talking of the hunting
of the elk; and there were three there who knew both the woods and also
the fells right up to the ice-rivers better than any other; and these
said that they who were fain of the hunting of the elk would have no
likelier time than that day for a year to come. Short was the rede
betwixt them, for they said they would go to the work at once and make
the most of the short winter daylight. So they went each to his place,
and some outside that House to their fathers’ houses to fetch each man
his gear. Face-of-god for his part went to his shut-bed, and stood by
his chest, and opened it, and drew out of it a fine hauberk of ring-mail
which his father had made for him: for though Face-of-god was a deft
wright, he was not by a long way so deft as his father, who was the
deftest of all men of that time and country; so that the alien merchants
would give him what he would for his hauberks and helms, whenso he would
chaffer with them, which was but seldom. So Face-of-god did on this
hauberk over his kirtle, and over it he cast his foul-weather weed, so
that none might see it: he girt a strong war-sword to his side, cast his
quiver over his shoulder, and took his bow in his hand, although he had
little lust to shoot elks that day, even as Stone-face had said;
therewithal he took his skids, and went forth of the hall to the gate of
the Burg; whereto gathered the whole company of twenty-three, and
Gold-mane the twenty-fourth. And each man there had his skids and his
bow and quiver, and whatso other weapon, as short-sword, or wood-knife,
or axe, seemed good to him.
So they went out-a-gates, and clomb the stairway in the cliff which led
to the ancient watch-tower: for it was on the lower slopes of the fells
which lay near to the Weltering Water that they looked to find the elks,
and this was the nighest road thereto. When they had gotten to the top
they lost no time, but went their ways nearly due east, making way easily
where there were but scattered trees close to the lip of the sheer
cliffs.
They went merrily on their skids over the close-lying snow, and were soon
up on the great shoulders of the fells that went up from the bank of the
Weltering Water: at noon they came into a little dale wherein were a few
trees, and there they abided to eat their meat, and were very merry,
making for themselves tables and benches of the drifted snow, and piling
it up to windward as a defence against the wind, which had now arisen,
little but bitter from the south-east; so that some, and they the wisest,
began to look for foul weather: wherefore they tarried the shorter while
in the said dale or hollow.
But they were scarcely on their way again before the aforesaid south-east
wind began to grow bigger, and at last blew a gale, and brought up with
it a drift of fine snow, through which they yet made their way, but
slowly, till the drift grew so thick that they could not see each other
five paces apart.
Then perforce they made stay, and gathered together under a bent which by
good luck they happened upon, where they were sheltered from the worst of
the drift. There they abode, till in less than an hour’s space the drift
abated and the wind fell, and in a little while after it was quite clear,
with the sun shining brightly and the young waxing moon white and high up
in the heavens; and the frost was harder than ever.
This seemed good to them; but now that they could see each other’s faces
they fell to telling over their company, and there was none missing save
Face-of-god. They were somewhat dismayed thereat, but knew not what to
do, and they deemed he might not be far off, either a little behind or a
little ahead; and Hall-face said:
‘There is no need to make this to-do about my brother; he can take good
care of himself; neither does a warrior of the Face die because of a
little cold and frost and snow-drift. Withal Gold-mane is a wilful man,
and of late days hath been wilful beyond his wont; let us now find the
elks.’
So they went on their ways hoping to fall in with him again. No long
story need be made of their hunting, for not very far from where they had
taken shelter they came upon the elks, many of them, impounded in the
drifts, pretty much where the deft hunters looked to find them. There
then was battle between the elks and the men, till the beasts were all
slain and only one man hurt: then they made them sleighs from wood which
they found in the hollows thereby, and they laid the carcasses thereon,
and so turned their faces homeward, dragging their prey with them. But
they met not Face-of-god either there or on the way home; and Hall-face
said: ‘Maybe Gold-mane will lie on the fell to-night; and I would I were
with him; for adventures oft befall such folk when they abide in the
wilds.’
Now it was late at night by then they reached Burgstead, so laden as they
were with the dead beasts; but they heeded the night little, for the moon
was well-nigh as bright as day for them. But when they came to the gate
of the Thorp, there were assembled the goodmen and swains to meet them
with torches and wine in their honour. There also was Gold-mane come
back before them, yea for these two hours; and he stood clad in his
holiday raiment and smiled on them.
Then was there some jeering at him that he was come back empty-handed
from the hunting, and that he was not able to abide the wind and the
drift; but he laughed thereat, for all this was but game and play, since
men knew him for a keen hunter and a stout woodsman; and they had deemed
it a heavy loss of him if he had been cast away, as some feared he had
been: and his brother Hall-face embraced him and kissed him, and said to
him: ‘Now the next time that thou farest to the wood will I be with thee
foot to foot, and never leave thee, and then meseemeth I shall wot of the
tale that hath befallen thee, and belike it shall be no sorry one.’
