The Water of the Wondrous Isles by William Morris (good books to read for beginners TXT) 📖

in any wise, since these change not?  He laughed somewhat grimly, and said: The old that be here change from old to dead; how could I change to better?  Yea, the first thing I had to do here was to bury an old man.  Quoth she: And were there any children here then?  Yea, said he; these same, or I can see no difference in them.  Said Birdalone: And how long ago is that?  And how camest thou hither?  His face became foolish, and he gibbered rather than spake: No, I wot not; no, no, no, not a whit, a whit.  But presently after was he himself again, and telling her a tale of a great lady of the earl-folk, a baron’s dame, and how dear he was unto her.  He lay yet on the grass, and she stood before him, and presently he put forth a hand to her gown-hem and drew her to him thereby, and fell to caressing her feet; and Birdalone was ashamed thereat, and a little angry.  He was nought abashed, but sat up and said: Well, since thou must needs depart to-morrow, be we merry to-day.  And I pray thee talk much with me, fair child, for sweet and sweet is thy voice to hearken.  Then he arose and said: Now will I fetch thee somewhat to eke the joy of us both.  And he turned therewith and went into the house.

Birdalone stood there, and was now perplexed and downhearted; for now the look of the elder scarce liked her, and the children began to seem to her as images, or at the best not more to her than the rabbits or the goats; and she rued her word that she would abide there the night through.  For she said to herself: I fear some trap or guile; is the witch behind this also? for the old man is yet stark, and though he be foolish at whiles, yet may wizardry have learned him some guile.

With that cometh out the carle again, bearing a little keg and a mazer roughly wrought; and he came to Birdalone, and sat down, and bade her sit by him, and said to her: Maybe I shall hear more of thy sweet voice when thy sweet lips have been in the cup.  Therewith he poured forth into the mazer, and handed it to Birdalone, and lo! it was clear and good mead.  She sipped thereof daintily, and, to say sooth, was well-pleased therewith, and it stirred the heart in her.  But then she gave back the cup to the elder, and would no more of it.  As for him, he drank what was left in the cup, looking over the rim thereof meanwhile; and then filled himself another, and another, and yet more.  But whereas it might have been looked for that his tongue should be loosened by the good mead into foolishness and gibbering, he became rather few-spoken, and more courteous and stately even than he had been at the first.  But in the end, forsooth, he was forgetting Birdalone, what she was, and he fell a-talking, always with much pomp and state, as if to barons and earls, and great ladies; till suddenly his head fell back, he turned over on his face, and all wit was gone from him.

At first, then, Birdalone was afraid that he was dead, or nigh unto death, and she knelt down and raised his head, and fetched water and cast it over his face.  But when she saw that he was breathing not so ill, and that the colour was little changed in his lips and cheeks, she knew that it was but the might of the mead that had overcome him.  Wherefore she laid him so that he was easy, and then stood up and looked about her, and saw the children playing together a little way off; and nought else anigh her, save the birds in the brake, or flying on their errands eagerly from place to place.  Then, as it were, without her will being told them, her limbs and her feet turned her about to the shore where lay the Sending Boat, and she went speedily but quietly thitherward, her heart beating quick, for fear lest something should yet stay her, and her eyes glancing from brake to bush, as if she looked to see some enemy, old or new, come out thence.

So now her will was clear enough to her feet, and they brought her down to the water-side and the long strand, past which the wide water lay windless and gleaming in the hot afternoon.  Then lightly she stepped aboard, and awoke the Sending Boat with blood-offering, and it obeyed her, and sped swiftly on the way to the southward.

p. 131CHAPTER X.  BIRDALONE COMES TO THE ISLE OF THE QUEENS.

Birdalone awoke the next morning while the boat was yet speeding over the water, and the sun was up: but she was hard on the land, which sat low and green, like a meadow exceeding fair, on the bosom of the water, and many goodly trees were sprinkled about the greenland.  But from amidst the trees, no great way from the water’s edge, rose a great house, white and fair, as if it were new-builded, and all glorious with pinnacles, and tabernacles set with imagery.

Presently the boat’s bows ran into the reed and rush at the brim of the water, and Birdalone stepped ashore without more ado, and the scent of the meadow-sweet amongst which she landed brought back unto her the image of Green Eyot that while agone.

But now when she was ashore the dread took hold of her again, and her knees trembled under her, so that she might scarce stand, so fearful was she of walking into some trap; especially when she beheld that goodly house, lest therein awaited her some proud and cruel lady, and no kind damsels to deliver her.

She looked about her, and saw in all the fair meadow neither man nor woman, nor draught-beast nor milch-beast, nought but the little creatures of the brake and the bent-grass, which were but as the blossoms thereof; and the birds running in the herbage or singing amidst the tree-boughs.

