EARLY on the morrow Gold-mane arose and clad himself and went out-a-doors
and over the trodden snow on to the bridge over the Weltering Water, and
there betook himself into one of the coins of safety built over the
up-stream piles; there he leaned against the wall and turned his face to
the Thorp, and fell to pondering on his case. And first he thought about
his oath, and how that he had sworn to wed the Mountain Woman, although
his kindred and her kindred should gainsay him, yea and herself also.
Great seemed that oath to him, yet at that moment he wished he had made
it greater, and made all the kindred, yea and the Bride herself, sure of
the meaning of the words of it: and he deemed himself a dastard that he
had not done so. Then he looked round him and beheld the winter, and he
fell into mere longing that the spring were come and the token from the
Mountain. Things seemed too hard for him to deal with, and he between a
mighty folk and two wayward women; and he went nigh to wish that he had
taken his father’s offer and gone down to the Cities; and even had he met
his bane: well were that! And, as young folk will, he set to work making
a picture of his deeds there, had he been there. He showed himself the
stricken fight in the plain, and the press, and the struggle, and the
breaking of the serried band, and himself amidst the ring of foemen doing
most valiantly, and falling there at last, his shield o’er-heavy with the
weight of foemen’s spears for a man to uphold it. Then the victory of
his folk and the lamentation and praise over the slain man of the
Mountain Dales, and the burial of the valiant warrior, the praising
weeping folk meeting him at the City-gate, laid stark and cold in his
arms on the gold-hung garlanded bier.
There ended his dream, and he laughed aloud and said: ‘I am a fool! All
this were good and sweet if I should see it myself; and forsooth that is
how I am thinking of it, as if I still alive should see myself dead and
famous!’
Then he turned a little and looked at the houses of the Thorp lying dark
about the snowy ways under the starlit heavens of the winter morning:
dark they were indeed and grey, save where here and there the half-burned
Yule-fire reddened the windows of a hall, or where, as in one place, the
candle of some early waker shone white in a chamber window. There was
scarce a man astir, he deemed, and no sound reached him save the crowing
of the cocks muffled by their houses, and a faint sound of beasts in the
byres.
Thus he stood a while, his thoughts wandering now, till presently he
heard footsteps coming his way down the street and turned toward them,
and lo it was the old man Stone-face. He had seen Gold-mane go out, and
had risen and followed him that he might talk with him apart. Gold-mane
greeted him kindly, though, sooth to say, he was but half content to see
him; since he doubted, what was verily the case, that his foster-father
would give him many words, counselling him to refrain from going to the
wood, and this was loathsome to him; but he spake and said:
‘Meseems, father, that the eastern sky is brightening toward dawn.’
‘Yea,’ quoth Stone-face.
‘It will be light in an hour,’ said Face-of-god.
‘Even so,’ said Stone-face.
‘And a fair day for the morrow of Yule,’ said the swain.
‘Yea,’ said Stone-face, ‘and what wilt thou do with the fair day? Wilt
thou to the wood?’
‘Maybe, father,’ said Gold-mane; ‘Hall-face and some of the swains are
talking of elks up the fells which may be trapped in the drifts, and if
they go a-hunting them, I may go in their company.’
‘Ah, son,’ quoth Stone-face, ‘thou wilt look to see other kind of beasts
than elks. Things may ye fall in with there who may not be impounded in
the snow like to elks, but can go light-foot on the top of the soft drift
from one place to another.’
Said Gold-mane: ‘Father, fear me not; I shall either refrain me from the
wood, or if I go, I shall go to hunt the wood-deer with other hunters.
But since thou hast come to me, tell me more about the wood, for thy
tales thereof are fair.’
‘Yea,’ said Stone-face, ‘fair tales of foul things, as oft it befalleth
in the world. Hearken now! if thou deemest that what thou seekest shall
come readier to thine hand because of the winter and the snow, thou
errest. For the wights that waylay the bodies and souls of the mighty in
the wild-wood heed such matters nothing; yea and at Yule-tide are they
most abroad, and most armed for the fray. Even such an one have I seen
time agone, when the snow was deep and the wind was rough; and it was in
the likeness of a woman clad in such raiment as the Bride bore last
night, and she trod the snow light-foot in thin raiment where it would
scarce bear the skids of a deft snow-runner. Even so she stood before
me; the icy wind blew her raiment round about her, and drifted the hair
from her garlanded head toward me, and she as fair and fresh as in the
midsummer days. Up the fell she fared, sweetest of all things to look
on, and beckoned on me to follow; on me, the Warrior, the Stout-heart;
and I followed, and between us grief was born; but I it was that fostered
that child and not she. Always when she would be, was she merry and
lovely; and even so is she now, for she is of those that be long-lived.
And I wot that thou hast seen even such an one!’
‘Tell me more of thy tales, foster-father,’ said Gold-mane, ‘and fear not
for me!’
‘Ah, son,’ he said, ‘mayst thou have no such tales to tell to those that
shall be young when thou art old. Yet hearken! We sat in the hall
together and there was no third; and methought that the birds sang and
the flowers bloomed, and sweet was their savour, though it was midwinter.
A rose-wreath was on her head; grapes were on the board, and fair
unwrinkled summer apples on the day that we feasted together. When was
the feast? sayst thou. Long ago. What was the hall, thou sayest,
wherein ye feasted? I know not if it were on the earth or under it, or
if we rode the clouds that even. But on the morrow what was there but
the stark wood and the drift of the snow, and the iron wind howling
through the branches, and a lonely man, a wanderer rising from the
ground. A wanderer through the wood and up the fell, and up the high
mountain, and up and up to the edges of the ice-river and the green caves
of the ice-hills. A wanderer in spring, in summer, autumn and winter,
with an empty heart and a burning never-satisfied desire; who hath seen
in the uncouth places many an evil unmanly shape, many a foul hag and
changing ugly semblance; who hath suffered hunger and thirst and wounding
and fever, and hath seen many things, but hath never again seen that fair
woman, or that lovely feast-hall.
‘All praise and honour to the House of the Face, and the bounteous
valiant men thereof! and the like praise and honour to the fair women
whom they wed of the valiant and goodly House of the Steer!’
‘Even so say I,’ quoth Gold-mane calmly; ‘but now wend we aback to the
House, for it is morning indeed, and folk will be stirring there.’
So they turned from the bridge together; and Stone-face was kind and
fatherly, and was telling his foster-son many wise things concerning the
life of a chieftain, and the giving-out of dooms and the gathering for
battle; to all which talk Face-of-god seemed to hearken gladly, but
indeed hearkened not at all; for verily his eyes were beholding that
snowy waste, and the fair woman upon it; even such an one as Stone-face
had told of.