Face-of-god laughed and answered but little, and they all betook them to
the House of the Face and held high feast therein, for as late as the
night was, in honour of this Hunting of the Elk.
No man cared to question Face-of-god closely as to how or where he had
strayed from the hunt; for he had told his own tale at once as soon as he
came home, to wit, that his right-foot skid-strap had broken, and even
while he stopped to mend it came on that drift and weather; and that he
could not move from that place without losing his way, and that when it
had cleared he knew not whither they had gone because the snow had
covered their slot. So he deemed it not unlike that they had gone back,
and that he might come up with one or two on the way, and that in any
case he wotted well that they could look after themselves; so he turned
back, not going very swiftly. All this seemed like enough, and a little
matter except to jest about, so no man made any question concerning it:
only old Stone-face said to himself:
‘Now were I fain to have a true tale out of him, but it is little likely
that anything shall come of my much questioning; and it is ill forcing a
young man to tell lies.’
So he held his peace, and the feast went on merrily and blithely.
CHAPTER XIV. CONCERNING FACE-OF-GOD AND THE MOUNTAIN.
BUT it must be told of Gold-mane that what had befallen him was in this
wise. His skid-strap brake in good sooth, and he stayed to mend it; but
when he had done what was needful, he looked up and saw no man nigh, what
for the drift, and that they had gone on somewhat; so he rose to his
feet, and without more delay, instead of keeping on toward the elk-ground
and the way his face had been set, he turned himself north-and-by-east,
and went his ways swiftly towards that aírt, because he deemed that it
might lead him to the Mountain-hall where he had guested. He abode not
for the storm to clear, but swept off through the thick of it; and indeed
the wind was somewhat at his back, so that he went the swiftlier. But
when the drift was gotten to its very worst, he sheltered himself for a
little in a hollow behind a thorn-bush he stumbled upon. As soon as it
began to abate he went on again, and at last when it was quite clear, and
the sun shone out, he found himself on a long slope of the fells covered
deep with smooth white snow, and at the higher end a great crag rising
bare fifty feet above the snow, and more rocks, but none so great, and
broken ground as he judged (the snow being deep) about it on the hither
side; and on the further, three great pine-trees all bent down and
mingled together by their load of snow.
Thitherward he made, as a man might, seeing nothing else to note before
him; but he had not made many strides when forth from behind the crag by
the pine-trees came a man; and at first Face-of-god thought it might be
one of his hunting-fellows gone astray, and he hailed him in a loud
voice, but as he looked he saw the sun flash back from a bright helm on
the new-comer’s head; albeit he kept on his way till there was but a
space of two hundred yards between them; when lo! the helm-bearer notched
a shaft to his bent bow and loosed at Face-of-god, and the arrow came
whistling and passed six inches by his right ear. Then Face-of-god
stopped perplexed with his case; for he was on the deep snow in his
skids, with his bow unbent, and he knew not how to bend it speedily. He
was loth to turn his back and flee, and indeed he scarce deemed that it
would help him. Meanwhile of his tarrying the archer loosed again at
him, and this time the shaft flew close to his left ear. Then
Face-of-god thought to cast himself down into the snow, but he was
ashamed; till there came a third shaft which flew over his head amidmost
and close to it. ‘Good shooting on the Mountain!’ muttered he; ‘the next
shaft will be amidst my breast, and who knows whether the Alderman’s
handiwork will keep it out.’
So he cried aloud: ‘Thou shootest well, brother; but art thou a foe? If
thou art, I have a sword by my side, and so hast thou; come hither to me,
and let us fight it out friendly if we must needs fight.’
A laugh came down the wind to him clear but somewhat shrill, and the
archer came swiftly towards him on his skids with no weapon in his hand
save his bow; so that Face-of-god did not draw his sword, but stood
wondering.
As they drew nearer he beheld the face of the new-comer, and deemed that
he had seen it before; and soon, for all that it was hooded close by the
ill-weather raiment, he perceived it to be the face of Bow-may, ruddy and
smiling.
She laughed out loud again, as she stopped herself within three feet of
him, and said:
‘Yea, friend Yellow-hair, we heard of the elks and looked to see thee
hereabouts, and I knew thee at once when I came out from behind the crag
and saw thee stand bewildered.’
Said Gold-mane: ‘Hail to thee, Bow-may! and glad am I to see thee. But
thou liest in saying that thou knewest me; else why didst thou shoot
those three shafts at me? Surely thou art not so quick as that with all
thy friends: these be sharp greetings of you Mountain-folk.’
