At that moment the Sea sang a dirge at sunset for all the ha

Produced by Clay Massei, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

A DREAMER'S TALES

LORD DUNSANY

1910

CONTENTS

Preface

Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean

Blagdaross

The Madness of Andelsprutz

Where the Tides Ebb and Flow

Bethmoora

Idle Days on the Yann

The Sword and the Idol

The Idle City

The Hashish Man

Poor Old Bill

The Beggars

Carcassonne

In Zaccarath

The Field

The Day of the Poll

The Unhappy Body

PREFACE

I hope for this book that it may come into the hands of those that were

kind to my others and that it may not disappoint them.

--Lord Dunsany

POLTARNEES, BEHOLDER OF OCEAN

Toldees, Mondath, Arizim, these are the Inner Lands, the lands whose

sentinels upon their borders do not behold the sea. Beyond them to the

east there lies a desert, for ever untroubled by man: all yellow it is,

and spotted with shadows of stones, and Death is in it, like a leopard

lying in the sun. To the south they are bounded by magic, to the west by a

mountain, and to the north by the voice and anger of the Polar wind. Like

a great wall is the mountain to the west. It comes up out of the distance

and goes down into the distance again, and it is named Poltarnees,

Beholder of Ocean. To the northward red rocks, smooth and bare of soil,

and without any speck of moss or herbage, slope up to the very lips of the

Polar wind, and there is nothing else there by the noise of his anger.

Very peaceful are the Inner Lands, and very fair are their cities, and

there is no war among them, but quiet and ease. And they have no enemy but

age, for thirst and fever lie sunning themselves out in the mid-desert,

and never prowl into the Inner Lands. And the ghouls and ghosts, whose

highway is the night, are kept in the south by the boundary of magic. And

very small are all their pleasant cities, and all men are known to one

another therein, and bless one another by name as they meet in the

streets. And they have a broad, green way in every city that comes in out

of some vale or wood or downland, and wanders in and out about the city

between the houses and across the streets, and the people walk along it

never at all, but every year at her appointed time Spring walks along it

from the flowery lands, causing the anemone to bloom on the green way and

all the early joys of hidden woods, or deep, secluded vales, or triumphant

downlands, whose heads lift up so proudly, far up aloof from cities.

Sometimes waggoners or shepherds walk along this way, they that have come

into the city from over cloudy ridges, and the townsmen hinder them not,

for there is a tread that troubleth the grass and a tread that troubleth

it not, and each man in his own heart knoweth which tread he hath. And in

the sunlit spaces of the weald and in the wold's dark places, afar from

the music of cities and from the dance of the cities afar, they make there

the music of the country places and dance the country dance. Amiable, near

and friendly appears to these men the sun, and as he is genial to them and

tends their younger vines, so they are kind to the little woodland things

and any rumour of the fairies or old legend. And when the light of some

little distant city makes a slight flush upon the edge of the sky, and the

happy golden windows of the homesteads stare gleaming into the dark, then

the old and holy figure of Romance, cloaked even to the face, comes down

out of hilly woodlands and bids dark shadows to rise and dance, and sends

the forest creatures forth to prowl, and lights in a moment in her bower

of grass the little glowworm's lamp, and brings a hush down over the grey

lands, and out of it rises faintly on far-off hills the voice of a lute.

There are not in the world lands more prosperous and happy than Toldees,

Mondath, Arizim.

From these three little kingdoms that are named the Inner Lands the young

men stole constantly away. One by one they went, and no one knew why they

went save that they had a longing to behold the Sea. Of this longing they

spoke little, but a young man would become silent for a few days, and

then, one morning very early, he would slip away and slowly climb

Poltarnee's difficult slope, and having attained the top pass over and

never return. A few stayed behind in the Inner Lands and became the old

men, but none that had ever climbed Poltarnees from the very earliest

times had ever come back again. Many had gone up Poltarnees sworn to

return. Once a king sent all his courtiers, one by one, to report the

mystery to him, and then went himself; none ever returned.

Now, it was the wont of the folk of the Inner Lands to worship rumours and

legends of the Sea, and all that their prophets discovered of the Sea was

writ in a sacred book, and with deep devotion on days of festival or

mourning read in the temples by the priests. Now, all their temples lay

open to the west, resting upon pillars, that the breeze from the Sea might

enter them, and they lay open on pillars to the east that the breezes of

the Sea might not be hindered by pass onward wherever the Sea list. And

this is the legend that they had of the Sea, whom none in the Inner Lands

had ever beholden. They say that the Sea is a river heading towards

Hercules, and they say that he touches against the edge of the world, and

that Poltarnees looks upon him. They say that all the worlds of heaven go

bobbing on this river and are swept down with the stream, and that

Infinity is thick and furry with forests through which the river in his

course sweeps on with all the worlds of heaven. Among the colossal trunks

of those dark trees, the smallest fronds of whose branches are man nights,

there walk the gods. And whenever its thirst, glowing in space like a

great sun, comes upon the beast, the tiger of the gods creeps down to the

river to drink. And the tiger of the gods drinks his fill loudly, whelming

worlds the while, and the level of the river sinks between its banks ere

the beast's thirst is quenched and ceases to glow like a sun. And many

worlds thereby are heaped up dry and stranded, and the gods walk not among

them evermore, because they are hard to their feet. These are the worlds

that have no destiny, whose people know no god. And the river sweeps

onwards ever. And the name of the River is Oriathon, but men call it

Ocean. This is the Lower Faith of the Inner Lands. And there is a Higher

Faith which is not told to all. Oriathon sweeps on through the forests of

Infinity and all at once falls roaring over an Edge, whence Time has long

ago recalled his hours to fight in his war with the gods; and falls unlit

by the flash of nights and days, with his flood unmeasured by miles, into

the deeps of nothing.