Then she thought that she must needs go forward, or belike her errand would not speed; that the Sending Boat might not obey her, unless she saw through the adventure to the end; so she went on toward the house quaking.

Soon was she at the porch of the white palace, and had seen no man nor heard any voice of men; much she marvelled, despite her dread, at the beauty of the said house, and the newness thereof; for it was as one flower arisen out of the earth, and every part of it made the beauty of the other parts more excellent; and so new it was, that it would have seemed as if the masons thereof had but struck their scaffold yesterday, save that under the very feet of the walls the sweet garden flowers grew all uncrushed.

Now comes Birdalone through the porch unto the screens of the great hall; and she stopped a little to recover her breath, that she might be the quieter and calmer amongst the great folk and mighty whom she looked to find therein.  So she gathered heart; but one thing daunted her, to wit, that she heard no sound come from that great and goodly hall, so that she doubted if it were perchance left desert by them who had been its lords.

She raised her hand to the door of the screen, and it opened easily before her, and she entered, and there indeed she saw new tidings.  For the boards end-long and over-thwart were set, and thereat were sitting a many folk, and their hands were reached out to knife and to dish, and to platter and cup; but such a hush there was within, that the song of the garden birds without sounded to her as loud as they were the voices of the children of Adam.

Next she saw that all that company, from the great folk on the dais down to those who stood about the hall to do the service, were women, one and all; not one carle might she see from where she stood: lovely were they many of them, and none less than comely; their cheeks were bright, and their eyes gleamed, and their hair flowed down fair of fashion.  And she stood, and durst not move a long while, but expected when someone would speak a word, and all should turn their heads toward the new-comer.  But none moved nor spake.  And the fear increased in her amidst that hush, and weighed so heavy on her heart, that at last she might endure it no longer, but fell swooning to the floor.

When she came to herself; and the swoon-dreams had left her, she saw by the changing of the sun through the hall-windows, that she had lain there long, more nearly two hours than one; and at first she covered her face with her hands as she crouched there, that she might not see the sight of the silent hall, for yet was it as hushed as before.  Then slowly she arose, and the sound of her raiment and her stirring feet was loud in her ears.  But when she was upright on her feet, she hardened her heart, and went forth into the hall, and no less was her wonder than erst.  For when she came close to those ladies as they sat at table, and her raiment brushed the raiment of the serving-women as she passed by, then saw she how no breath came from any of these, and that they neither spake nor moved, because they were dead.

At first, then, she thought to flee away at once, but again she had mind of her errand, and so went up the hall, and so forth on to the dais; and there again, close by the high table, she saw new tidings.  For there was set a bier, covered with gold and pall, and on it was laid a tall man, a king, belted and crowned; and beside the said bier, by the head of the king, knelt a queen of exceeding goodly body, clad all in raiment of pearl and bawdekin; and her hands were clasped together, and her mouth was drawn, and her brow knit with the anguish of her grief.  But athwart the king’s breast lay a naked sword all bloody; and this Birdalone noted, that whereas the lady was of skin and hue as if she were alive, the king was yellow as wax, and his cheeks were shrunken, and his eyes had been closed by the wakers of the dead.

Long Birdalone looked and wondered; and now if her fear were less, her sorrow was more for all that folk sitting there dead in their ancient state and pomp.  And was not the thought clean out of her head, that yet they might awake and challenge her, and that she might be made one of that silent company.  Withal she felt her head beginning to fail her, and she feared that she might swoon again and never waken more, but lie for ever beside that image of the dead king.

So then she refrained her both of fear and sorrow, and walked speedily down the hall, looking neither to the right nor left: and she came forth into the pleasance, but stayed there nought, so nigh it seemed to that hushed company.  Thence came she forth into the open meadow, and sweet and dear seemed its hot sunshine and noisy birds and rustling leaves.  Nevertheless, so great was the tumult of her spirits, that once more she grew faint, and felt that she might scarce go further.  So she dragged herself into the shade of a thorn-tree, and let her body sink unto the ground, and lay there long unwitting.

p. 136CHAPTER XI.  AND NOW SHE COMES TO THE ISLE OF THE KINGS.

When Birdalone came to herself it was drawing toward the glooming, and she rose up hastily, and went down to the Sending Boat, for she would not for aught abide the night in that fearful isle, lest the flock of the hall should come alive and walk in the dusk and the dark.  She stepped aboard lightly, and yielded her blood to the pride of that ferry, and it awoke and bore her forth, and she went through the night till she fell asleep.

When she awoke it was broad day and the sun just arising, and lo! before her, some half mile off, an isle rugged and rocky, and going up steep from the shore; and then, held as it were by the fangs of the rocks and pikes of the higher land, was a castle, white, high, and hugely builded, though, because of the rock-land belike, it spread not much abroad.  Like to the lovely house of yesterday, it seemed new-builded; and, little as Birdalone knew of