‘Thou lad with the sweet mouth,’ she said, ‘I like to see thee and hear
thee talk, but now must I hasten thy departure; so stand we here no
longer. Let us get down into the wood where we can do off our skids and
sit down, and then will I tell thee the tidings. Come on!’
And she caught his hand in hers, and they went speedily down the slopes
toward the great oak-wood, the wind whistling past their ears.
‘Whither are we going?’ said he.
Said she: ‘I am to show thee the way back home, which thou wilt not know
surely amidst this snow. Come, no words! thou shalt not have my tale
from me till we are in the wood: so the sooner we are there the sooner
shalt thou be pleased.’
So Face-of-god held his peace, and they went on swiftly side by side.
But it was not Bow-may’s wont to be silent for long, so presently she
said:
‘Thou art good so do as I bid thee; but see thou, sweet playmate, for all
thou art a chieftain’s son, thou wert but feather-brained to ask me why I
shot at thee. I shoot at thee! that were a fine tale to tell her this
even! Or dost thou think that I could shoot at a big man on the snow at
two hundred paces and miss him three times? Unless I aimed to miss.’
‘Yea, Bow-may,’ said he, ‘art thou so deft a Bow-may? Thou shalt be in
my company whenso I fare to battle.’
‘Indeed,’ she said, ‘therein thou sayest but the bare truth: nowhere else
shall I be, and thou shalt find my bow no worse than a good shield.’
He laughed somewhat lightly; but she looked on him soberly and said:
‘Laugh in that fashion on the day of battle, and we shall be well content
with thee!’
So on they sped very swiftly, for their way was mostly down hill, so that
they were soon amongst the outskirting trees of the wood, and presently
after reached the edge of the thicket, beyond which the ground was but
thinly covered with snow.
There they took off their skids, and went into the thick wood and sat
down under a hornbeam tree; and ere Gold-mane could open his mouth to
speak Bow-may began and said:
‘Well it was that I fell in with thee, Dalesman, else had there been
murders of men to tell of; but ever she ordereth all things wisely,
though unwisely hast thou done to seek to her. Hearken! dost thou think
that thou hast done well that thou hast me here with my tale? Well,
hadst thou busied thyself with the slaying of elks, or with sitting
quietly at home, yet shouldest thou have heard my tale, and thou
shouldest have seen me in Burgstead in a day or two to tell thee
concerning the flitting of the token. And ill it is that I have missed
it, for fain had I been to behold the House of the Face, and to have seen
thee sitting there in thy dignity amidst the kindred of chieftains.’
And she sighed therewith. But he said: ‘Hold up thine heart, Bow-may!
On the word of a true man that shall befall thee one day. But come,
playmate, give me thy tale!’
‘Yea,’ she said, ‘I must now tell thee in the wild-wood what else I had
told thee in the Hall. Hearken closely, for this is the message:
‘_Seek not to me again till thou hast the token_; _else assuredly wilt
thou be slain_, _and I shall be sorry for many a day_. _Thereof as now I
may not tell thee more_. _Now as to the token_: _When March is worn two
weeks fail not to go to and fro on the place of the Maiden Ward for an
hour before sunrise every day till thou hear tidings_.’
‘Now,’ quoth Bow-may, ‘hast thou hearkened and understood?’
‘Yea,’ said he.
She said: ‘Then tell me the words of my message concerning the token.’
And he did so word for word. Then she said:
‘It is well, there is no more to say. Now must I lead thee till thou
knowest the wood; and then mayst thou get on to the smooth snow again,
and so home merrily. Yet, thou grey-eyed fellow, I will have my pay of
thee before I do that last work.’
Therewith she turned about to him and took his head between her hands,
and kissed him well favouredly both cheeks and mouth; and she laughed,
albeit the tears stood in her eyes as she said: ‘Now smelleth the wood
sweeter, and summer will come back again. And even thus will I do once
more when we stand side by side in battle array.’
He smiled kindly on her and nodded as they both rose up from the earth:
she had taken off her foul-weather gloves while they spake, and he kissed
her hand, which was shapely of fashion albeit somewhat brown, and hard of
palm, and he said in friendly wise:
‘Thou art a merry faring-fellow, Bow-may, and belike shalt be withal a
true fighting-fellow. Come now, thou shalt be my sister and I thy
brother, in despite of those three shafts across the snow.’
He laughed therewith; she laughed not, but seemed glad, and said soberly:
‘Yea, I may well be thy sister; for belike I also am of the people of the
Gods, who have come into these Dales by many far ways. I am of the House
of the Ragged Sword of the Kindred of the Wolf. Come, brother, let us
toward Wildlake’s Way.’