Now as the centuries went by and the one way by which a man could climb

Poltarnees became worn with feet, more and more men surmounted it, not to

return. And still they knew not in the Inner Lands upon what mystery

Poltarnees looked. For on a still day and windless, while men walked

happily about their beautiful streets or tended flocks in the country,

suddenly the west wind would bestir himself and come in from the Sea. And

he would come cloaked and grey and mournful and carry to someone the

hungry cry of the Sea calling out for bones of men. And he that heard it

would move restlessly for some hours, and at last would rise suddenly,

irresistibly up, setting his face to Poltarnees, and would say, as is the

custom of those lands when men part briefly, "Till a man's heart

remembereth," which means "Farewell for a while"; but those that loved

him, seeing his eyes on Poltarnees, would answer sadly, "Till the gods

forget," which means "Farewell."

Now the king of Arizim had a daughter who played with the wild wood

flowers, and with the fountains in her father's court, and with the little

blue heaven-birds that came to her doorway in the winter to shelter from

the snow. And she was more beautiful than the wild wood flowers, or than

all the fountains in her father's court, or than the blue heaven-birds in

their full winter plumage when they shelter from the snow. The old wise

kings of Mondath and of Toldees saw her once as she went lightly down the

little paths of her garden, and turning their gaze into the mists of

thought, pondered the destiny of their Inner Lands. And they watched her

closely by the stately flowers, and standing alone in the sunlight, and

passing and repassing the strutting purple birds that the king's fowlers

had brought from Asagéhon. When she was of the age of fifteen years the

King of Mondath called a council of kings. And there met with him the

kings of Toldees and Arizim. And the King of Mondath in his Council said:

"The call of the unappeased and hungry Sea (and at the word 'Sea' the

three kings bowed their heads) lures every year out of our happy kingdoms

more and more of our men, and still we know not the mystery of the Sea,

and no devised oath has brought one man back. Now thy daughter, Arizim, is

lovelier than the sunlight, and lovelier than those stately flowers of

thine that stand so tall in her garden, and hath more grace and beauty

than those strange birds that the venturous fowlers bring in creaking

wagons out of Asagéhon, whose feathers are alternate purple and white.

Now, he that shall love thy daughter, Hilnaric, whoever he shall be, is

the man to climb Poltarnees and return, as none hath ever before, and tell

us upon what Poltarnees looks; for it may be that they daughter is more

beautiful than the Sea."

Then from his Seat of Council arose the King of Arizim. He said: "I fear

that thou hast spoken blasphemy against the Sea, and I have a dread that

ill will come of it. Indeed I had not thought she was so fair. It is such

a short while ago that she was quite a small child with her hair still

unkempt and not yet attired in the manner of princesses, and she would go

up into the wild woods unattended and come back with her robes unseemly

and all torn, and would not take reproof with a humble spirit, but made

grimaces even in my marble court all set about with fountains."

Then said the King of Toldees:

"Let us watch more closely and let us see the Princess Hilnaric in the

season of the orchard-bloom when the great birds go by that know the Sea,

to rest in our inland places; and if she be more beautiful than the

sunrise over our folded kingdoms when all the orchards bloom, it may be

that she is more beautiful than the Sea."

And the King of Arizim said:

"I fear this is terrible blasphemy, yet will I do as you have decided in

council."

And the season of the orchard-bloom appeared. One night the King of Arizim

called his daughter forth on his outer balcony of marble. And the moon was

rising huge and round and holy over dark woods, and all the fountains were

singing to the night. And the moon touched the marble palace gables, and

they glowed in the land. And the moon touched the heads of all the

fountains, and the grey columns broke into fairy lights. And the moon left

the dark ways of the forest and lit the whole white palace and its

fountains and shone on the forehead of the Princess, and the palace of

Arizim glowed afar, and the fountains became columns of gleaming jewels

and song. And the moon made a music at its rising, but it fell a little

short of mortal ears. And Hilnaric stood there wondering, clad in white,

with the moonlight shining on her forehead; and watching her from the

shadows on the terrace stood the kings of Mondath and Toldees. They said.

