I dreamed once, that four men sat by the winter fire talking and telling
tales, in a house that the wind howled round.
And one of them, the eldest, said: "When I was a boy, before you came to
this land, that bar of red sand rock, which makes a fall in our river,
had only just been formed; for it used to stand above the river in a
great cliff, tunnelled by a cave about midway between the green-growing
grass and the green-flowing river; and it fell one night, when you had
not yet come to this land, no, nor your fathers.
"Now, concerning this cliff, or pike rather (for it was a tall slip of
rock and not part of a range), many strange tales were told; and my
father used to say, that in his time many would have explored that cave,
either from covetousness (expecting to find gold therein ), or from that
love of wonders which most young men have, but fear kept them back.
Within the memory of man, however, some had entered, and, so men said,
were never seen on earth again; but my father said that the tales told
concerning such, very far from deterring him (then quite a youth) from
the quest of this cavern, made him all the more earnestly long to go; so
that one day in his fear, my grandfather, to prevent him, stabbed him in
the shoulder, so that he was obliged to keep his bed for long; and
somehow he never went, and died at last without ever having seen the
inside of the cavern.
"My father told me many wondrous tales about the place, whereof for a
long time I have been able to remember nothing; yet, by some means or
another, a certain story has grown up in my heart, which I will tell you
something of; a story which no living creature ever told me, though I do
not remember the time when I knew it not. Yes, I will tell you some of
it, not all perhaps, but as much as I am allowed to tell."
The man stopped and pondered awhile, leaning over the fire where the
flames slept under the caked coal: he was an old man, and his hair was
quite white. He spoke again presently. "And I have fancied sometimes,
that in some way, how I know not, I am mixed up with the strange story I
am going to tell you." Again he ceased, and gazed at the fire, bending
his head down till his beard touched his knees; then, rousing himself,
said in a changed voice (for he had been speaking dreamily hitherto):
"That strange-looking old house that you all know, with the limes and yew-
trees before it, and the double line of very old yew-trees leading up
from the gateway-tower to the porch--you know how no one will live there
now because it is so eerie, and how even that bold bad lord that would
come there, with his turbulent followers, was driven out in shame and
disgrace by invisible agency. Well, in times past there dwelt in that
house an old grey man, who was lord of that estate, his only daughter,
and a young man, a kind of distant cousin of the house, whom the lord had
brought up from a boy, as he was the orphan of a kinsman who had fallen
in combat in his quarrel. Now, as the young knight and the young lady
were both beautiful and brave, and loved beauty and good things ardently,
it was natural enough that they should discover as they grew up that they
were in love with one another; and afterwards, as they went on loving one
another, it was, alas! not unnatural that they should sometimes have half-
quarrels, very few and far between indeed, and slight to lookers-on, even
while they lasted, but nevertheless intensely bitter and unhappy to the
principal parties thereto. I suppose their love then, whatever it has
grown to since, was not so all-absorbing as to merge all differences of
opinion and feeling, for again there were such differences then. So,
upon a time it happened, just when a great war had arisen, and Lawrence
(for that was the knight's name) was sitting, and thinking of war, and
his departure from home; sitting there in a very grave, almost a stern
mood, that Ella, his betrothed, came in, gay and sprightly, in a humour
that Lawrence often enough could little understand, and this time liked
less than ever, yet the bare sight of her made him yearn for her full
heart, which he was not to have yet; so he caught her by the hand, and
tried to draw her down to him, but she let her hand lie loose in his, and
did not answer the pressure in which his heart flowed to hers; then he
arose and stood before her, face to face, but she drew back a little, yet
he kissed her on the mouth and said, though a rising in his throat almost
choked his voice, 'Ella, are you sorry I am going?' 'Yea,' she said,
'and nay, for you will shout my name among the sword flashes, and you
will fight for me.' 'Yes,' he said, 'for love and duty, dearest.' 'For
duty? ah! I think, Lawrence, if it were not for me, you would stay at
home and watch the clouds, or sit under the linden trees singing dismal
love ditties of your own making, dear knight: truly, if you turn out a
great warrior, I too shall live in fame, for I am certainly the making of
your desire to fight.' He let drop his hands from her shoulders, where
he had laid them, and said, with a faint flush over his face, 'You wrong
me, Ella, for, though I have never wished to fight for the mere love of
fighting, and though,' (and here again he flushed a little) 'and though I
am not, I well know, so free of the fear of death as a good man would be,
yet for this duty's sake, which is really a higher love, Ella, love of
God, I trust I would risk life, nay honour, even if not willingly, yet
cheerfully at least.' 'Still duty, duty,' she said; 'you lay, Lawrence,
as many people do, most stress on the point where you are weakest;
moreover, those knights who in time past have done wild, mad things
merely at their ladies' word, scarcely did so for duty; for they owed
their lives to their country surely, to the cause of good, and should not
have risked them for a whim, and yet you praised them the other day.'
