THE HOST OF WEIRD.
Thorstein travelled over the fells to the water-head of the great lake we
call Windermere, meaning to stay there for the night, and so to come upon
the Althing when folk were at their meeting about mid-day. But when he
was at the door of the Welshmen’s cots, in that old ruin of the Romans,
there was a great noise within; and he spied a many Northmen sitting
there at drink, and among them some faces he knew and misliked. They too
were on their way to Legburthwaite: and no sooner did he darken the door
but they leapt up and ran at him. He had no mind to redden his hands with
them, just when he was going to sue for his peace: and away he went, out
of the great road and into the woods again.
This was a part he knew but little, and yet he found a track that led
him up a steep dell and over a hause where was a wonderful big stone,
like a kirk, by the way side, with high fells running up on either hand.
Before him lay the great deep valley, reaching away northward, and all
its forests and crags purple and golden in the summer afternoon. Here
and there was a gleam of water; and far in the distance, smoke rising
as if from the houses of men. The path led onward and downward, rough
and steep. He followed it for a good while, and came to a tarn which
afterwards the Northmen called Brotherwater, from the ancient road that
passed by. Then he was on the floor of the valley, with the steep heights
all around and above: and it was but an hour or so to the village of
Patrickdale.
This was another of those few spots in the fell country where people were
found before the Northmen came into Lakeland. The dwellers were mostly
like the rougher sort of fell-folk, and their cots were of the poorest,
scattered, and buried in wood. And yet they had a church in their midst,
if it were no more than a cell; where a kind of hermit priest lived, and
in the one little chamber slept upon the ground, and ate his crust, and
performed the holy service, with nothing but a rough stone for his altar
and another for his pillow.
Thorstein sat down weary and hungered at the church door, and knocked
upon it. Presently in the quiet village there was a barking of dogs that
echoed from crag to crag around: and then the church door opened, and the
priest came out with a thumping big stick upheld in one hand, while he
unbarred the iron-hasped door with the other.
Thorstein bade him have peace, for it was a Christian and a wayfarer
who begged for alms. He spoke in the fell-folk’s tongue, reckoning that
whether the priest were English or Irish he must speak so in his cracks
with the country-folk hereabouts. So the priest let him into the church
and from an ark brought out a bowl of sour milk and a cake of rye bread.
“Maybe now,” said Thorstein, “this is all thou hast.”
“All I have here,” said the priest. “But there are good neighbours.”
So Thorstein drank the milk at a draught, and ate the cake in two
mouthfuls.
“I am no stranger in these parts,” said he, “but I never was here before.”
“Like enough not,” said the priest. “We call this St. Patrick’s church,
for on this spot many a lifetime back the glorious and blessed Patrick
preached: and in the well hard by christened both men and women that
heard him. And here in this desert, unworthy as I am, I strive to keep
the lamp alight, as those that watch for their Lord.”
They talked together awhile, for the priest seemed right glad of a
friendly face other than those of his rough flock,—goats he called them,
“for lambs they be not indeed, but very mountain goats. And yet God
forgive me for saying an ill word of them,” added he: “for I mind me of
the days when I was in the world. There was as much hardness of heart and
stiffneckedness among our townsfolk yonder at Dacor—”
But now there was a noise without, and the dogs barking again. More than
that, eager voices. Out stepped the priest to hear what the news might
be, bidding Thorstein stay where he was, or he would not answer for him.
There was a couple of men,—fighting-men of Domhnaill’s they seemed by
their weapons; but no great champions, by their faces. Around them a knot
of rough villagers, half clothed in skins, and shaggy-headed, with staves
in their hands. They all talked long and loud. Thorstein could just hear
something about an army and flight and slaughter; but he deemed it wise
to do as the priest bade him, lest he should be mis-kenned and mauled by
that rabble.
“Lord help us,” said the priest coming back into the church: “God and all
blessed Saints protect us. Ill tidings, young man. Awful tidings. But as
the mountains stand round about Jerusalem, even so the Lord stands round
us who fear him.”
Then between prayers and sighs he told the news. These were two men
of the dale who had gone to fight in Domhnaill’s army, called out but
lately. It seemed that Eadmund the English king had been warring in
the North against Domhnaill’s people in Strathclyde, and against the
vikings in Galloway: and having wasted far and wide, he was entered into
Cumberland where Domhnaill, though he had fled from place to place,
thought to make another stand: and so had called out every man he could
levy. But still he got the worst of it, and fled before the Saxons: and
no wonder, for with the Saxons there were Malcolm king of Scots and
a host of his, and Llewelyn of Wales with his men, a terrible great
multitude. Last night they lay at Penrith, and Domhnaill was pressing his
men forward towards the fell-country, hoping either to escape into the
mountain fastnesses, or to entangle his enemies in some strait pass among
rocks and swamps, and so destroy them. But, before these men fled from
his army, it had been given out that he aimed at the mountain road to the
city of Helvellyn.
