THE next day wore away tidingless; and the day after Face-of-god arose
betimes; for it was the first day of his watch, and he was at the Maiden
Ward before the time appointed on a very fair and bright morning, and he
went to and fro on that place, and had no tidings. So he came away
somewhat cast down, and said within himself: ‘Is it but a lie and a
mocking when all is said?’
On the morrow he went thither again, and the morn was wild and stormy
with drift of rain, and low clouds hurrying over the earth, though for
the sunrise they lifted a little in the east, and the sun came up over
the passes, amidst the red and angry rack of clouds. This morn also gave
him no tidings of the token, and he was wroth and perturbed in spirit:
but towards evening he said:
‘It is well: ten days she gave me, so that she might be able to send
without fail on one of them; she will not fail me.’
So again on the morrow he was there betimes, and the morn was windy as on
the day before, but the clouds higher and of better promise for the day.
Face-of-god walked to and fro on the Maiden Ward, and as he turned toward
Burgstead for the tenth time, he heard, as he deemed, a bow-string twang
afar off, and even therewith came a shaft flying heavily like a winged
bird, which smote a great standing stone on the other side of the way,
where of old some chieftain had been buried, and fell to earth at its
foot. He went up to it and handled it, and saw that there was a piece of
thin parchment wrapped about it, which indeed he was eager to unwrap at
once, but forebore; because he was on the highway, and people were
already astir, and even then passed by him a goodman of the Dale with a
man of his going afield together, and they gave him the sele of the day.
So he went along the highway a little till he came to a place where was a
footbridge over into the meadow. He crossed thereby and went swiftly
till he reached a rising ground grown over with hazel-trees; there he sat
down among the rabbit-holes, the primrose and wild-garlic blooming about
him, and three blackbirds answering one another from the edges of the
coppice. Straightway when he had looked and seen none coming he broke
the threads that were wound about the scroll and the arrow, and unrolled
the parchment; and there was writing thereon in black ink of small
letters, but very fair, and this is what he read therein:
_Come thou to the Mountain Hall by the path which thou knowest of_,
_on the morrow of the day whereon thou readest this_. _Rise betimes
and come armed_, _for there are other men than we in the wood_; _to
whom thy death should be a gain_. _When thou art come to the Hall_,
_thou shalt find no man therein_; _but a great hound only_, _tied to
a bench nigh the daïs_. _Call him by his name_, _Sure-foot to wit_,
_and give him to eat from the meat upon the board_, _and give him
water __to drink_. _If the day is then far spent_, _as it is like to
be_, _abide thou with the hound in the hall through the night_, _and
eat of what thou shalt find there_; _but see that the hound fares not
abroad till the morrow’s morn_: _then lead him out and bring him to
the north-east corner of the Hall_, _and he shall lift the slot for
thee that leadeth to the Shadowy Yale_. _Follow him and all good go
with thee_.
Now when he had read this, earth seemed fair indeed about him, and he
scarce knew whither to turn or what to do to make the most of his joy.
He presently went back to Burgstead and into the House of the Face, where
all men were astir now, and the day was clearing. He hid the shaft under
his kirtle, for he would not that any should see it; so he went to his
shut-bed and laid it up in his chest, wherein he kept his chiefest
treasures; but the writing on the scroll he set in his bosom and so hid
it. He went joyfully and proudly, as one who knoweth more tidings and
better than those around him. But Stone-face beheld him, and said
‘Foster-son, thou art happy. Is it that the spring-tide is in thy blood,
and maketh thee blithe with all things, or hast thou some new tidings?
Nay, I would not have an answer out of thee; but here is good rede: when
next thou goest into the wood, it were nought so ill for thee to have a
valiant old carle by thy side; one that loveth thee, and would die for
thee if need were; one who might watch when thou wert seeking. Or else
beware! for there are evil things abroad in the Wood, and moreover the
brethren of those two felons who were slain at Carlstead.’
Then Gold-mane constrained himself to answer the old carle softly; and he
thanked him kindly for his offer, and said that so it should be before
long. So the talk between them fell, and Stone-face went away somewhat
well-pleased.