'Did I?' said Lawrence; 'well, in a way they were much to be praised, for
even blind love and obedience is well; but reasonable love, reasonable
obedience is so far better as to be almost a different thing; yet, I
think, if the knights did well partly, the ladies did altogether ill: for
if they had faith in their lovers, and did this merely from a mad longing
to see them do 'noble' deeds, then they had but little faith in God, Who
can, and at His good pleasure does give time and opportunity to every
man, if he will but watch for it, to serve Him with reasonable service,
and gain love and all noble things in greater measure thereby: but if
these ladies did as they did, that they might prove their knights, then
surely did they lack faith both in God and man. I do not think that two
friends even could live together on such terms, but for lovers,--ah!
Ella, Ella, why do you look so at me? on this day, almost the last, we
shall be together for long; Ella, your face is changed, your eyes--O
Christ! help her and me, help her, good Lord.' 'Lawrence,' she said,
speaking quickly and in jerks, 'dare you, for my sake, sleep this night
in the cavern of the red pike? for I say to you that, faithful or not, I
doubt your courage.' But she was startled when she saw him, and how the
fiery blood rushed up to his forehead, then sank to his heart again, and
his face became as pale as the face of a dead man; he looked at her and
said, 'Yes, Ella, I will go now; for what matter where I go?' He turned
and moved toward the door; he was almost gone, when that evil spirit left
her, and she cried out aloud, passionately, eagerly: 'Lawrence, Lawrence,
come back once more, if only to strike me dead with your knightly sword.'
He hesitated, wavered, turned, and in another moment she was lying in his
arms weeping into his hair.
"'And yet, Ella, the spoken word, the thought of our hearts cannot be
recalled, I must go, and go this night too, only promise one thing.'
'Dearest, what? you are always right!' 'Love, you must promise that if I
come not again by to-morrow at moonrise, you will go to the red pike,
and, having entered the cavern, go where God leads you, and seek me, and
never leave that quest, even if it end not but with death.' 'Lawrence,
how your heart beats! poor heart! are you afraid that I shall hesitate to
promise to perform that which is the only thing I could do? I know I am
not worthy to be with you, yet I must be with you in body or soul, or
body and soul will die.' They sat silent, and the birds sang in the
garden of lilies beyond; then said Ella again: 'Moreover, let us pray God
to give us longer life, so that if our natural lives are short for the
accomplishment of this quest, we may have more, yea, even many more
lives.' 'He will, my Ella,' said Lawrence, 'and I think, nay, am sure
that our wish will be granted; and I, too, will add a prayer, but will
ask it very humbly, namely, that he will give me another chance or more
to fight in His cause, another life to live instead of this failure.'
'Let us pray too that we may meet, however long the time be before our
meeting,' she said; so they knelt down and prayed, hand fast locked in
hand meantime; and afterwards they sat in that chamber facing the east,
hard by the garden of lilies; and the sun fell from his noontide light
gradually, lengthening the shadows, and when he sank below the sky-line
all the sky was faint, tender, crimson on a ground of blue; the crimson
faded too, and the moon began to rise, but when her golden rim first
showed over the wooded hills, Lawrence arose; they kissed one long
trembling kiss, and then he went and armed himself; and their lips did
not meet again after that, for such a long, long time, so many weary
years; for he had said: 'Ella, watch me from the porch, but touch me not
again at this time; only, when the moon shows level with the lily-heads,
go into the porch and watch me from thence.'