"She is more beautiful than the moonrise." And the season of the

orchard-bloom appeared. One night the King of Arizim called his daughter

forth on his outer balcony of marble. And the moon was rising huge and

round and holy over dark woods, and all the fountains were singing to the

night. And the moon touched the marble palace gables, and they glowed in

the land. And the moon touched the heads of all the fountains, and the

grey columns broke into fairy lights. And the moon left the dark ways of

the forest and lit the whole white palace and its fountains and shone on

the forehead of the Princess, and the palace of Arizim glowed afar, and

the fountains became columns of gleaming jewels and song. And the moon

made a music at its rising, but it fell a little short of mortal ears. And

Hilnaric stood there wondering, clad in white, with the moonlight shining

on her forehead; and watching her from the shadows on the terrace stood

the kings of Mondath and Toldees. They said:

"She is more beautiful than the moonrise." And on another day the King of

Arizim bade his daughter forth at dawn, and they stood again upon the

balcony. And the sun came up over a world of orchards, and the sea-mists

went back over Poltarnees to the Sea; little wild voices arose in all the

thickets, the voices of the fountains began to die, and the song arose, in

all the marble temples, of the birds that are sacred to the Sea. And

Hilnaric stood there, still glowing with dreams of heaven.

"She is more beautiful," said the kings, "than morning."

Yet one more trial they made of Hilnaric's beauty, for they watched her on

the terraces at sunset ere yet the petals of the orchards had fallen, and

all along the edge of neighbouring woods the rhododendron was blooming

with the azalea. And the sun went down under craggy Poltarnees, and the

sea-mist poured over his summit inland. And the marble temples stood up

clear in the evening, but films of twilight were drawn between the

mountain and the city. Then from the Temple ledges and eaves of palaces

the bats fell headlong downwards, then spread their wings and floated up

and down through darkening ways; lights came blinking out in golden

windows, men cloaked themselves against the grey sea-mist, the sound of

small songs arose, and the face of Hilnaric became a resting-place for

mysteries and dreams.

"Than all these things," said the kings, "she is more lovely: but who can

say whether she is lovelier than the Sea?"

Prone in a rhododendron thicket at the edge of the palace lawns a hunter

had waited since the sun went down. Near to him was a deep pool where the

hyacinths grew and strange flowers floated upon it with broad leaves; and

there the great bull gariachs came down to drink by starlight; and,

waiting there for the gariachs to come, he saw the white form of the

Princess leaning on her balcony. Before the stars shone out or the bulls

came down to drink he left his lurking-place and moved closer to the

palace to see more nearly the Princess. The palace lawns were full of

untrodden dew, and everything was still when he came across them, holding

his great spear. In the farthest corner of the terraces the three old

kings were discussing the beauty of Hilnaric and the destiny of the Inner

Lands. Moving lightly, with a hunter's tread, the watcher by the pool came

very near, even in the still evening, before the Princess saw him. When he

saw her closely he exclaimed suddenly:

"She must be more beautiful than the Sea."

When the Princess turned and saw his garb and his great spear she knew

that he was a hunter of gariachs.

When the three kings heard the young man exclaim they said softly to one

another:

"This must be the man."

Then they revealed themselves to him, and spoke to him to try him. They

said:

"Sir, you have spoken blasphemy against the Sea."

And the young man muttered:

"She is more beautiful than the Sea."

And the kings said:

"We are older than you and wiser, and know that nothing is more beautiful

than the Sea."

And the young man took off the gear of his head, and became downcast, and

he knew that he spake with kings, yet he answered:

"By this spear, she is more beautiful than the Sea."

And all the while the Princess stared at him, knowing him to be a hunter

of gariachs.

Then the king of Arizim said to the watcher by the pool:

"If thou wilt go up Poltarnees and come back, as none have come, and

report to us what lure or magic is in the Sea, we will pardon thy

blasphemy, and thou shalt have the Princess to wife and sit among the

Council of Kings."

And gladly thereunto the young man consented. And the Princess spoke to

him, and asked him his name. And he told her that his name was Athelvok,

and great joy arose in him at the sound of her voice. And to the three

kings he promised to set out on the third day to scale the slope of

Poltarnees and to return again, and this was the oath by which they bound

him to return:

"I swear by the Sea that bears the worlds away, by the river of Oriathon,

which men call Ocean, and by the gods and their tiger, and by the doom of

the worlds, that I will return again to the Inner Lands, having beheld the

Sea."

And that oath he swore with solemnity that very night in one of the

temples of the Sea, but the three kings trusted more to the beauty of

Hilnaric even than to the power of the oath.

The next day Athelvok came to the palace of Arizim with the morning, over

the fields to the East and out of the country of Toldees, and Hilnaric

came out along her balcony and met him on the terraces. And she asked him

if he had ever slain a gariach, and he said that he had slain three, and

then he told her how he had killed his first down by the pool in the wood.