And now was Face-of-god become wary; and he would not draw men’s eyes and
speech on him; so he went afield with Hall-face to deal with the lambs
and the ewes, and did like other men. No less wary was he in the hall
that even, and neither spake much nor little; and when his father spake
to him concerning the Bride, and made game of him as a somewhat sluggish
groom, he did not change countenance, but answered lightly what came to
hand.
On the morrow ere the earliest dawn he was afoot, and he clad himself and
did on his hauberk, his father’s work, which was fine-wrought and a stout
defence, and reached down to his knees; and over that he did on a goodly
green kirtle well embroidered: he girt his war-sword to his side, and it
was the work of his father’s father, and a very good sword: its name was
Dale-warden. He did a good helm on his head, and slung a targe at his
back, and took two spears in his hand, short but strong-shafted and
well-steeled. Thus arrayed he left Burgstead before the dawn, and came
to Wildlake’s Way and betook him to the Woodland. He made no stop or
stay on the path, but ate his meat standing by an oak-tree close by the
half-blind track. When he came to the little wood-lawn, where was the
toft of the ancient house, he looked all round about him, for he deemed
that a likely place for those ugly wood-wights to set on him; but nought
befell him, though he stooped and drank of the woodland rill warily
enough. So he passed on; and there were other places also where he fared
warily, because they seemed like to hold lurking felons; though forsooth
the whole wood might well serve their turn. But no evil befell him, and
at last, when it yet lacked an hour to sunset, he came to the wood-lawn
where Wild-wearer had made his onset that other eve.
He went straight up to the house, his heart beating, and he scarce
believing but that he should find the Friend abiding him there: but when
he pushed the door it gave way before him at once, and he entered and
found no man therein, and the walls stripped bare and no shield or weapon
hanging on the panels. But the hound he saw tied to a bench nigh the
daïs, and the bristles on the beast’s neck arose, and he snarled on
Face-of-god, and strained on his leathern leash. Then Face-of-god went
up to him and called him by his name, Sure-foot, and gave him his hand to
lick, and he brought him water, and fed him with flesh from the meat on
the board; so the beast became friendly and wagged his tail and whined
and slobbered his hand.
Then he went all about the house, and saw and heard no living thing
therein save the mice in the panels and Sure-foot. So he came back to
the daïs, and sat him down at the board and ate his fill, and thought
concerning his case. And it came into his mind that the Woman of the
Mountain had some deed for him to do which would try his manliness and
exalt his fame; and his heart rose high and he was glad, and he saw
himself sitting beside her on the daïs of a very fair hall beloved and
honoured of all the folk, and none had aught to say against him or owed
him any grudge. Thus he pleased himself in thinking of the good days to
come, sitting there till the hall grew dusk and dark and the night-wind
moaned about it.
Then after a while he arose and raked together the brands on the hearth,
and made light in the hall and looked to the door. And he found there
were bolts and bars thereto, so he shot the bolts and drew the bars into
their places and made all as sure as might be. Then he brought Sure-foot
down from the daïs, and tied him up so that he might lie down athwart the
door, and then lay down his hauberk with his naked sword ready to his
hand, and slept long while.
When he awoke it was darker than when he had lain him for the moon had
set; yet he deemed that the day was at point of breaking. So he fetched
water and washed the night off him, and saw a little glimmer of the dawn.
Then he ate somewhat of the meat on the board, and did on his helm and
his other gear, and unbarred the door, and led Sure-foot without, and
brought him to the north-east corner of the house, and in a little while
he lifted the slot and they departed, the man and the hound, just as
broke dawn from over the mountains.
Sure-foot led right into the heart of the pine-wood, and it was dark
enough therein, with nought but a feeble glimmer for some while, and long
was the way therethrough; but in two hours’ space was there something of
a break, and they came to the shore of a dark deep tarn on whose windless
and green waters the daylight shone fully. The hound skirted the water,
and led on unchecked till the trees began to grow smaller and the air
colder for all that the sun was higher; for they had been going up and up
all the way.