Therewith she went before him and led through the thicket as by an
assured and wonted path, and he followed hard at heel; but his thought
went from her for a while; for those words of brother and sister that he
had spoken called to his mind the Bride, and their kindness of little
children, and the days when they seemed to have nought to do but to make
the sun brighter, and the flowers fairer, and the grass greener, and the
birds happier each for the other; and a hard and evil thing it seemed to
him that now he should be making all these things nought and dreary to
her, now when he had become a man and deeds lay before him. Yet again
was he solaced by what Bow-may had said concerning battle to come; for he
deemed that she must have had this from the Friend’s foreseeing; and he
longed sore for deeds to do, wherein all these things might be cleared up
and washen clean as it were.
So passed they through the wood a long way, and it was getting dark
therein, and Gold-mane said:
‘Hold now, Bow-may, for I am at home here.’
She looked around and said: ‘Yea, so it is: I was thinking of many
things. Farewell and live merrily till March comes and the token!’
Therewith she turned and went her ways and was soon out of sight, and he
went lightly through the wood, and then on skids over the hard snow along
the Dale’s edge till he was come to the watch-tower, when the moon was
bright in heaven.
Thus was he at Burgstead and the House of the Face betimes, and before
the hunters were gotten back.
CHAPTER XV. MURDER AMONGST THE FOLK OF THE WOODLANDERS.
SO wore away midwinter tidingless. Stone-face spake no more to
Face-of-god about the wood and its wights, when he saw that the young man
had come back hale and merry, seemed not to crave over-much to go back
thither. As for the Bride, she was sad, and more than misdoubted all;
but dauntless as she was in matters that try men’s hardihood, she yet
lacked heart to ask of Face-of-god what had befallen him since the
autumn-tide, or where he was with her. So she put a force upon herself
not to look sad or craving when she was in his company, as full oft she
was; for he rather sought her than shunned her. For when he saw her
thus, he deemed things were changing with her as they had changed with
him, and he bethought him of what he had spoken to Bow-may, and deemed
that even so he might speak with the Bride when the time came, and that
she would not be grieved beyond measure, and all would be well.
Now came on the thaw, and the snow went, and the grass grew all up and
down the Dale, and all waters were big. And about this time arose
rumours of strange men in the wood, uncouth, vile, and murderous, and
many of the feebler sort were made timorous thereby.
But a little before March was born came new tidings from the Woodlanders;
to wit: There came on a time to the house of a woodland carle, a worthy
goodman well renowned of all, two wayfarers in the first watch of the
night; and these men said that they were wending down to the Plain from a
far-away dale, Rose-dale to wit, which all men had heard of, and that
they had strayed from the way and were exceeding weary, and they craved a
meal’s meat and lodging for the night.
This the goodman might nowise gainsay, and he saw no harm in it,
wherefore he bade them abide and be merry.
These men, said they who told the tidings, were outlanders, and no man
had seen any like them before: they were armed, and bore short bows made
of horn, and round targets, and coats-of-fence done over with horn
scales; they had crooked swords girt to their sides, and axes of steel
forged all in one piece, right good weapons. They were clad in scarlet
and had much silver on their raiment and about their weapons, and great
rings of the same on their arms; and all this silver seemed brand-new.
Now the Woodland Carle gave them of such things as he had, and was kind
and blithe to them: there were in his house besides himself five men of
his sons and kindred, and his wife and three daughters and two other
maids. So they feasted after the Woodlanders’ fashion, and went to bed a
little before midnight. Two hours after, the carle awoke and heard a
little stir, and he looked and saw the guests on their feet amidst the
hall clad in all their war-gear; and they had betwixt them his two
youngest daughters, maids of fifteen and twelve winters, and had bound
their hands and done clouts over their mouths, so that they might not cry
out; and they were just at point to carry them off. Thereat the goodman,
naked as he was, caught up his sword and made at these murder-carles, and
or ever they were ware of him he had hewn down one and turned to face the
other, who smote at him with his steel axe and gave him a great wound on
the shoulder, and therewithal fled out at the open door and forth into
the wood.
The Woodlander made no stay to raise the cry (there was no need, for the
hall was astir now from end to end, and men getting to their weapons),
but ran out after the felon even as he was; and, in spite of his grievous
hurt, overran him no long way from the house before he had gotten into
the thicket. But the man was nimble and strong, and the goodman unsteady
from his wound, and by then the others of the household came up with the
hue and cry he had gotten two more sore wounds and was just making an end
of throttling the felon with his bare hands. So he fell into their arms
fainting from weakness, and for all they could do he died in two hours’
time from that axe-wound in his shoulder, and another on the side of the
head, and a knife-thrust in his side; and he was a man of sixty winters.
But the stranger he had slain outright; and the one whom he had smitten
in the hall died before the dawn, thrusting all help aside, and making no
sound of speech.