For he had taken his father's spear and gone down to the edge of the pool,

and had lain under the azaleas there waiting for the stars to shine, by

whose first light the gariachs go to the pools to drink; and he had gone

too early and had had long to wait, and the passing hours seemed longer

than they were. And all the birds came in that home at night, and the bat

was abroad, and the hour of the duck went by, and still no gariach came

down to the pool; and Athelvok felt sure that none would come. And just as

this grew to a certainty in his mind the thicket parted noiselessly and a

huge bull gariach stood facing him on the edge of the water, and his great

horns swept out sideways from his head, and at the ends curved upwards,

and were four strides in width from tip to tip. And he had not seen

Athelvok, for the great bull was on the far side of the little pool, and

Athelvok could not creep round to him for fear of meeting the wind (for

the gariachs, who can see little in the dark forests, rely on hearing and

smell). But he devised swiftly in his mind while the bull stood there with

head erect just twenty strides from him across the water. And the bull

sniffed the wind cautiously and listened, then lowered his great head down

to the pool and drank. At that instant Athelvok leapt into the water and

shot forward through its weedy depths among the stems of the strange

flowers that floated upon broad leaves on the surface. And Athelvok kept

his spear out straight before him, and the fingers of his left hand he

held rigid and straight, not pointing upwards, and so did not come to the

surface, but was carried onward by the strength of his spring and passed

unentangled through the stems of the flowers. When Athelvok jumped into

the water the bull must have thrown his head up, startled at the splash,

then he would have listened and have sniffed the air, and neither hearing

nor scenting any danger he must have remained rigid for some moments, for

it was in that attitude that Athelvok found him as he emerged breathless

at his feet. And, striking at once, Athelvok drove the spear into his

throat before the head and the terrible horns came down. But Athelvok had

clung to one of the great horns, and had been carried at terrible speed

through the rhododendron bushes until the gariach fell, but rose at once

again, and died standing up, still struggling, drowned in its own blood.

But to Hilnaric listening it was as though one of the heroes of old time

had come back again in the full glory of his legendary youth.

And long time they went up and down the terraces, saying those things

which were said before and since, and which lips shall yet be made to say

again. And above them stood Poltarnees beholding the Sea.

And the day came when Athelvok should go. And Hilnaric said to him:

"Will you not indeed most surely come back again, having just looked over

the summit of Poltarnees?"

Athelvok answered: "I will indeed come back, for thy voice is more

beautiful than the hymn of the priests when they chant and praise the Sea,

and though many tributary seas ran down into Oriathon and he and all the

others poured their beauty into one pool below me, yet would I return

swearing that thou were fairer than they."

And Hilnaric answered:

"The wisdom of my heart tells me, or old knowledge or prophecy, or some

strange lore, that I shall never hear thy voice again. And for this I give

thee my forgiveness."

But he, repeating the oath that he had sworn, set out, looking often

backwards until the slope became to step and his face was set to the rock.

It was in the morning that he started, and he climbed all the day with

little rest, where every foot-hole was smooth with many feet. Before he

reached the top the sun disappeared from him, and darker and darker grew

the Inner Lands. Then he pushed on so as to see before dark whatever thing

Poltarnees had to show. The dusk was deep over the Inner Lands, and the

lights of cities twinkled through the sea-mist when he came to

Poltarnees's summit, and the sun before him was not yet gone from the sky.

And there below him was the old wrinkled Sea, smiling and murmuring song.

And he nursed little ships with gleaming sails, and in his hands were old

regretted wrecks, and mast all studded over with golden nails that he had

rent in anger out of beautiful galleons. And the glory of the sun was

among the surges as they brought driftwood out of isles of spice, tossing

their golden heads. And the grey currents crept away to the south like

companionless serpents that love something afar with a restless, deadly

love. And the whole plain of water glittering with late sunlight, and the

surges and the currents and the white sails of ships were all together

like the face of a strange new god that has looked at a man for the first

time in the eyes at the moment of his death; and Athelvok, looking on the

wonderful Sea, knew why it was that the dead never return, for there is

something that the dead feel and know, and the living would never

understand even though the dead should come and speak to them about it.

And there was the Sea smiling at him, glad with the glory of the sun. And

there was a haven there for homing ships, and a sunlit city stood upon its

marge, and people walked about the streets of it clad in the unimagined

merchandise of far sea-bordering lands.

An easy slope of loose rock went from the top of Poltarnees to the shore

of the Sea.

For a long while Athelvok stood there regretfully, knowing that there had

come something into his soul that no one in the Inner Lands could

understand, where the thoughts of their minds had gone no farther than the

three little kingdoms. Then, looking long upon the wandering ships, and

the marvelous merchandise from alien lands, and the unknown colour that

wreathed the brows of the Sea, he turned his face to the darkness and the

Inner Lands.

At that moment the Sea sang a dirge at sunset for all the harm that he had

done in anger and all the ruin wrought on adventurous ships; and there

were tears in the voice of the tyrannous Sea, for he had loved the

galleons that he had overwhelmed, and he called all men to him and all

living things that he might make amends, because he had loved the bones

that he had strewn afar. And Athelvok turned and set one foot upon the

crumbled slope, and then another, and walked a little way to be nearer to

the Sea, and then a dream came upon him and he felt that men had wronged

the lovely Sea because he had been angry a little, because he had been

sometimes cruel; he felt that there was trouble among the tides of the Sea

because he had loved the galleons who were dead. Still he walked on and

the crumbled stones rolled with him, and just as the twilight faded and a

star appeared he came to the golden shore, and walked on till the surges

were about his knees, and he heard the prayer-like blessings of the Sea.