So at last after a six hours’ journey they came clean out of the
pine-wood, and before them lay the black wilderness of the bare
mountains, and beyond them, looking quite near now, the great ice-peaks,
the wall of the world. It was but an hour short of noon by this time,
and the high sun shone down on a barren boggy moss which lay betwixt them
and the rocky waste. Sure-foot made no stay, but threaded the ways that
went betwixt the quagmires, and in another hour led Face-of-god into a
winding valley blinded by great rocks, and everywhere stony and rough,
with a trickle of water running amidst of it. The hound fared on up the
dale to where the water was bridged by a great fallen stone, and so over
it and up a steep bent on the further side, on to a marvellously rough
mountain-neck, whiles mere black sand cumbered with scattered rocks and
stones, whiles beset with mires grown over with the cottony mire-grass;
here and there a little scanty grass growing; otherwhere nought but dwarf
willow ever dying ever growing, mingled with moss or red-blossomed
sengreen; and all blending together into mere desolation.
Few living things they saw there; up on the neck a few sheep were grazing
the scanty grass, but there was none to tend them; yet Face-of-god deemed
the sight of them good, for there must be men anigh who owned them. For
the rest, the whimbrel laughed across the mires; high up in heaven a
great eagle was hanging; once and again a grey fox leapt up before them,
and the heath-fowl whirred up from under Face-of-god’s feet. A raven who
was sitting croaking on a rock in that first dale stirred uneasily on his
perch as he saw them, and when they were passed flapped his wings and
flew after them croaking still.
Now they fared over that neck somewhat east, making but slow way because
the ground was so broken and rocky; and in another hour’s space Sure-foot
led down-hill due east to where the stony neck sank into another desolate
miry heath still falling toward the east, but whose further side was
walled by a rampart of crags cleft at their tops into marvellous-shapes,
coal-black, ungrassed and unmossed. Thitherward the hound led straight,
and Gold-mane followed wondering: as he drew near them he saw that they
were not very high, the tallest peak scant fifty feet from the face of
the heath.
They made their way through the scattered rocks at the foot of these
crags, till, just where the rock-wall seemed the closest, the way through
the stones turned into a path going through it skew-wise; and it was now
so clear a path that belike it had been bettered by men’s hands. Down
thereby Face-of-god followed the hound, deeming that he was come to the
gates of the Shadowy Vale, and the path went down steeply and swiftly.
But when he had gone down a while, the rocks on his right hand sank lower
for a space, so that he could look over and see what lay beneath.
There lay below him a long narrow vale quite plain at the bottom, walled
on the further side as on the hither by sheer rocks of black stone. The
plain was grown over with grass, but he could see no tree therein: a deep
river, dark and green, ran through the vale, sometimes through its
midmost, sometimes lapping the further rock-wall: and he thought indeed
that on many a day in the year the sun would never shine on that valley.
Thus much he saw, and then the rocks rose again and shut it from his
sight; and at last they drew so close together over head that he was in a
way going through a cave with little daylight coming from above, and in
the end he was in a cave indeed and mere darkness: but with the last
feeble glimmer of light he thought he saw carved on a smooth space of the
living rock at his left hand the image of a wolf.
This cave lasted but a little way, and soon the hound and the man were
going once more between sheer black rocks, and the path grew steeper yet
and was cut into steps. At last there was a sharp turn, and they stood
on the top of a long stony scree, down which Sure-foot bounded eagerly,
giving tongue as he went; but Face-of-god stood still and looked, for now
the whole Dale lay open before him.
That river ran from north to south, and at the south end the cliffs drew
so close to it that looking thence no outgate could be seen; but at the
north end there was as it were a dreary street of rocks, the river
flowing amidmost and leaving little foothold on either side, somewhat as
it was with the pass leading from the mountains into Burgdale.
Amidmost of the Dale a little toward the north end he saw a doom-ring of
black stones, and hard by it an ancient hall builded of the same black
stone both wall and roof, and thitherward was Sure-foot now running.
Face-of-god looked up and down the Dale and could see no break in the
wall of sheer rock: toward the southern end he saw a few booths and cots
built roughly of stone and thatched with turf; thereabout he saw a few
folk moving about, the most of whom seemed to be women and children;
there were some sheep and lambs near these cots, and a herd of fifty or
so of somewhat goodly mountain-kine were feeding higher up the valley.
He could look down into the river from where he stood, and he saw that it
ran between rocky banks going straight down from the face of the meadow,
which was rather high above the water, so that it seemed little likely
that the water should rise over its banks, either in summer or winter;
and in summer was it like to be highest, because the vale was so near to
the high mountains and their snows.