When these tidings came to Burgstead they seemed great to men, and to
Gold-mane more than all. So he and many others took their weapons and
fared up to Wildlake’s Way, and so came to the Woodland Carles. But the
Woodlanders had borne out the carcasses of those felons and laid them on
the green before Wood-grey’s door (for that was the name of the dead
goodman), and they were saying that they would not bury such accursed
folk, but would bear them a little way so that they should not be vexed
with the stink of them, and cast them into the thicket for the wolf and
the wild-cat and the stoat to deal with; and they should lie there,
weapons and silver and all; and they deemed it base to strip such
wretches, for who would wear their raiment or bear their weapons after
them.
There was a great ring of folk round about them when they of Burgstead
drew near, and they shouted for joy to see their neighbours, and made way
before them. Then the Dalesmen cursed these murderers who had slain so
good a man, and they all praised his manliness, whereas he ran out into
the night naked and wounded after his foe, and had fallen like his folk
of old time.
It was a bright spring afternoon in that clearing of the Wood, and they
looked at the two dead men closely; and Gold-mane, who had been somewhat
silent and moody till then, became merry and wordy; for he beheld the men
and saw that they were utterly strange to him: they were short of
stature, crooked-legged, long-armed, very strong for their size: with
small blue eyes, snubbed-nosed, wide-mouthed, thin-lipped, very swarthy
of skin, exceeding foul of favour. He and all others wondered who they
were, and whence they came, for never had they seen their like; and the
Woodlanders, who often guested outlanders strayed from the way of divers
kindreds and nations, said also that none such had they ever seen. But
Stone-face, who stood by Gold-mane, shook his head and quoth he:
‘The Wild-wood holdeth many marvels, and these be of them: the spawn of
evil wights quickeneth therein, and at other whiles it melteth away again
like the snow; so may it be with these carcasses.’
And some of the older folk of the Woodlanders who stood by hearkened what
he said, and deemed his words wise, for they remembered their ancient
lore and many a tale of old time.
Thereafter they of Burgstead went into Wood-grey’s hall, or as many of
them as might, for it was but a poor place and not right great. There
they saw the goodman laid on the daïs in all his war-gear, under the last
tie-beam of his hall, whereon was carved amidst much goodly work of knots
and flowers and twining stems the image of the Wolf of the Waste, his
jaws open and gaping: the wife and daughters of the goodman and other
women of the folk stood about the bier singing some old song in a low
voice, and some sobbing therewithal, for the man was much beloved: and
much people of the Woodlanders was in the hall, and it was somewhat dusk
within.
So the Burgstead men greeted that folk kindly and humbly, and again they
fell to praising the dead man, saying how his deed should long be
remembered in the Dale and wide about; and they called him a fearless man
and of great worth. And the women hearkened, and ceased their crooning
and their sobbing, and stood up proudly and raised their heads with
gleaming eyes; and as the words of the Burgstead men ended, they lifted
up their voices and sang loudly and clearly, standing together in a row,
ten of them, on the daïs of that poor hall, facing the gable and the
wolf-adorned tie-beam, heeding nought as they sang what was about or
behind them.
And this is some of what they sang:
Why sit ye bare in the spinning-room?
Why weave ye naked at the loom?
Bare and white as the moon we be,
That the Earth and the drifting night may see.
Now what is the worst of all your work?
What curse amidst the web shall lurk?
The worst of the work our hands shall win
Is wrack and ruin round the kin.
Shall the woollen yarn and the flaxen thread
Be gear for living men or dead?
The woollen yarn and the flaxen thread
Shall flare ’twixt living men and dead.
O what is the ending of your day?
When shall ye rise and wend away?
Our day shall end to-morrow morn,
When we hear the voice of the battle-horn.
Where first shall eyes of men behold
This weaving of the moonlight cold?
There where the alien host abides
The gathering on the Mountain-sides.
How long aloft shall the fair web fly
When the bows are bent and the spears draw nigh?
From eve to morn and morn till eve
Aloft shall fly the work we weave.
What then is this, the web ye win?
What wood-beast waxeth stark therein?
We weave the Wolf and the gift of war
From the men that were to the men that are.
So sang they: and much were all men moved at their singing, and there was
none but called to mind the old days of the Fathers, and the years when
their banner went wide in the world.
But the Woodlanders feasted them of Burgstead what they might, and then
went the Dalesmen back to their houses; but on the morrow’s morrow they
fared thither again, and Wood-grey was laid in mound amidst a great
assemblage of the Folk.