Long he stood thus, while the stars came out above him and shone again in

the surges; more stars came wheeling in their courses up from the Sea,

lights twinkled out through all the haven city, lanterns were slung from

the ships, the purple night burned on; and Earth, to the eyes of the gods

as they sat afar, glowed as with one flame. Then Athelvok went into the

haven city; there he met many who had left the Inner Lands before him;

none of them wished to return to the people who had not seen the Sea; many

of them had forgotten the three little kingdoms, and it was rumoured that

one man, who had once tried to return, had found the shifting, crumbled

slope impossible to climb.

Hilnaric never married. But her dowry was set aside to build a temple

wherein men curse the ocean.

Once every year, with solemn rite and ceremony, they curse the tides of

the Sea; and the moon looks in and hates them.

BLAGDAROSS

On a waste place strewn with bricks in the outskirts of a town twilight

was falling. A star or two appeared over the smoke, and distant windows

lit mysterious lights. The stillness deepened and the loneliness. Then all

the outcast things that are silent by day found voices.

An old cork spoke first. He said: "I grew in Andalusian woods, but never

listened to the idle songs of Spain. I only grew strong in the sunlight

waiting for my destiny. One day the merchants came and took us all away

and carried us all along the shore of the sea, piled high on the backs of

donkeys, and in a town by the sea they made me into the shape that I am

now. One day they sent me northward to Provence, and there I fulfilled my

destiny. For they set me as a guard over the bubbling wine, and I

faithfully stood sentinel for twenty years. For the first few years in the

bottle that I guarded the wine slept, dreaming of Provence; but as the

years went on he grew stronger and stronger, until at last whenever a man

went by the wind would put out all his might against me, saying, 'Let me

go free; let me go free!' And every year his strength increased, and he

grew more clamourous when men went by, but never availed to hurl me from

my post. But when I had powerfully held him for twenty years they brought

him to the banquet and took me from my post, and the wine arose rejoicing

and leapt through the veins of men and exalted their souls within them

till they stood up in their places and sang Provençal songs. But me they

cast away--me that had been sentinel for twenty years, and was still as

strong and staunch as when first I went on guard. Now I am an outcast in a

cold northern city, who once have known the Andalusian skies and guarded

long ago Provençal suns that swam in the heart of the rejoicing wine."

An unstruck match that somebody had dropped spoke next. "I am a child of

the sun," he said, "and an enemy of cities; there is more in my heart than

you know of. I am a brother of Etna and Stromboli; I have fires lurking in

me that will one day rise up beautiful and strong. We will not go into

servitude on any hearth nor work machines for our food, but we will take

out own food where we find it on that day when we are strong. There are

wonderful children in my heart whose faces shall be more lively than the

rainbow; they shall make a compact with the North wind, and he shall lead

them forth; all shall be black behind them and black above them, and there

shall be nothing beautiful in the world but them; they shall seize upon

the earth and it shall be theirs, and nothing shall stop them but our old

enemy the sea."

Then an old broken kettle spoke, and said: "I am the friend of cities. I

sit among the slaves upon the hearth, the little flames that have been fed

with coal. When the slaves dance behind the iron bars I sit in the middle

of the dance and sing and make our masters glad. And I make songs about

the comfort of the cat, and about the malice that is towards her in the

heart of the dog, and about the crawling of the baby, and about the ease

that is in the lord of the house when we brew the good brown tea; and

sometimes when the house is very warm and slaves and masters are glad, I

rebuke the hostile winds that prowl about the world."

And then there spoke the piece of an old cord. "I was made in a place of

doom, and doomed men made my fibres, working without hope. Therefore there

came a grimness into my heart, so that I never let anything go free when

once I was set to bind it. Many a thing have I bound relentlessly for

months and years; for I used to come coiling into warehouses where the

great boxes lay all open to the air, and one of them would be suddenly

closed up, and my fearful strength would be set on him like accurse, and

if his timbers groaned when first I seized them, or if they creaked aloud

in the lonely night, thinking of woodlands out of which they came, then I

only gripped them tighter still, for the poor useless hate is in my soul

of those that made me in the place of doom. Yet, for all the things that

my prison-clutch has held, the last work that I did was to set something

free. I lay idle one night in the gloom on the warehouse floor. Nothing

stirred there, and even the spider slept. Towards midnight a great flock

of echoes suddenly leapt up from the wooden planks and circled round the

roof. A man was coming towards me all alone. And as he came his soul was

reproaching him, and I saw that there was a great trouble between the man

and his soul, for his soul would not let him be, but went on reproaching

him.

"Then the man saw me and said, 'This at least will not fail me.' When I

heard him say this about me, I determined that whatever he might require

of me it should be done to the uttermost. And as I made this determination

in my unfaltering heart, he picked me up and stood on an empty box that I

should have bound on the morrow, and tied one end of me to a dark rafter;

and the knot was carelessly tied, because his soul was reproaching him all

the while continually and giving him no ease. Then he made the other end

of me into a noose, but when the man's soul saw this it stopped

reproaching the man, and cried out to him hurriedly, and besought him to

be at peace with it and to do nothing sudden; but the man went on with his

work, and put the noose down over his face and underneath his chin, and

the soul screamed horribly.