"And he was gone;--you might have heard her heart beating while the moon
very slowly rose, till it shone through the rose-covered trellises, level
with the lily-heads; then she went to the porch and stood there,--
"And she saw him walking down toward the gateway-tower, clad in his mail-
coat, with a bright, crestless helmet on his head, and his trenchant
sword newly grinded, girt to his side; and she watched him going between
the yew-trees, which began to throw shadows from the shining of the
harvest moon. She stood there in the porch, and round by the corners of
the eaves of it looked down towards her and the inside of the porch two
serpent-dragons, carved in stone; and on their scales, and about their
leering eyes, grew the yellow lichen; she shuddered as she saw them stare
at her, and drew closer toward the half-open door; she, standing there,
clothed in white from her throat till over her feet, altogether
ungirdled; and her long yellow hair, without plait or band, fell down
behind and lay along her shoulders, quietly, because the night was
without wind, and she too was now standing scarcely moving a muscle.
"She gazed down the line of the yew-trees, and watched how, as he went
for the most part with a firm step, he yet shrank somewhat from the
shadows of the yews; his long brown hair flowing downward, swayed with
him as he walked; and the golden threads interwoven with it, as the
fashion was with the warriors in those days, sparkled out from among it
now and then; and the faint, far-off moonlight lit up the waves of his
mail-coat; he walked fast, and was disappearing in the shadows of the
trees near the moat, but turned before he was quite lost in them, and
waved his ungauntletted hand; then she heard the challenge of the warder,
the falling of the drawbridge, the swing of the heavy wicket-gate on its
hinges; and, into the brightening lights, and deepening shadows of the
moonlight he went from her sight; and she left the porch and went to the
chapel, all that night praying earnestly there.
"But he came not back again all the next day, and Ella wandered about
that house pale, and fretting her heart away; so when night came and the
moon, she arrayed herself in that same raiment that she had worn on the
night before, and went toward the river and the red pike.
"The broad moon shone right over it by the time she came to the river;
the pike rose up from the other side, and she thought at first that she
would have to go back again, cross over the bridge, and so get to it;
but, glancing down on the river just as she turned, she saw a little boat
fairly gilt and painted, and with a long slender paddle in it, lying on
the water, stretching out its silken painter as the stream drew it
downwards, she entered it, and taking the paddle made for the other side;
the moon meanwhile turning the eddies to silver over the dark green
water: she landed beneath the shadow of that great pile of sandstone,
where the grass grew green, and the flowers sprung fair right up to the
foot of the bare barren rock; it was cut in many steps till it reached
the cave, which was overhung by creepers and matted grass; the stream
swept the boat downwards, and Ella, her heart beating so as almost to
stop her breath, mounted the steps slowly, slowly. She reached at last
the platform below the cave, and turning, gave a long gaze at the moonlit
country; 'her last,' she said; then she moved, and the cave hid her as
the water of the warm seas close over the pearl-diver.
"Just so the night before had it hidden Lawrence. And they never came
back, they two:--never, the people say. I wonder what their love has
grown to now; ah! they love, I know, but cannot find each other yet, I
wonder also if they ever will."
So spoke Hugh the white-haired. But he who sat over against him, a
soldier as it seemed, black-bearded, with wild grey eyes that his great
brows hung over far; he, while the others sat still, awed by some vague
sense of spirits being very near them; this man, Giles, cried out--"Never?
old Hugh, it is not so.--Speak! I cannot tell you how it happened, but I
know it was not so, not so:--speak quick, Hugh! tell us all, all!"
"Wait a little, my son, wait," said Hugh; "the people indeed said they
never came back again at all, but I, but I--Ah! the time is long past
over." So he was silent, and sank his head on his breast, though his old
thin lips moved, as if he talked softly to himself, and the light of past
days flickered in his eyes.