Many men said that there was no doubt that those two felons were of the
company of those who had ransacked the steads of Penny-thumb and
Harts-bane; and so at first deemed Bristler the son of Brightling: but
after a while, when he had had time to think of it, he changed his mind;
for he said that such men as these would have slain first and ransacked
afterwards: and some who loved neither Penny-thumb nor Harts-bane said
that they would not have been at the pains to choose for ransacking the
two worst men about the Dale, whose loss was no loss to any but
themselves.
As for Gold-mane he knew not what to think, except that his friends of
the Mountain had had nought to do with it.
So wore the days awhile.
CHAPTER XVI. THE BRIDE SPEAKETH WITH FACE-OF-GOD.
FEBRUARY had died into March, and March was now twelve days old, on a
fair and sunny day an hour before noon; and Face-of-god was in a meadow a
scant mile down the Dale from Burgstead. He had been driving a bull into
a goodman’s byre nearby, and had had to spend toil and patience both in
getting him out of the fields and into the byre; for the beast was hot
with the spring days and the new grass. So now he was resting himself in
happy mood in an exceeding pleasant place, a little meadow to wit, on one
side whereof was a great orchard or grove of sweet chestnuts, which went
right up to the feet of the Southern Cliffs: across the meadow ran a
clear brook towards the Weltering Water, free from big stones, in some
places dammed up for the flooding of the deep pasture-meadow, and with
the grass growing on its lips down to the very water. There was a low
bank just outside the chestnut trees, as if someone had raised a dyke
about them when they were young, which had been trodden low and spreading
through the lapse of years by the faring of many men and beasts. The
primroses bloomed thick upon it now, and here and there along it was a
low blackthorn bush in full blossom; from the mid-meadow and right down
to the lip of the brook was the grass well nigh hidden by the blossoms of
the meadow-saffron, with daffodils sprinkled about amongst them, and in
the trees and bushes the birds, and chiefly the blackbirds, were singing
their loudest.
There sat Face-of-god on the bank resting after his toil, and happy was
his mood; since in two days’ wearing he should be pacing the Maiden Ward
awaiting the token that was to lead him to Shadowy Vale; so he sat
calling to mind the Friend as he had last seen her, and striving as it
were to set her image standing on the flowery grass before him, till all
the beauty of the meadow seemed bare and empty to him without her. Then
it fell into his mind that this had been a beloved trysting-place betwixt
him and the Bride, and that often when they were little would they come
to gather chestnuts in the grove, and thereafter sit and prattle on the
old dyke; or in spring when the season was warm would they go barefoot
into the brook, seeking its treasures of troutlets and flowers and
clean-washed agate pebbles. Yea, and time not long ago had they met here
to talk as lovers, and sat on that very bank in all the kindness of good
days without a blemish, and both he and she had loved the place well for
its wealth of blossoms and deep grass and goodly trees and clear running
stream.
As he thought of all this, and how often there he had praised to himself
her beauty, which he scarce dared praise to her, he frowned and slowly
rose to his feet, and turned toward the chestnut-grove, as though he
would go thence that way; but or ever he stepped down from the dyke he
turned about again, and even therewith, like the very image and ghost of
his thought, lo! the Bride herself coming up from out the brook and
wending toward him, her wet naked feet gleaming in the sun as they trod
down the tender meadow-saffron and brushed past the tufts of daffodils.
He stood staring at her discomforted, for on that day he had much to
think of that seemed happy to him, and he deemed that she would now
question him, and his mind pondered divers ways of answering her, and
none seemed good to him. She drew near and let her skirts fall over her
feet, and came to him, her gown hem dragging over the flowers: then she
stood straight up before him and greeted him, but reached not forth her
hand to him nor touched him. Her face was paler that its wont, and her
voice trembled as she spake to him and said:
‘Face-of-god, I would ask thee a gift.’
‘All gifts,’ he said, ‘that thou mayest ask, and I may give, lie open to
thee.’
She said: ‘If I be alive when the time comes this gift thou mayst well
give me.’
‘Sweet kinswoman,’ said he, ‘tell me what it is that thou wouldest have
of me.’ And he was ill-at-ease as he waited for her answer.
She said: ‘Ah, kinsman, kinsman! Woe on the day that maketh kinship
accursed to me because thou desirest it!’
He held his peace and was exceeding sorry; and she said:
‘This is the gift that I ask of thee, that in the days to come when thou
art wedded, thou wilt give me the second man-child whom thou begettest.’
He said: ‘This shalt thou have, and would that I might give thee much
more. Would that we were little children together other again, as when
we played here in other days.’
She said: ‘I would have a token of thee that thou shalt show to the God,
and swear on it to give me the gift. For the times change.’
‘What token wilt thou have?’ said he.
She said: ‘When next thou farest to the Wood, thou shalt bring me back,
it maybe a flower from the bank ye sit upon, or a splinter from the daïs
of the hall wherein ye feast, or maybe a ring or some matter that the
strangers are wont to wear. That shall be the token.’