"Then the man kicked the box away with his foot, and the moment he did

this I knew that my strength was not great enough to hold him; but I

remembered that he had said I would not fail him, and I put all my grim

vigour into my fibres and held by sheer will. Then the soul shouted to me

to give way, but I said:

"'No; you vexed the man.'

"Then it screamed for me to leave go of the rafter, and already I was

slipping, for I only held on to it by a careless knot, but I gripped with

my prison grip and said:

"'You vexed the man.'

"And very swiftly it said other things to me, but I answered not; and at

last the soul that vexed the man that had trusted me flew away and left

him at peace. I was never able to bind things any more, for every one of

my fibres was worn and wrenched, and even my relentless heart was weakened

by the struggle. Very soon afterwards I was thrown out here. I have done

my work."

So they spoke among themselves, but all the while there loomed above them

the form of an old rocking-horse complaining bitterly. He said: "I am

Blagdaross. Woe is me that I should lie now an outcast among these worthy

but little people. Alas! for the days that are gathered, and alas for the

Great One that was a master and a soul to me, whose spirit is now shrunken

and can never know me again, and no more ride abroad on knightly quests. I

was Bucephalus when he was Alexander, and carried him victorious as far as

Ind. I encountered dragons with him when he was St. George, I was the

horse of Roland fighting for Christendom, and was often Rosinante. I

fought in tournays and went errant upon quests, and met Ulysses and the

heroes and the fairies. Or late in the evening, just before the lamps in

the nursery were put out, he would suddenly mount me, and we would gallop

through Africa. There we would pass by night through tropic forests, and

come upon dark rivers sweeping by, all gleaming with the eyes of

crocodiles, where the hippopotamus floated down with the stream, and

mysterious craft loomed suddenly out of the dark and furtively passed

away. And when we had passed through the forest lit by the fireflies we

would come to the open plains, and gallop onwards with scarlet flamingoes

flying along beside us through the lands of dusky kings, with golden

crowns upon their heads and scepters in their hands, who came running out

of their palaces to see us pass. Then I would wheel suddenly, and the dust

flew up from my four hooves as I turned and we galloped home again, and my

master was put to bed. And again he would ride abroad on another day till

we came to magical fortresses guarded by wizardry and overthrew the

dragons at the gate, and ever came back with a princess fairer than the

sea.

"But my master began to grow larger in his body and smaller in his soul,

and then he rode more seldom upon quests. At last he saw gold and never

came again, and I was cast out here among these little people."

But while the rocking-horse was speaking two boys stole away, unnoticed by

their parents, from a house on the edge of the waste place, and were

coming across it looking for adventures. One of them carried a broom, and

when he saw the rocking-horse he said nothing, but broke off the handle

from the broom and thrust it between his braces and his shirt on the left

side. Then he mounted the rocking-horse, and drawing forth the broomstick,

which was sharp and spiky at the end, said, "Saladin is in this desert

with all his paynims, and I am Coeur de Lion." After a while the other boy

said: "Now let me kill Saladin too." But Blagdaross in his wooden heart,

that exulted with thoughts of battle, said: "I am Blagdaross yet!"

THE MADNESS OF ANDELSPRUTZ

I first saw the city of Andelsprutz on an afternoon in spring. The day was

full of sunshine as I came by the way of the fields, and all that morning

I had said, "There will be sunlight on it when I see for the first time

the beautiful conquered city whose fame has so often made for me lovely

dreams." Suddenly I saw its fortifications lifting out of the fields, and

behind them stood its belfries. I went in by a gate and saw its houses and

streets, and a great disappointment came upon me. For there is an air

about a city, and it has a way with it, whereby a man may recognized one

from another at once. There are cities full of happiness and cities full

of pleasure, and cities full of gloom. There are cities with their faces

to heaven, and some with their faces to earth; some have a way of looking

at the past and others look at the future; some notice you if you come

among them, others glance at you, others let you go by. Some love the

cities that are their neighbours, others are dear to the plains and to the

heath; some cities are bare to the wind, others have purple cloaks and

others brown cloaks, and some are clad in white. Some tell the old tale of

their infancy, with others it is secret; some cities sing and some mutter,

some are angry, and some have broken hearts, and each city has her way of

greeting Time.

I had said: "I will see Andelsprutz arrogant with her beauty," and I had

said: "I will see her weeping over her conquest."

I had said: "She will sing songs to me," and "she will be reticent," "she

will be all robed," and "she will be bare but splendid."

But the windows of Andelsprutz in her houses looked vacantly over the

plains like the eyes of a dead madman. At the hour her chimes sounded

unlovely and discordant, some of them were out of tune, and the bells of

some were cracked, her roofs were bald and without moss. At evening no

pleasant rumour arose in her streets. When the lamps were lit in the

houses no mystical flood of light stole out into the dusk, you merely saw

that there were lighted lamps; Andelsprutz had no way with her and no air

about her. When the night fell and the blinds were all drawn down, then I

perceived what I had not thought in the daylight. I knew then that

Andelsprutz was dead.

I saw a fair-haired man who drank beer in a café, and I said to him:

"Why is the city of Andelsprutz quite dead, and her soul gone hence?"