“What,” cried Thorstein, “beside our Northmen’s meeting place? Aye,
father, though I am Christian, I am a Northman born, and neither Dane
nor Saxon. Tell me, oh man, tell me how I may come to them and give them
warning. Is there a way over yon crags? It cannot be far: and yet the
rocks stand up like walls of heaven.”
The priest took him to the door and pointed out a deep dale that runs up
into the fells: Grizedale we call it now. When he was at the head of that
dale he would find a tarn: then he was to take the valley to his right
hand, and it would bring him to the hause above the city of Helvellyn.
“But,” said he, “it is trackless forest: none rougher in our mountains.
And it teems with wild swine. If it were for a boar-hunt with a party of
stout fellows, no place could be fitter. But for a lone traveller, at
speed, and a stranger, I doubt the end of the journey might be nearer
than its goal.”
“Path or no path, boars or bears,” cried Thorstein running back into the
church for his weapons, “I must try it and that hastily.”
“Stay,” said the priest. “There is another way, if thou canst climb the
rocks like a wild cat, and keep a cool head while the eagles scream
around thee. I know this only by report: but men have climbed above
the woods where all is open grass or naked rock, and so across over
Helvellyn. They say it is a fearful place: no otherwise than when one
mounts a ladder against a castle-wall: but that this is terrible in its
loftiness and horror beyond any high tower or deep sea-crag. And the
night is at hand.”
“The night,” said Thorstein, “is fair, and never wholly dark at this
season. As for crags and the dangers of the fells, I have fared through a
many before now. Point me out the way, father.”
It was the clear gloaming of summer midnight when he had forced his way
through the woods that clothed the valley side, and that crept up the
crags like moss on a stone. He was on Striding-edge: forest and fell
around him were black, a tossing surge of darkness; in which gleamed ugly
and strange the great lake, that reached away into distance of slaty
gloom. On the ridge there was light from the north, a brown light, no
more than enough to see footing and hand-hold. But when his foot slipped,
and a great stone rolled from under it, there was a crash and a roar that
raised the echoes all round the cove, as the stone whirled and leapt
towards the round tarn that he could hardly discern in the blackness,—how
far below he could not reckon. And on the other hand it was no less
steep. Pinnacles of rock stood up along the abyss, and in front a great
mass, a wall it seemed in the uncertain gloom, unapproachable. With the
falling stones the eagles were roused, and sailed screaming about him: so
that he clung to the ridge, and drew his sword.
[Illustration: STRIDING EDGE & HELVELLYN]
Then he came to a place where the rock fell away into darkness: and he
sat doubting the priest’s guidance, and scanning the black wall that rose
overhead before him: for he was weary by now and began to be faint with
hunger. He cast overboard his shield that he had carried so far, and it
fell down the rock but a little way, and then caught. He followed it and
found it, and then scrambled up the wall; which turned out to be no more
than a scree-slope, though it was one of the stiffest.
From Helvellyn top he saw the arch of light in the north again, sunset
and dawn in one, streaked with black bars of cloud. But underneath them,
strong against the meshes of faint daffodil colour, and the lowest band
of dusky red, stood out the lines of Skiddaw and Blencathra, the shapes
he knew right well of old, and welcomed joyfully. He ran along the brown
and rounded grassy summit, forgetting his weariness, until Thirlmere
gleamed beneath him,—the winding lake with its steep shores, and the
crags where he had first met Aluinn and Domhnaill. Then, how high that
mountain eyrie of theirs had seemed: but now it was nought but a heave in
the dark land that was spread out before him like an embroidered garment
cast upon the floor.
Then, as he went forward, wary of the swamps that lie among the grass of
those great mountain-backs, he saw a man come up on the moorland, but
from some point farther north; and run, as he had run, across toward
Thirlmere. “He will be another of the fleers,” said Thorstein to himself.
“He is bound for the Northmen’s camp, like me.” And he shouted, and tried
to overtake him, but in vain. Then came up two or three others: they
were dimly seen and grey in that twilight: but he could make them out
enough to know that they carried weapons, and fled in haste. He shouted
again; but no answer. Then more followed: and he could see that among the
newcomers were pursuers as well as pursued: and now one fell, and was
killed outright before his eyes. But there was no sound of shouting: and
as he ran toward them he seemed to come no nearer, whether it was that
the twilight put him out of his reckoning, or what. And then came a flock
of men marching forward with banner and spear, aye, and horses among
them, and chariots, on the bare mountain-top, with pathless crags behind
and in front, where no army could have marched in order, nor waggon have
gone upon wheels. But still they crossed over, a very great multitude,
under the broken light that held his eyes fixed to northward. He stayed
running, and listened. The waterfalls roared beneath: but not a sound was
there of living men; neither tramp nor shout: and still they passed.
Terror was upon him now, and his knees shook. He looked behind him, and
out of the deep blackness a few great stars shone, and around was the
moorland with its strange forms, and he knew not what else, crowding upon
him. With a cry he fled down the grassy slope. It fell away steeper and
steeper. He stumbled among the hidden stones: but he could not stay his
feet; and down he rolled from rock to rock, into the thunder of Helvellyn
gill.