Deep night. Over the castle Pegasus, over town southward the Eagle,
walking down the west the Ploughman, low in the southwest the Scorpion,
due south the Archer, on the meridian the Lyre.
Deep night in prison. Morgen Fay waked. “What use in sleeping? I shall
do no work to-morrow.”
Memory. For some ease, take Memory by the hand, but go with her into
old countries, not into those near at hand! She remembered a forest
like to Wander forest, and she remembered an ocean with shells upon the
beach. So cool the air, and the water going over her, cool, cool and
restful! She remembered music.
Once a grey-beard begging friar had told her that all things that ever
were or are or can be were but parts of music. “Listen, and you will
hear! Gather the notes and make them into strains. Put the strains
together--you will begin to have a notion! When you have lived long
enough you will come to hear the strains made of strains and how they
combine. All the jangle is imperfect music, music finding itself--”
Music. So it was all music? A long way to-night to where you might see
that!
Dancing. Once it had come to her herself, watching sunbeams and some
nodding, waving trees and a long ripple over wheat, and feeling a wind
that kept measure, that dancing was somehow a great and sweet idea
of some great Gayheart. “Shall I dance in prison and hear music, and
to-morrow flying this way?”
Love. What is that?
She thought. “I have never seen it. I know it not. Perhaps for garden
and Ailsa and little white rose tree. Ah, yes! But I have loved my way,
and fire on my hearth and wine on my table. Now I will have enough of
fire, and there is a wine they say of wrath. Love--love! What is it,
Morgen Fay? If there be such a country I shall not see it. Where do you
go to-morrow, Morgen Fay, and what anguish in the going?”
“O God, O my God, make wider the little passage between me and thee!”
So dark--so dark. Night and night and night!
A little noise at the door, but not like Godfrey’s hand. She sat up,
being near the door, the place was so small. Stealthily, stealthily, a
sliding noise. She felt the door open and rose to her knees. “Who’s
there?”
“Friends! Don’t make any noise.” One came in at the door and touched
her. “Morgen, it is Thomas Bettany. You are willing to follow me? Then
come at once.”
She rose and followed. The door was shut behind her. The second man,
stooping, turned the key and withdrew it. A little way down the
passage with no more noise than moths--door of inner ward--through it,
too, turn key and take out, find cross passage. The second man who
had not spoken held the least, small light. A cresset, too, burned
dimly, swinging from a beam. A man lay sleeping by the wall,--Diggory,
Godfrey’s helper. It seemed that he was sleeping soundly. A turn, a
wider space, and the great door and William sleeping upon a bench.
Open, great door. Light showed a chain and a staple broken out of
wall--open! Out of prison. Starlight--the street--soft and swift like
moth and bat. Lanterns and footsteps of the watch. Press into angle of
Saint Ethelred’s porch and cease to breathe while they go by! Avoid
market place, cross High Street, softly, swiftly; find Saint Swithin’s
Street, narrow, steeply descending toward the river. River in the
ears, and the old disused water steps, and beside them a boat. Thomas
Bettany’s voice saying, “_Gold and silver_,” and the man in the boat
answering, “_Gold and silver in the Vineyard._ Step ye in!”
Down the river, and by the house of Morgen Fay and into the widening of
water that was called the Pool.
There were but three men, Bettany and the man with him and he who had
held the boat and who was called Diccon. The man who had opened doors
sat very silent. But so were all, saying nothing, rowing silently. And
Morgen Fay was still, still! Oh, the divine night air and the stars and
the cool water, cool and singing! A ship rose before them. It seemed
they were going there.
Thomas spoke to her. “Your name is Alice now, not Morgen. Remember!
Alice--Alice Dawn. This ship is the _Vineyard_ and it touches at three
ports. You will be safely put ashore, and here is gold.” A purse slid
into her lap.
Ecstacy of freedom, air and the stars. Alice--Alice Dawn! She put her
forehead upon her knees and laughed. “Oh, all of you, what will you
_not_ see to-morrow! Now you have your miracle!”
The ship coming closer and closer, a tall ship and making ready to
sail. “Whither? And will I find Ailsa?”
“I cannot tell as to that. Diccon Wright, the master there, is a
helpful man. And the Saints are above us. I do not fully know,” said
Thomas under breath, “what I have done!”
The ship came near. “Ah, how dark it was in prison! Thank you and bless
you!”
Andromeda lay across the northeast, the Crown was in the west, the Swan
overhead. “Ship oars,” said Diccon. “Here we are!”
“You quit me now, Thomas?”
“Aye. I must be at home and in bed if there come any calling!”
“Are you endangered?”
“No! They will call it again the devil. Where all have tender hands he
is the best one to pull the nuts from the fire!”
“Good-by, then. I shall bless you every day and it shall not hurt you!”
“I never thought that it would, Morgen Fay.”
“No. Thou’rt clean! Good-by, good-by, good-by!”
The ship overhung them,--bowsprit and carved sea goddess, body of ship
and high forecastle, masts, spars and rigging. And the stars shone
between, and men were up there making sail among the stars, and all the
air sang around and the water sang. Morgen Fay had her own courage. It
was coming to her from far and near. She felt like a child. Something
in her was crumbling away, or something within her, after long groping,
was painfully lifting itself into higher air. “_I have tasted evil, I
have tasted good; I like better the last taste._”
The rowers ceased to row. A rope was flung, a manner of ladder of rope
slipped over the side. Master of the _Vineyard_ and Thomas Bettany
spoke low together, then the former mounted to his ship. “Now, Alice
Dawn--God bless you!”
“God bless you.”
She was light and strong. She climbed, she stood in the waist of the
_Vineyard_ and turning herself, looked to see the boat put off with
two. But the rower who had not spoken, the man who had been silent in
street and lane, who had opened doors silently in prison, was climbing
from boat to _Vineyard_ deck. Light from a lantern by the mast fell
upon him. Burgher’s dress, cap of blue, young beard of brown-gold upon
his face. “Where?--where?”
Bodily there rose before her the cell at Silver Cross and all the
sudden lights, coloured by some old secret device, that bloomed about
her and her floating drapery, and this man upon his knees. With a cry
she turned to the boat. Two seamen had descended in Diccon’s place. It
was _Vineyard_ boat, it would put Bettany ashore and return, and no
boatmen at the main water steps have any tale to tell. Already the boat
was away from the ship. “Friend! friend!”
Richard Englefield stood beside her. “He cannot return, nor help us
further, Morgen!”