Meanwhile Giles sat with his hands clasped finger over finger, tightly,
"till the knuckles whitened;" his lips were pressed firmly together; his
breast heaved as though it would burst, as though it must be rid of its
secret. Suddenly he sprang up, and in a voice that was a solemn chant,
began: "In full daylight, long ago, on a slumberously-wrathful,
thunderous afternoon of summer;"--then across his chant ran the old man's
shrill voice: "On an October day, packed close with heavy-lying mist,
which was more than mere autumn-mist:"--the solemn stately chanting
dropped, the shrill voice went on; Giles sank down again, and Hugh
standing there, swaying to and fro to the measured ringing of his own
shrill voice, his long beard moving with him, said:--
"On such a day, warm, and stifling so that one could scarcely breathe
even down by the sea-shore, I went from bed to bed in the hospital of the
pest-laden city with my soothing draughts and medicines. And there went
with me a holy woman, her face pale with much watching; yet I think even
without those same desolate lonely watchings her face would still have
been pale. She was not beautiful, her face being somewhat
peevish-looking; apt, she seemed, to be made angry by trifles, and, even
on her errand of mercy, she spoke roughly to those she tended:--no, she
was not beautiful, yet I could not help gazing at her, for her eyes were
very beautiful and looked out from her ugly face as a fair maiden might
look from a grim prison between the window-bars of it.
"So, going through that hospital, I came to a bed at last, whereon lay
one who had not been struck down by fever or plague, but had been smitten
through the body with a sword by certain robbers, so that he had narrowly
escaped death. Huge of frame, with stern suffering face he lay there;
and I came to him, and asked him of his hurt, and how he fared, while the
day grew slowly toward even, in that pest-chamber looking toward the
west; the sister came to him soon and knelt down by his bed-side to tend
him.
"O Christ! As the sun went down on that dim misty day, the clouds and
the thickly-packed mist cleared off, to let him shine on us, on that
chamber of woes and bitter unpurifying tears; and the sunlight wrapped
those two, the sick man and the ministering woman, shone on them--changed,
changed utterly. Good Lord! How was I struck dumb, nay, almost blinded
by that change; for there--yes there, while no man but I wondered; there,
instead of the unloving nurse, knelt a wonderfully beautiful maiden,
clothed all in white, and with long golden hair down her back. Tenderly
she gazed at the wounded man, as her hands were put about his head,
lifting it up from the pillow but a very little; and he no longer the
grim, strong wounded man, but fair, and in the first bloom of youth; a
bright polished helmet crowned his head, a mail-coat flowed over his
breast, and his hair streamed down long from his head, while from among
it here and there shone out threads of gold.
"So they spake thus in a quiet tone: 'Body and soul together again, Ella,
love; how long will it be now before the last time of all?' 'Long,' she
said, 'but the years pass; talk no more, dearest, but let us think only,
for the time is short, and our bodies call up memories, change love to
better even than it was in the old time.'
"Silence so, while you might count a hundred, then with a great sigh:
'Farewell, Ella, for long,'--'Farewell, Lawrence,' and the sun sank, all
was as before.
"But I stood at the foot of the bed pondering, till the sister coming to
me, said: 'Master Physician, this is no time for dreaming; act--the
patients are waiting, the fell sickness grows worse in this hot close
air; feel'--(and she swung open the casement), 'the outer air is no
fresher than the air inside; the wind blows dead toward the west, coming
from the stagnant marshes; the sea is like a stagnant pool too, you can
scarce hear the sound of the long, low surge breaking.' I turned from
her and went up to the sick man, and said: 'Sir Knight, in spite of all
the sickness about you, you yourself better strangely, and another month
will see you with your sword girt to your side again.' 'Thanks, kind
master Hugh,' he said, but impatiently, as if his mind were on other
things, and he turned in his bed away from me restlessly.
"And till late that night I ministered to the sick in that hospital; but
when I went away, I walked down to the sea, and paced there to and fro
over the hard sand: and the moon showed bloody with the hot mist, which
the sea would not take on its bosom, though the dull east wind blew it
onward continually. I walked there pondering till a noise from over the
sea made me turn and look that way; what was that coming over the sea?
Laus Deo! the WEST WIND: Hurrah! I feel the joy I felt then over again
now, in all its intensity. How came it over the sea? first, far out to
sea, so that it was only just visible under the red-gleaming moonlight,
far out to sea, while the mists above grew troubled, and wavered, a long
level bar of white; it grew nearer quickly, it gathered form, strange,
misty, intricate form--the ravelled foam of the green sea; then oh!
hurrah! I was wrapped in it,--the cold salt spray--drenched with it,
blinded by it, and when I could see again, I saw the great green waves
rising, nodding and breaking, all coming on together; and over them from
wave to wave leaped the joyous WEST WIND; and the mist and the plague
clouds were sweeping back eastward in wild swirls; and right away were
they swept at last, till they brooded over the face of the dismal
stagnant meres, many miles away from our fair city, and there they
pondered wrathfully on their defeat.