She spoke slowly, hanging her head adown, but she lifted it presently and
looked into his face and said:
‘Woe’s me, woe’s me, Gold-mane! How evil is this day, when bewailing me
I may not bewail thee also! For I know that thine heart is glad. All
through the winter have I kept this hidden in my heart, and durst not
speak to thee. But now the spring-tide hath driven me to it. Let summer
come, and who shall say?’
Great was his grief, and his shame kept him silent, and he had no word to
say; and again she said:
‘Tell me, Gold-mane, when goest thou thither?’
He said: ‘I know not surely, may happen in two days, may happen in ten.
Why askest thou?’
‘O friend!’ she said, ‘is it a new thing that I should ask thee whither
thou goest and whence thou comest, and the times of thy coming and going.
Farewell to-day! Forget not the token. Woe’s me, that I may not kiss
thy fair face!’
She spread her arms abroad and lifted up her face as one who waileth, but
no sound came from her lips; then she turned about and went away as she
had come.
But as for him he stood there after she was gone in all confusion, as if
he were undone: for he felt his manhood lessened that he should thus and
so sorely have hurt a friend, and in a manner against his will. And yet
he was somewhat wroth with her, that she had come upon him so suddenly,
and spoken to him with such mastery, and in so few words, and he with
none to make answer to her, and that she had so marred his pleasure and
his hope of that fair day. Then he sat him down again on the flowery
bank, and little by little his heart softened, and he once more called to
mind many a time when they had been there before, and the plays and the
games they had had together there when they were little. And he
bethought him of the days that were long to him then, and now seemed
short to him, and as if they were all grown together into one story, and
that a sweet one. Then his breast heaved with a sob, and the tears rose
to his eyes and burned and stung him, and he fell a-weeping for that
sweet tale, and wept as he had wept once before on that old dyke when
there had been some child’s quarrel between them, and she had gone away
and left him.
Then after a while he ceased his weeping, and looked about him lest
anyone might be coming, and then he arose and went to and fro in the
chestnut-grove for a good while, and afterwards went his ways from that
meadow, saying to himself: ‘Yet remaineth to me the morrow of to-morrow,
and that is the first of the days of the watching for the token.’
But all that day he was slow to meet the eyes of men; and in the hall
that eve he was silent and moody; for from time to time it came over him
that some of his manhood had departed from him.
CHAPTER XVII. THE TOKEN COMETH FROM THE MOUNTAIN.
THE next day wore away tidingless; and the day after Face-of-god arose
betimes; for it was the first day of his watch, and he was at the Maiden
Ward before the time appointed on a very fair and bright morning, and he
went to and fro on that place, and had no tidings. So he came away
somewhat cast down, and said within himself: ‘Is it but a lie and a
mocking when all is said?’
On the morrow he went thither again, and the morn was wild and stormy
with drift of rain, and low clouds hurrying over the earth, though for
the sunrise they lifted a little in the east, and the sun came up over
the passes, amidst the red and angry rack of clouds. This morn also gave
him no tidings of the token, and he was wroth and perturbed in spirit:
but towards evening he said:
‘It is well: ten days she gave me, so that she might be able to send
without fail on one of them; she will not fail me.’
So again on the morrow he was there betimes, and the morn was windy as on
the day before, but the clouds higher and of better promise for the day.
Face-of-god walked to and fro on the Maiden Ward, and as he turned toward
Burgstead for the tenth time, he heard, as he deemed, a bow-string twang
afar off, and even therewith came a shaft flying heavily like a winged
bird, which smote a great standing stone on the other side of the way,
where of old some chieftain had been buried, and fell to earth at its
foot. He went up to it and handled it, and saw that there was a piece of
thin parchment wrapped about it, which indeed he was eager to unwrap at
once, but forebore; because he was on the highway, and people were
already astir, and even then passed by him a goodman of the Dale with a
man of his going afield together, and they gave him the sele of the day.
So he went along the highway a little till he came to a place where was a
footbridge over into the meadow. He crossed thereby and went swiftly
till he reached a rising ground grown over with hazel-trees; there he sat
down among the rabbit-holes, the primrose and wild-garlic blooming about
him, and three blackbirds answering one another from the edges of the
coppice. Straightway when he had looked and seen none coming he broke
the threads that were wound about the scroll and the arrow, and unrolled
the parchment; and there was writing thereon in black ink of small
letters, but very fair, and this is what he read therein:
_Come thou to the Mountain Hall by the path which thou knowest of_,
_on the morrow of the day whereon thou readest this_. _Rise betimes
and come armed_, _for there are other men than we in the wood_; _to
whom thy death should be a gain_. _When thou art come to the Hall_,
_thou shalt find no man therein_; _but a great hound only_, _tied to
a bench nigh the daïs_. _Call him by his name_, _Sure-foot to wit_,
_and give him to eat from the meat upon the board_, _and give him
water __to drink_. _If the day is then far spent_, _as it is like to
be_, _abide thou with the hound in the hall through the night_, _and
eat of what thou shalt find there_; _but see that the hound fares not
abroad till the morrow’s morn_: _then lead him out and bring him to
the north-east corner of the Hall_, _and he shall lift the slot for
thee that leadeth to the Shadowy Yale_. _Follow him and all good go
with thee_.
