The World of Romance<br />being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 by William Morris (good fiction books to read txt) 📖

subjects, I fold thee, noblest, in my arms, so, so.’  Ay, truly it was strange enough! those two were together again; not the queen and the stranger knight, but the young-seeming knight and the maiden I had seen in the garden.  To my eyes they clung together there; though they say, that to the eyes of all else, it was but for a moment that the queen held both his hands in hers; to me also, amid the shouting of the multitude, came an under current of happy song: ‘Oh! truly, very truly, my noblest, a hundred years will not be long after this.’  ‘Hush, Ella, dearest, for talking makes the time speed; think only.’

“Pressed close to each other, as I saw it, p. 60their bosoms heaved—but I looked away—alas! when I looked again, I saw nought but the stately stranger knight, descending, hand in hand, with the queen, flushed with joy and triumph, and the people scattering flowers before them.

“And that was long ago, very long ago.”  So he ceased; then Osric, one of the two younger men, who had been sitting in awe-struck silence all this time, said, with eyes that dared not meet Giles’s, in a terrified half whisper, as though he meant not to speak, “How long?”  Giles turned round and looked him full in the face, till he dragged his eyes up to his own, then said, “More than a hundred years ago.”

So they all sat silent, listening to the roar of the south-west wind; and it blew the windows so, that they rocked in their frames.

Then suddenly, as they sat thus, came a knock at the door of the house; so Hugh bowed his head to Osric, to signify that he should go and open the door; so he arose, trembling, and went.

And as he opened the door the wind blew hard against him, and blew something white against his face, then blew it away again, and his face was blanched, even to his lips; but he plucking up heart of grace, looked out, and there he saw, standing with her face upturned p. 61in speech to him, a wonderfully beautiful woman, clothed from her throat till over her feet in long white raiment, ungirt, unbroidered, and with a veil, that was thrown off from her face, and hung from her head, streaming out in the blast of the wind: which veil was what had struck against his face: beneath her veil her golden hair streamed out too, and with the veil, so that it touched his face now and then.  She was very fair, but she did not look young either, because of her statue-like features.  She spoke to him slowly and queenly; “I pray you give me shelter in your house for an hour, that I may rest, and so go on my journey again.”  He was too much terrified to answer in words, and so only bowed his head: and she swept past him in stately wise to the room where the others sat, and he followed her, trembling.

A cold shiver ran through the other men when she entered and bowed low to them, and they turned deadly pale, but dared not move; and there she sat while they gazed at her, sitting there and wondering at her beauty, which seemed to grow every minute; though she was plainly not young, oh no, but rather very, very old, who could say how old? there she sat, and her long, long hair swept down in one curve from her head and just touched the floor.  Her face had the p. 62tokens of a deep sorrow on it, ah! a mighty sorrow, yet not so mighty as that it might mar her ineffable loveliness; that sorrow-mark seemed to gather too, and at last the gloriously-slow music of her words flowed from her lips: “Friends, has one with the appearance of a youth come here lately; one with long brown hair, interwoven with threads of gold, flowing down from out his polished steel helmet; with dark blue eyes and high white forehead, and mail-coat over his breast, where the light and shadow lie in waves as he moves; have you seen such an one, very beautiful?”

Then withall as they shook their heads fearfully in answer, a great sigh rose up from her heart, and she said: “Then must I go away again presently, and yet I thought it was the last night of all.”

And so she sat awhile with her head resting on her hand; after, she arose as if about to go, and turned her glorious head round to thank the master of the house; and they, strangely enough, though they were terrified at her presence, were yet grieved when they saw that she was going.

Just then the wind rose higher than ever before, yet through the roar of it they could all hear plainly a knocking at the door again; p. 63so the lady stopped when she heard it, and, turning, looked full in the face of Herman the youngest, who thereupon, being constrained by that look, rose and went to the door; and as before with Osric, so now the wind blew strong against him; and it blew into his face, so as to blind him, tresses of soft brown hair mingled with glittering threads of gold; and blinded so, he heard some one ask him musically, solemnly, if a lady with golden hair and white raiment was in that house; so Herman, not answering in words, because of his awe and fear, merely bowed his head; then he was ’ware of some one in bright armour passing him, for the gleam of it was all about him, for as yet he could not see clearly, being blinded by the hair that had floated about him.

But presently he followed him into the room, and there stood such an one as the lady had described; the wavering flame of the light gleamed from his polished helmet, touched the golden threads that mingled with his hair, ran along the rings of his mail.

They stood opposite to each other for a little, he and the lady, as if they were somewhat shy of each other after their parting of a hundred years, in spite of the love which they had for each other: at last he made one step, and took p. 64off his gleaming helmet, laid it down softly, then spread abroad his arms, and she came to him, and they were clasped together, her head lying over his shoulder; and the four men gazed, quite awe-struck.