He answered: "Cities do not have souls and there is never any life in

bricks."

And I said to him: "Sir, you have spoken truly."

And I asked the same question of another man, and he gave me the same

answer, and I thanked him for his courtesy. And I saw a man of a more

slender build, who had black hair, and channels in his cheeks for tears to

run in, and I said to him:

"Why is Andelsprutz quite dead, and when did her soul go hence?"

And he answered: "Andelsprutz hoped too much. For thirty years would she

stretch out her arms toward the land of Akla every night, to Mother Akla

from whom she had been stolen. Every night she would be hoping and

sighing, and stretching out her arms to Mother Akla. At midnight, once a

year, on the anniversary of the terrible day, Akla would send spies to lay

a wreath against the walls of Andelsprutz. She could do no more. And on

this night, once in every year, I used to weep, for weeping was the mood

of the city that nursed me. Every night while other cities slept did

Andelsprutz sit brooding here and hoping, till thirty wreaths lay

mouldering by her walls, and still the armies of Akla could not come.

"But after she had hoped so long, and on the night that faithful spies had

brought her thirtieth wreath, Andelsprutz went suddenly mad. All the bells

clanged hideously in the belfries, horses bolted in the streets, the dogs

all howled, the stolid conquerors awoke and turned in their beds and slept

again; and I saw the grey shadowy form of Andelsprutz rise up, decking her

hair with the phantasms of cathedrals, and stride away from her city. And

the great shadowy form that was the soul of Andelsprutz went away

muttering to the mountains, and there I followed her--for had she not been

my nurse? Yes, I went away alone into the mountains, and for three days,

wrapped in a cloak, I slept in their misty solitudes. I had no food to

eat, and to drink I had only the water of the mountain streams. By day no

living thing was near to me, and I heard nothing but the noise of the

wind, and the mountain streams roaring. But for three nights I heard all

round me on the mountain the sounds of a great city: I saw the lights of

tall cathedral windows flash momentarily on the peaks, and at times the

glimmering lantern of some fortress patrol. And I saw the huge misty

outline of the soul of Andelsprutz sitting decked with her ghostly

cathedrals, speaking to herself, with her eyes fixed before her in a mad

stare, telling of ancient wars. And her confused speech for all those

nights upon the mountain was sometimes the voice of traffic, and then of

church bells, and then of bugles, but oftenest it was the voice of red

war; and it was all incoherent, and she was quite mad.

"The third night it rained heavily all night long, but I stayed up there

to watch the soul of my native city. And she still sat staring straight

before her, raving; but here voice was gentler now, there were more chimes

in it, and occasional song. Midnight passed, and the rain still swept down

on me, and still the solitudes of the mountain were full of the mutterings

of the poor mad city. And the hours after midnight came, the cold hours

wherein sick men die.

"Suddenly I was aware of great shapes moving in the rain, and heard the

sound of voices that were not of my city nor yet of any that I ever knew.

And presently I discerned, though faintly, the souls of a great concourse

of cities, all bending over Andelsprutz and comforting her, and the

ravines of the mountains roared that night with the voices of cities that

had lain still for centuries. For there came the soul of Camelot that had

so long ago forsaken Usk; and there was Ilion, all girt with towers, still

cursing the sweet face of ruinous Helen; I saw there Babylon and

Persepolis, and the bearded face of bull-like Nineveh, and Athens mourning

her immortal gods.

"All these souls if cities that were dead spoke that night on the mountain

to my city and soothed her, until at last she muttered of war no longer,

and her eyes stared wildly no more, but she hid her face in her hands and

for some while wept softly. At last she arose, and walking slowly and with

bended head, and leaning upon Ilion and Carthage, went mournfully

eastwards; and the dust of her highways swirled behind her as she went, a

ghostly dust that never turned to mud in all that drenching rain. And so

the souls of the cities led her away, and gradually they disappeared from

the mountain, and the ancient voices died away in the distance.

"Now since then have I seen my city alive; but once I met with a traveler

who said that somewhere in the midst of a great desert are gathered

together the souls of all dead cities. He said that he was lost once in a

place where there was no water, and he heard their voices speaking all the

night."

But I said: "I was once without water in a desert and heard a city

speaking to me, but knew not whether it really spoke to me or not, for on

that day I heard so many terrible things, and only some of them were

true."

And the man with the black hair said: "I believe it to be true, though

whither she went I know not. I only know that a shepherd found me in the

morning faint with hunger and cold, and carried me down here; and when I

came to Andelsprutz it was, as you have perceived it, dead."

WHERE THE TIDES EBB AND FLOW

I dreamt that I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be denied

me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me.

I waited for some hours, knowing this. Then my friends came for me, and

slew me secretly and with ancient rite, and lit great tapers, and carried

me away.

It was all in London that the thing was done, and they went furtively at

dead of night along grey streets and among mean houses until they came to

the river. And the river and the tide of the sea were grappling with one

another between the mud-banks, and both of them were black and full of

lights. A sudden wonder came in to the eyes of each, as my friends came

near to them with their glaring tapers. All these things I saw as they

carried me dead and stiffening, for my soul was still among my bones,

because there was no hell for it, and because Christian burial was denied

me.

