Phantastes George MacDonald (books to read fiction txt) 📖

too, that the white plume on his helmet was discolored and drooping. “He has fallen in a joust with spears,” I said to myself; “yet it becomes not a noble knight to be conquered in spirit because his body hath fallen.” He appeared not to observe me, for he was riding past without looking up, and started into a warlike attitude the moment the first sound of my voice reached him. Then a flush, as of shame, covered all of his face that the lifted beaver disclosed. He returned my greeting with distant courtesy, and passed on. But suddenly, he reined up, sat a moment still, and then turning his horse, rode back to where I stood looking after him.

“I am ashamed,” he said, “to appear a knight, and in such a guise; but it behooves me to tell you to take warning from me, lest the same evil, in his kind, overtake the singer that has befallen the knight. Hast thou ever read the story of Sir Percival and the”⁠—(here he shuddered, that his armor rang)⁠—“Maiden of the Alder-tree?”

“In part, I have,” said I; “for yesterday, at the entrance of this forest, I found in a cottage the volume wherein it is recorded.”

“Then take heed,” he rejoined; “for, see my armor;⁠—I put it off; and as it befell to him, so has it befallen to me. I that was proud am humble now. Yet is she terribly beautiful⁠—beware. Never,” he added, raising his head, “shall this armor be furbished, but by the blows of knightly encounter, until the last speck has disappeared from every spot where the battle-axe and sword of evildoers, or noble foes, might fall; when I shall again lift my head, and say to my squire, ‘Do thy duty once more, and make this armor shine.’ ”

Before I could inquire further, he had struck spurs into his horse and galloped away, shrouded from my voice in the noise of his armor. For I called after him, anxious to know more about this fearful enchantress; but in vain⁠—he heard me not. “Yet,” I said to myself, “I have now been often warned; surely I shall be well on my guard; and I am fully resolved I shall not be ensnared by any beauty, however beautiful. Doubtless, some one man may escape, and I shall be he.” So I went on into the wood, still hoping to find, in some one of its mysterious recesses, my lost lady of the marble. The sunny afternoon died into the loveliest twilight. Great bats began to flit about with their own noiseless flight, seemingly purposeless, because its objects are unseen. The monotonous music of the owl issued from all unexpected quarters in the half-darkness around me. The glowworm was alight here and there, burning out into the great universe. The nighthawk heightened all the harmony and stillness with his oft-recurring, discordant jar. Numberless unknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk; but all were of twilight-kind, oppressing the heart as with a condensed atmosphere of dreamy undefined love and longing. The odors of night arose, and bathed me in that luxurious mournfulness peculiar to them, as if the plants whence they floated had been watered with bygone tears. Earth drew me towards her bosom; I felt as if I could fall down and kiss her. I forgot I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to be walking in a perfect night of our own old nursing earth. Great stems rose about me, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches, and twigs, and leaves⁠—the bird and insect world uplifted over mine, with its own landscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and glades, and dwellings; its own bird-ways and insect-delights. Great boughs crossed my path; great roots based the tree-columns, and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong to uphold. It seemed an old, old forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasures. And when, in the midst of this ecstacy, I remembered that under some close canopy of leaves, by some giant stem, or in some mossy cave, or beside some leafy well, sat the lady of the marble, whom my songs had called forth into the outer world, waiting (might it not be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a twilight which would veil her confusion, the whole night became one dream-realm of joy, the central form of which was everywhere present, although unbeheld. Then, remembering how my songs seemed to have called her from the marble, piercing through the pearly shroud of alabaster⁠—“Why,” thought I, “should not my voice reach her now, through the ebon night that inwraps her.” My voice burst into song so spontaneously that it seemed involuntarily.

Not a sound
But, echoing in me,
Vibrates all around
With a blind delight,
Till it breaks on thee,
Queen of Night!

Every tree,
O’ershadowing with gloom,
Seems to cover thee
Secret, dark, love-still’d,
In a holy room
Silence-filled.

Let no moon
Creep up the heaven tonight;
I in darksome noon
Walking hopefully,
Seek my shrouded light⁠—
Grope for thee!

Darker grow
The borders of the dark!
Through the branches glow!
From the roof above,
Star and diamond-spark,
Light for love.

Scarcely had the last sounds floated away from the hearing of my own ears, when I heard instead a low delicious laugh near me. It was not the laugh of one who would not be heard, but the laugh of one who has just received something long and patiently desired⁠—a laugh that ends in a low musical moan. I started, and, turning sideways, saw a dim white figure seated beside an intertwining thicket of smaller trees and underwood.

“It is my white lady!” I said, and flung myself on the ground beside her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a glimpse of the form which had broken its marble prison at my call.

“It is your white lady!” said the sweetest voice, in reply, sending a thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all the love charms of the preceding day and evening had been tempering for this