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.