"But somehow my life changed from the time when I beheld the two lovers,
and I grew old quickly." He ceased; then after a short silence said
again: "And that was long ago, very long ago, I know not when it
happened." So he sank back again, and for a while no one spoke; till
Giles said at last:
"Once in full daylight I saw a vision, while I was waking, while the eyes
of men were upon me; long ago on the afternoon of a thunderous summer
day, I sat alone in my fair garden near the city; for on that day a
mighty reward was to be given to the brave man who had saved us all,
leading us so mightily in that battle a few days back; now the very
queen, the lady of the land, whom all men reverenced almost as the Virgin
Mother, so kind and good and beautiful she was, was to crown him with
flowers and gird a sword about him; after the 'Te Deum' had been sung for
the victory, and almost all the city were at that time either in the
Church, or hard by it, or else were by the hill that was near the river
where the crowning was to be: but I sat alone in the garden of my house
as I said; sat grieving for the loss of my brave brother, who was slain
by my side in that same fight. I sat beneath an elm tree; and as I sat
and pondered on that still, windless day, I heard suddenly a breath of
air rustle through the boughs of the elm. I looked up, and my heart
almost stopped beating, I knew not why, as I watched the path of that
breeze over the bowing lilies and the rushes by the fountain; but when I
looked to the place whence the breeze had come, I became all at once
aware of an appearance that told me why my heart stopped beating. Ah!
there they were, those two whom before I had but seen in dreams by night,
now before my waking eyes in broad daylight. One, a knight (for so he
seemed), with long hair mingled with golden threads, flowing over his
mail-coat, and a bright crestless helmet on his head, his face
sad-looking, but calm; and by his side, but not touching him, walked a
wondrously fair maiden, clad in white, her eyelids just shadowing her
blue eyes: her arms and hands seeming to float along with her as she
moved on quickly, yet very softly; great rest on them both, though sorrow
gleamed through it.
"When they came opposite to where I stood, these two stopped for a while,
being in nowise shadowy, as I have heard men say ghosts are, but clear
and distinct. They stopped close by me, as I stood motionless, unable to
pray; they turned to each other, face to face, and the maiden said,
'Love, for this our last true meeting before the end of all, we need a
witness; let this man, softened by sorrow, even as we are, go with us.'
"I never heard such music as her words were; though I used to wonder when
I was young whether the angels in heaven sung better than the choiresters
sang in our church, and though, even then the sound of the triumphant
hymn came up to me in a breath of wind, and floated round me, making
dreams, in that moment of awe and great dread, of the old long-past days
in that old church, of her who lay under the pavement of it; whose sweet
voice once, once long ago, once only to me--yet I shall see her again."
He became silent as he said this, and no man cared to break in upon his
thoughts, seeing the choking movement in his throat, the fierce clenching
of hand and foot, the stiffening of the muscles all over him; but soon,
with an upward jerk of his head, he threw back the long elf locks that
had fallen over his eyes while his head was bent down, and went on as
before:
"The knight passed his hand across his brow, as if to clear away some
mist that had gathered there, and said, in a deep murmurous voice, 'Why
the last time, dearest, why the last time? Know you not how long a time
remains yet? the old man came last night to the ivory house and told me
it would be a hundred years, ay, more, before the happy end.' 'So long,'
she said; 'so long: ah! love, what things words are; yet this is the last
time; alas! alas! for the weary years! my words, my sin!' 'O love, it is
very terrible,' he said; 'I could almost weep, old though I am, and grown
cold with dwelling in the ivory house: O, Ella, if you only knew how cold
it is there, in the starry nights when the north wind is stirring; and
there is no fair colour there, nought but the white ivory, with one
narrow line of gleaming gold over every window, and a fathom's-breadth of
burnished gold behind the throne. Ella, it was scarce well done of you
to send me to the ivory house.' 'Is it so cold, love?' she said, 'I knew
it not; forgive me! but as to the matter of a witness, some one we must
have, and why not this man?' 'Rather old Hugh,' he said, 'or Cuthbert,
his father; they have both been witnesses before.' 'Cuthbert,' said the
maiden, solemnly, 'has been dead twenty years; Hugh died last night.'"
