ALUINN.
Down came they through the bracken, which was just beginning to shoot
among the boulders of the moor, and were stopped by a group of men who
seemed to have sprung out of the ground; and indeed for colour and rough
aspect they seemed to be part and parcel of it, as paddocks match mud
and caterpillars mimic twigs of trees. A shout in the fell-folk’s tongue
put all to rights without fighting; and then they saw two low houses
on the slope of the moor, built of great stones and roofed over with
peat. They passed by these to the head of a gill that ran sharp down
between cut rocks, and then they found more of these houses, all low and
foursquare in the plan, better built than the Heathwaite dwellings, but
squalid enough. There were people about, who welcomed them when they knew
who the visitors were, and came out of the huts, unkempt and fierce as
Gartnaidh’s folk, and yet as proud as he in their mountain fastness.
[Illustration: THIRLMERE FROM]
[Illustration: ARMBOTH FELL.]
It was built on a nab between two ravines, and the only path ran steeply
down to the wath across Thirlmere. From this spot one could see the
length of the lake and all its rugged shores, cleft into scars and
steeps, and whatever was not rock or water was trees. Over against them
was the great wall of Helvellyn, rising high, and seemingly sheer and
unattainable in the clouds of heaven. Such steepness and such dizzy
terror of falling the children had never known, as when they came to the
utmost of the houses, which stood on the axle of the nab, where on either
hand and in front the ground fell suddenly away, as when one stands on
a high tower, and men are like mice underneath one’s feet. A woman kept
house in this place, not old, but no longer young; tall, and sinewy in
her arms, with beautiful fair hair: but a harsh face, and a harsh voice.
She welcomed Gartnaidh, and said little to the children, but did them
no harm, and gave them a better supper than they were used to have on
Heathwaite fell. For though the cot was rude, she seemed to have plenty,
and there were neighbours, and the road was below, by which a sort of
marketing could now and then be done if one had the means; whereas at
Raineach’s home neither love nor money could get what was never there to
be got.
When they had eaten, out they crept as children do, to see the new place
they had come to: and looked over the brink into the gill with its soft
moss and purple butterwort cushioning all the rough hard rocks, and
sweet-fern fringing the fountains that sprayed into dimpling basins among
the stone, or slid down black slopes under a roof of silky-barked birch
and white-flowering rowan. Here and there ancient gnarled hawthorn-trees
clung to the crags: one especially was thick with may-blossom, as if it
were loaded with snow: its rich almond scent hung about the place, coming
and going like a breath.
The children scrambled down the steep side to get at its boughs from
above, for it grew close to the slope, like a flower in a girl’s
bosom. But when they broke a hole as it were in the white thatch, what
should they see but the loveliest lady in the world sitting among the
twisted boughs, and the finest prince in the world, as it seemed to
them, standing below, and reaching out his arms to her, and speaking
passionately, with his eyes afire and bonny smooth cheeks aglow. But
when he saw the strange little faces thrust through the blossom-roof,
with wide opened mouths and staring eyes like goblins, he slid away with
a start, down the forest slope, like a snake in the whins, so that they
could just see the flash of his mail and the glint of red and blue in
the leafage as he disappeared. And when they looked again for the lovely
lady, she was gone.
They were too astonished to say a word, but Thorstein held Raineach’s
hand, and they climbed back to the cot, and crept in, bidden to sleep by
the woman of the place. It was not long before something bright was at
the door; and in came the lovely lady they had seen, with grey eyes wide
open as if she saw wonders, and a smile that stirred their heart-strings,
and all her golden hair flaming about her green gown.
The woman—they could only be mother and daughter—looked at her quickly;
and looked at her again: and even Gartnaidh, who had not yet gone away,
bent his brows upon her in amazement. Then he made one of those clumsy
reverences of his, for he had at whiles a sort of half forgotten courtesy
about him, like a man who has seen better days. “So this is thy lovely
daughter,” said he. “When I saw Elphin map Rhydderch, the worthy lord
warden of the march, roll in the dust, little did I think what sweet
flower would have sprung from such a dunghill.”
“Peace,” said the woman. “And thou, Aluinn, what news?”
“News?” said the beautiful girl. “Grand news! Nay, what news should there
be?”
“Fool,” said the mother. “Greet thy kinsman Gartnaidh mac Tairneach
Famhair (that is, the giant) and give word of thine errand.”
She kissed the big red man on the beard, and stood thinking: and said
“Ah, the king’s men have come, if that be all.”
“Well?” said her mother and Gartnaidh.
“Oh, a good troop; maybe three score, maybe six score. I forget.”
“And the king?”
“Oh, aye, the king, I suppose, and the young king, I suppose: and all as
it should be. But oh mother, the hawthorn is sweet to-night, and the
birds are wild with their singing, and I was fain to bide out in the
gill. It was bad of me, for I should have been here serving the company.
Is our good kinsman suppered? Where are his folk? What can I do to help
thee?” and she began as if to busy herself with the housekeeping.
“Peace, child,” said the mother. “Gartnaidh mac Tairneach is served, and
for his folk, they are bestowed. Two of them, hush, they are asleep.”
But Thorstein and Raineach, vaguely bethinking them of manners little
learned on Heathwaite fell, sat up on the heather heap in the corner
which was their bed, Aluinn started at the two goblin faces, the red head
and the tow head, unkempt and uncouth, rising in the dark corner: and she
screamed and laughed wildly.
“What’s to do with the silly thing now?” cried the woman, and shook her:
but all she got was a flood of tears.
Gartnaidh was mightily aggrieved that his children should be taken for
goblins, and all manner of talk was held, as Aluinn came to her right
mind: and said she was sick, and lay down in her bed. And so they all
rested, uneasily enough, for that night.
In the morning she was quite another lass, and chattering like a jay.
Raineach her young kinswoman was made much of, and if she stared shyly at
the wonderful beauty for half a day, she was won over into companionship
by the afternoon. The lad was ill at ease: he could not tell why, though
nobody spoke him aught but fair. Gartnaidh was away to the king’s army:
and now and again there were sounds of stirring below, as if horns were
blown far down through the forest, and men shouted.
Thorstein moped about, staring at the great mountains half hidden by rain
and mist, while the two lasses foregathered. He came in and helped his
hostess with her tasks, but she looked at him askance. He had never felt
more a stranger, even in his first days among the fell-folk. At bedtime,
the beautiful Aluinn turned to him and waved her hand. “Lads lie there:”
she said. “Raineach is my bed-fellow.”
Thorstein crept into the place she pointed at. It was a little tiny shed
at the end of the hut: a sort of kist of stone walling, just high enough
to crawl into, and long enough to lie in: a dog-kennel or fowl-house it
might have been. But the heather was soft within, and he crept out and
gathered more, and piled it around him.
Early in the morning he was awakened. Raineach’s face was at his feet,
peeping in through the door-hole. “Heigh!” she said, whispering loud and
eagerly. “Thorstein, listen! I know it all. The bonny man is the king’s
son. Wake, Thorstein! Aluinn wears his gold collar round her neck: I saw
it when she doffed her clothes. And she gave him her ring. Thou wilt
give me a gold collar, Thorstein? Wake up, lad! And thy father killed
her father, think of that! He was a wicked man, and they were glad. But
Domhnaill is a lovely man. And if thy father hadn’t killed her father,
she would be a lady at the Castle down there. Domhnaill is the king’s
son, Thorstein: and Aluinn will be queen, Thorstein. Oh poor Thorstein,
they said thou wast a wolf’s cub: but I said nay. Now, thou must have a
red coat, and I would have thine eyes shine like—”
“Go away!” growled the lad from his lair.