They took me down a stairway that was green with slimy things, and so came

slowly to the terrible mud. There, in the territory of forsaken things,

they dug a shallow grave. When they had finished they laid me in the

grave, and suddenly they cast their tapers to the river. And when the

water had quenched the flaring lights the tapers looked pale and small as

they bobbed upon the tide, and at once the glamour of the calamity was

gone, and I noticed then the approach of the huge dawn; and my friends

cast their cloaks over their faces, and the solemn procession was turned

into many fugitives that furtively stole away.

Then the mud came back wearily and covered all but my face. There I lay

alone with quite forgotten things, with drifting things that the tides

will take no farther, with useless things and lost things, and with the

horrible unnatural bricks that are neither stone nor soil. I was rid of

feeling, because I had been killed, but perception and thought were in my

unhappy soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the desolate houses that crowded

the marge of the river, and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes,

windows with bales behind them instead of human souls. I grew so weary

looking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not,

because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for all

the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but,

being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had yet been well with the

forgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless and

without life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in my

dead eyes. And I knew then that the river might have cared for us, might

have caressed us, might have sung to us, but he swept broadly onwards,

thinking of nothing but the princely ships.

At last the tide did what the river would not, and came and covered me

over, and my soul had rest in the green water, and rejoiced and believed

that it had the Burial of the Sea. But with the ebb the water fell again,

and left me alone again with the callous mud among the forgotten things

that drift no more, and with the sight of all those desolate houses, and

with the knowledge among all of us that each was dead.

In the mournful wall behind me, hung with green weeds, forsaken of the

sea, dark tunnels appeared, and secret narrow passages that were clamped

and barred. From these at last the stealthy rats came down to nibble me

away, and my soul rejoiced thereat and believed that he would be free

perforce from the accursed bones to which burial was refused. Very soon

the rats ran away a little space and whispered among themselves. They

never came any more. When I found that I was accursed even among the rats

I tried to weep again.

Then the tide came swinging back and covered the dreadful mud, and hid the

desolate houses, and soothed the forgotten things, and my soul had ease

for a while in the sepulture of the sea. And then the tide forsook me

again.

To and fro it came about me for many years. Then the County Council found

me, and gave me decent burial. It was the first grave that I had ever

slept in. That very night my friends came for me. They dug me up and put

me back again in the shallow hold in the mud.

Again and again through the years my bones found burial, but always behind

the funeral lurked one of those terrible men who, as soon as night fell,

came and dug them up and carried them back again to the hole in the mud.

And then one day the last of those men died who once had done to me this

terrible thing. I heard his soul go over the river at sunset.

And again I hoped.

A few weeks afterwards I was found once more, and once more taken out of

that restless place and given deep burial in sacred ground, where my soul

hoped that it should rest.

Almost at once men came with cloaks and tapers to give me back to the mud,

for the thing had become a tradition and a rite. And all the forsaken

things mocked me in their dumb hearts when they saw me carried back, for

they were jealous of me because I had left the mud. It must be remembered

that I could not weep.

And the years went by seawards where the black barges go, and the great

derelict centuries became lost at sea, and still I lay there without any

cause to hope, and daring not to hope without a cause, because of the

terrible envy and the anger of the things that could drift no more.

Once a great storm rode up, even as far as London, out of the sea from the

South; and he came curving into the river with the fierce East wind. And

he was mightier than the dreary tides, and went with great leaps over the

listless mud. And all the sad forgotten things rejoiced, and mingled with

things that were haughtier than they, and rode once more amongst the

lordly shipping that was driven up and down. And out of their hideous home

he took my bones, never again, I hoped, to be vexed with the ebb and flow.

And with the fall of the tide he went riding down the river and turned to

the southwards, and so went to his home. And my bones he scattered among

many isles and along the shores of happy alien mainlands. And for a

moment, while they were far asunder, my soul was almost free.

Then there arose, at the will of the moon, the assiduous flow of the tide,

and it undid at once the work of the ebb, and gathered my bones from the

marge of sunny isles, and gleaned them all along the mainland's shores,

and went rocking northwards till it came to the mouth of the Thames, and

there turned westwards its relentless face, and so went up the river and

came to the hole in the mud, and into it dropped my bones; and partly the

mud covered them, and partly it left them white, for the mud cares not for

its forsaken things.

Then the ebb came, and I saw the dead eyes of the houses and the jealousy

of the other forgotten things that the storm had not carried thence.

And some more centuries passed over the ebb and flow and over the

loneliness of things for gotten. And I lay there all the while in the

careless grip of the mud, never wholly covered, yet never able to go free,

and I longed for the great caress of the warm Earth or the comfortable lap

of the Sea.

Sometimes men found my bones and buried them, but the tradition never

died, and my friends' successors always brought them back. At last the

barges went no more, and there were fewer lights; shaped timbers no longer

floated down the fairway, and there came instead old wind-uprooted trees

in all their natural simplicity.

At last I was aware that somewhere near me a blade of grass was growing,

and the moss began to appear all over the dead houses. One day some

thistledown went drifting over the river.