Now when he had read this, earth seemed fair indeed about him, and he
scarce knew whither to turn or what to do to make the most of his joy.
He presently went back to Burgstead and into the House of the Face, where
all men were astir now, and the day was clearing. He hid the shaft under
his kirtle, for he would not that any should see it; so he went to his
shut-bed and laid it up in his chest, wherein he kept his chiefest
treasures; but the writing on the scroll he set in his bosom and so hid
it. He went joyfully and proudly, as one who knoweth more tidings and
better than those around him. But Stone-face beheld him, and said
‘Foster-son, thou art happy. Is it that the spring-tide is in thy blood,
and maketh thee blithe with all things, or hast thou some new tidings?
Nay, I would not have an answer out of thee; but here is good rede: when
next thou goest into the wood, it were nought so ill for thee to have a
valiant old carle by thy side; one that loveth thee, and would die for
thee if need were; one who might watch when thou wert seeking. Or else
beware! for there are evil things abroad in the Wood, and moreover the
brethren of those two felons who were slain at Carlstead.’
Then Gold-mane constrained himself to answer the old carle softly; and he
thanked him kindly for his offer, and said that so it should be before
long. So the talk between them fell, and Stone-face went away somewhat
well-pleased.
And now was Face-of-god become wary; and he would not draw men’s eyes and
speech on him; so he went afield with Hall-face to deal with the lambs
and the ewes, and did like other men. No less wary was he in the hall
that even, and neither spake much nor little; and when his father spake
to him concerning the Bride, and made game of him as a somewhat sluggish
groom, he did not change countenance, but answered lightly what came to
hand.
On the morrow ere the earliest dawn he was afoot, and he clad himself and
did on his hauberk, his father’s work, which was fine-wrought and a stout
defence, and reached down to his knees; and over that he did on a goodly
green kirtle well embroidered: he girt his war-sword to his side, and it
was the work of his father’s father, and a very good sword: its name was
Dale-warden. He did a good helm on his head, and slung a targe at his
back, and took two spears in his hand, short but strong-shafted and
well-steeled. Thus arrayed he left Burgstead before the dawn, and came
to Wildlake’s Way and betook him to the Woodland. He made no stop or
stay on the path, but ate his meat standing by an oak-tree close by the
half-blind track. When he came to the little wood-lawn, where was the
toft of the ancient house, he looked all round about him, for he deemed
that a likely place for those ugly wood-wights to set on him; but nought
befell him, though he stooped and drank of the woodland rill warily
enough. So he passed on; and there were other places also where he fared
warily, because they seemed like to hold lurking felons; though forsooth
the whole wood might well serve their turn. But no evil befell him, and
at last, when it yet lacked an hour to sunset, he came to the wood-lawn
where Wild-wearer had made his onset that other eve.
He went straight up to the house, his heart beating, and he scarce
believing but that he should find the Friend abiding him there: but when
he pushed the door it gave way before him at once, and he entered and
found no man therein, and the walls stripped bare and no shield or weapon
hanging on the panels. But the hound he saw tied to a bench nigh the
daïs, and the bristles on the beast’s neck arose, and he snarled on
Face-of-god, and strained on his leathern leash. Then Face-of-god went
up to him and called him by his name, Sure-foot, and gave him his hand to
lick, and he brought him water, and fed him with flesh from the meat on
the board; so the beast became friendly and wagged his tail and whined
and slobbered his hand.
Then he went all about the house, and saw and heard no living thing
therein save the mice in the panels and Sure-foot. So he came back to
the daïs, and sat him down at the board and ate his fill, and thought
concerning his case. And it came into his mind that the Woman of the
Mountain had some deed for him to do which would try his manliness and
exalt his fame; and his heart rose high and he was glad, and he saw
himself sitting beside her on the daïs of a very fair hall beloved and
honoured of all the folk, and none had aught to say against him or owed
him any grudge. Thus he pleased himself in thinking of the good days to
come, sitting there till the hall grew dusk and dark and the night-wind
moaned about it.
Then after a while he arose and raked together the
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