"Here is my nurse," quoth the King's daughter. "She is weary of the
wind. Show me a good marvel upon her."
And, lo! the nurse fell upon the beach as it were two handfuls of dead
leaves, and the wind whirled them widdershins, and the sand lice hopped
between.
"It is true," said the King's daughter of Duntrine, "you are the comer,
and you have power upon the hour. Come with me to my stone house."
So they went by the sea margin, and the man piped the song of the morrow,
and the leaves followed behind them as they went.
Then they sat down together; and the sea beat on the terrace, and the
gulls cried about the towers, and the wind crooned in the chimneys of the
house. Nine years they sat, and every year when it fell autumn, the man
said, "This is the hour, and I have power in it"; and the daughter of the
King said, "Nay, but pipe me the song of the morrow". And he piped it,
and it was long like years.
Now when the nine years were gone, the King's daughter of Duntrine got
her to her feet, like one that remembers; and she looked about her in the
masoned house; and all her servants were gone; only the man that piped
sat upon the terrace with the hand upon his face; and as he piped the
leaves ran about the terrace and the sea beat along the wall. Then she
cried to him with a great voice, "This is the hour, and let me see the
power in it". And with that the wind blew off the hood from the man's
face, and, lo! there was no man there, only the clothes and the hood and
the pipes tumbled one upon another in a corner of the terrace, and the
dead leaves ran over them.
And the King's daughter of Duntrine got her to that part of the beach
where strange things had been done in the ancient ages; and there she sat
her down. The sea foam ran to her feet, and the dead leaves swarmed
about her back, and the veil blew about her face in the blowing of the
wind. And when she lifted up her eyes, there was the daughter of a King
come walking on the beach. Her hair was like the spun gold, and her eyes
like pools in a river, and she had no thought for the morrow and no power
upon the hour, after the manner of simple men.