(Now, as Giles said these words, carelessly, as though not heeding them
particularly, a cold sickening shudder ran through the other two men, but
he noted it not and went on.) "'This man then be it,' said the knight,
and therewith they turned again, and moved on side by side as before; nor
said they any word to me, and yet I could not help following them, and we
three moved on together, and soon I saw that my nature was changed, and
that I was invisible for the time; for, though the sun was high, I cast
no shadow, neither did any man that we past notice us, as we made toward
the hill by the riverside.
"And by the time we came there the queen was sitting at the top of it,
under a throne of purple and gold, with a great band of knights
gloriously armed on either side of her; and their many banners floated
over them. Then I felt that those two had left me, and that my own right
visible nature was returned; yet still did I feel strange, and as if I
belonged not wholly to this earth. And I heard one say, in a low voice
to his fellow, 'See, sir Giles is here after all; yet, how came he here,
and why is he not in armour among the noble knights yonder, he who fought
so well? how wild he looks too!' 'Poor knight,' said the other, 'he is
distraught with the loss of his brother; let him be; and see, here comes
the noble stranger knight, our deliverer.' As he spoke, we heard a great
sound of trumpets, and therewithall a long line of knights on foot wound
up the hill towards the throne, and the queen rose up, and the people
shouted; and, at the end of all the procession went slowly and
majestically the stranger knight; a man of noble presence he was, calm,
and graceful to look on; grandly he went amid the gleaming of their
golden armour; himself clad in the rent mail and tattered surcoat he had
worn on the battle-day; bareheaded, too; for, in that fierce fight, in
the thickest of it, just where he rallied our men, one smote off his
helmet, and another, coming from behind, would have slain him, but that
my lance bit into his breast.
"So, when they had come within some twenty paces of the throne, the rest
halted, and he went up by himself toward the queen; and she, taking the
golden hilted sword in her left hand, with her right caught him by the
wrist, when he would have knelt to her, and held him so, tremblingly, and
cried out, 'No, no, thou noblest of all knights, kneel not to me; have we
not heard of thee even before thou camest hither? how many widows bless
thee, how many orphans pray for thee, how many happy ones that would be
widows and orphans but for thee, sing to their children, sing to their
sisters, of thy flashing sword, and the heart that guides it! And now, O
noble one! thou hast done the very noblest deed of all, for thou hast
kept grown men from weeping shameful tears! O truly, the greatest I can
do for thee is very little; yet, see this sword, golden-hilted, and the
stones flash out from it,' (then she hung it round him), 'and see this
wreath of lilies and roses for thy head; lilies no whiter than thy pure
heart, roses no tenderer than thy true love; and here, before all these
my subjects, I fold thee, noblest, in my arms, so, so.' Ay, truly it was
strange enough! those two were together again; not the queen and the
stranger knight, but the young-seeming knight and the maiden I had seen
in the garden. To my eyes they clung together there; though they say,
that to the eyes of all else, it was but for a moment that the queen held
both his hands in hers; to me also, amid the shouting of the multitude,
came an under current of happy song: 'Oh! truly, very truly, my noblest,
a hundred years will not be long after this.' 'Hush, Ella, dearest, for
talking makes the time speed; think only.'
"Pressed close to each other, as I saw it, their bosoms heaved--but I
looked away--alas! when I looked again, I saw nought but the stately
stranger knight, descending, hand in hand, with the queen, flushed with
joy and triumph, and the people scattering flowers before them.
"And that was long ago, very long ago." So he ceased; then Osric, one of
the two younger men, who had been sitting in awe-struck silence all this
time, said, with eyes that dared not meet Giles's, in a terrified half
whisper, as though he meant not to speak, "How long?" Giles turned round
and looked him full in the face, till he dragged his eyes up to his own,
then said, "More than a hundred years ago."
So they all sat silent, listening to the roar of the south-west wind; and
it blew the windows so, that they rocked in their frames.