And as they gazed, the bells of the church began to ring, for it was New-Year’s-eve; and still they clung together, and the bells rang on, and the old year died.

And there beneath the eyes of those four men the lovers slowly faded away into a heap of snow-white ashes.  Then the four men kneeled down and prayed, and the next day they went to the priest, and told him all that had happened.

So the people took those ashes and buried them in their church, in a marble tomb, and above it they caused to be carved their figures lying with clasped hands; and on the sides of it the history of the cave in the red pike.

And in my dream I saw the moon shining on the tomb, throwing fair colours on it from the painted glass; till a sound of music rose, deepened, and fainted; then I woke.

p. 67GOLDEN WINGS

Lyf lythes to nee,
Twa wordes or three,
Of one who was fair and free,
      And fele in his fight.

—Sir Percival.

I suppose my birth was somewhat after the birth of Sir Percival of Galles, for I never saw my father, and my mother brought me up quaintly; not like a poor man’s son, though, indeed, we had little money, and lived in a lone place: it was on a bit of waste land near a river; moist, and without trees; on the drier parts of it folks had built cottages—see, I can count them on my fingers—six cottages, of which ours was one.

Likewise, there was a little chapel, with a yew tree and graves in the church-yard—graves—yes, a great many graves, more than in the yards of many Minsters I have seen, because people fought a battle once near us, and buried many bodies in deep pits, to the east of the chapel; but this was before I was born.

I have talked to old knights since who fought in that battle, and who told me that it was all about a lady that they fought; indeed, this lady, who was a queen, was afterwards, by her own wish, buried in the aforesaid chapel in a most p. 68fair tomb; her image was of latoun gilt, and with a colour on it; her hands and face were of silver, and her hair, gilded and most curiously wrought, flowed down from her head over the marble.

It was a strange sight to see that gold and brass and marble inside that rough chapel which stood on the marshy common, near the river.

Now, every St. Peter’s day, when the sun was at its hottest, in the mid-summer noontide, my mother (though at other times she only wore such clothes as the folk about us) would dress herself most richly, and shut the shutters against all the windows, and light great candles, and sit as though she were a queen, till the evening: sitting and working at a frame, and singing as she worked.

And what she worked at was two wings, wrought in gold, on a blue ground.

And as for what she sung, I could never understand it, though I know now it was not in Latin.

And she used to charge me straightly never to let any man into the house on St. Peter’s day; therefore, I and our dog, which was a great old bloodhound, always kept the door together.

But one St. Peter’s day, when I was nearly twenty, I sat in the house watching the door p. 69with the bloodhound, and I was sleepy, because of the shut-up heat and my mother’s singing, so I began to nod, and at last, though the dog often shook me by the hair to keep me awake, went fast asleep, and began to dream a foolish dream without hearing, as men sometimes do: for I thought that my mother and I were walking to mass through the snow on a Christmas day, but my mother carried a live goose in her hand, holding it by the neck, instead of her rosary, and that I went along by her side, not walking, but turning somersaults like a mountebank, my head never touching the ground; when we got to the chapel door, the old priest met us, and said to my mother, ‘Why dame alive, your head is turned green!  Ah! never mind, I will go and say mass, but don’t let little Mary there go,’ and he pointed to the goose, and went.

Then mass begun, but in the midst of it, the priest said out aloud, ‘Oh I forgot,’ and turning round to us began to wag his grey head and white beard, throwing his head right back, and sinking his chin on his breast alternately; and when we saw him do this, we presently began also to knock our heads against the wall, keeping time with him and with each other, till the priest said, ‘Peter! it’s dragon-time now,’ whereat the roof flew off, and a great yellow dragon p. 70came down on the chapel-floor with a flop, and danced about clumsily, wriggling his fat tail, and saying to a sort of tune, ‘O the Devil, the Devil, the Devil, O the Devil,’ so I went up to him, and put my hand on his breast, meaning to slay him, and so awoke, and found myself standing up with my hand on the breast of an armed knight; the door lay flat on the ground, and under it lay Hector, our dog, whining and dying.

For eight hours I had been asleep; on awaking, the blood rushed up into my face, I heard my mother’s low mysterious song behind me, and knew not what harm might happen to her and me, if that knight’s coming made her cease in it; so I struck him with my left hand, where his face was bare under his mail-coif, and getting my sword in my light hand, drove its point under his hawberk, so that it came out behind, and he fell, turned over on his face, and died.

Then, because my mother still went on working and singing, I said no word, but let him lie there, and put the