Then suddenly, as they sat thus, came a knock at the door of the house;
so Hugh bowed his head to Osric, to signify that he should go and open
the door; so he arose, trembling, and went.
And as he opened the door the wind blew hard against him, and blew
something white against his face, then blew it away again, and his face
was blanched, even to his lips; but he plucking up heart of grace, looked
out, and there he saw, standing with her face upturned in speech to him,
a wonderfully beautiful woman, clothed from her throat till over her feet
in long white raiment, ungirt, unbroidered, and with a veil, that was
thrown off from her face, and hung from her head, streaming out in the
blast of the wind: which veil was what had struck against his face:
beneath her veil her golden hair streamed out too, and with the veil, so
that it touched his face now and then. She was very fair, but she did
not look young either, because of her statue-like features. She spoke to
him slowly and queenly; "I pray you give me shelter in your house for an
hour, that I may rest, and so go on my journey again." He was too much
terrified to answer in words, and so only bowed his head: and she swept
past him in stately wise to the room where the others sat, and he
followed her, trembling.
A cold shiver ran through the other men when she entered and bowed low to
them, and they turned deadly pale, but dared not move; and there she sat
while they gazed at her, sitting there and wondering at her beauty, which
seemed to grow every minute; though she was plainly not young, oh no, but
rather very, very old, who could say how old? there she sat, and her
long, long hair swept down in one curve from her head and just touched
the floor. Her face had the tokens of a deep sorrow on it, ah! a mighty
sorrow, yet not so mighty as that it might mar her ineffable loveliness;
that sorrow-mark seemed to gather too, and at last the gloriously-slow
music of her words flowed from her lips: "Friends, has one with the
appearance of a youth come here lately; one with long brown hair,
interwoven with threads of gold, flowing down from out his polished steel
helmet; with dark blue eyes and high white forehead, and mail-coat over
his breast, where the light and shadow lie in waves as he moves; have you
seen such an one, very beautiful?"
Then withall as they shook their heads fearfully in answer, a great sigh
rose up from her heart, and she said: "Then must I go away again
presently, and yet I thought it was the last night of all."
And so she sat awhile with her head resting on her hand; after, she arose
as if about to go, and turned her glorious head round to thank the master
of the house; and they, strangely enough, though they were terrified at
her presence, were yet grieved when they saw that she was going.
Just then the wind rose higher than ever before, yet through the roar of
it they could all hear plainly a knocking at the door again; so the lady
stopped when she heard it, and, turning, looked full in the face of
Herman the youngest, who thereupon, being constrained by that look, rose
and went to the door; and as before with Osric, so now the wind blew
strong against him; and it blew into his face, so as to blind him,
tresses of soft brown hair mingled with glittering threads of gold; and
blinded so, he heard some one ask him musically, solemnly, if a lady with
golden hair and white raiment was in that house; so Herman, not answering
in words, because of his awe and fear, merely bowed his head; then he was
'ware of some one in bright armour passing him, for the gleam of it was
all about him, for as yet he could not see clearly, being blinded by the
hair that had floated about him.
But presently he followed him into the room, and there stood such an one
as the lady had described; the wavering flame of the light gleamed from
his polished helmet, touched the golden threads that mingled with his
hair, ran along the rings of his mail.
They stood opposite to each other for a little, he and the lady, as if
they were somewhat shy of each other after their parting of a hundred
years, in spite of the love which they had for each other: at last he
made one step, and took off his gleaming helmet, laid it down softly,
then spread abroad his arms, and she came to him, and they were clasped
together, her head lying over his shoulder; and the four men gazed, quite
awe-struck.
And as they gazed, the bells of the church began to ring, for it was New-
Year's-eve; and still they clung together, and the bells rang on, and the
old year died.
And there beneath the eyes of those four men the lovers slowly faded away
into a heap of snow-white ashes. Then the four men kneeled down and
prayed, and the next day they went to the priest, and told him all that
had happened.
So the people took those ashes and buried them in their church, in a
marble tomb, and above it they caused to be carved their figures lying
with clasped hands; and on the sides of it the history of the cave in the
red pike.
And in my dream I saw the moon shining on the tomb, throwing fair colours
on it from the painted glass; till a sound of music rose, deepened, and
fainted; then I woke.