_The Return of Lurulu_
Over hamlet and Castle of Erl, and through every nook and crevice of it,
Spring passed; a mild benediction that blessed the very air and sought
out all living things; not missing even the tiny plants that had their
dwelling in most secluded places, under eaves, in the cracks of old
barrels, or along the lines of mortar that held ancient rows of stones.
And in this season Orion hunted no unicorns; not that he knew in what
season the unicorns bred in Elfland, where time is not as here; but
because of a feeling he had from all his earthly forefathers against
hunting any creature in this season of song and flowers. So he tended
his hounds and often watched the hills, expecting on any day the return
of Lurulu.
And Spring passed by and the Summer flowers grew, and still there was no
sign of the troll returning, for time moves through the dells of Elfland
as over no field of man. And long Orion watched through fading evenings
till the line of the hills was black, yet never saw the small round
heads of trolls bobbing across the downs.
And the long autumnal winds came sighing out of cold lands, and found
Orion still watching for Lurulu; and the mist and the turning leaves
spoke to his heart of hunting. And the hounds were whining for the open
spaces and the line of scent like a mysterious path crossing the wide
world, but Orion would hunt nothing less than unicorns, and waited yet
for his trolls.
And one of these earthly days, with a menace of frost in the air and a
scarlet sunset, Lurulu's talk to the trolls in the wood being finished,
and their scamper swifter than hares having brought them soon to the
frontier, those in our fields who looked (as they seldom did) towards
that mysterious border where Earth ended might have seen the unwonted
shapes of the nimble trolls coming all grey through the evening. They
came dropping, troll after troll, from the soaring leaps they took high
through the boundary of twilight; and, landing thus unceremoniously in
our fields, came capering, somersaulting and running, with gusts of
impudent laughter, as though this were a proper manner in which to
approach by no means the least of the planets.
They rustled by the small houses like the wind passing through straw,
and none that heard the light rushing sound of their passing knew how
outlandish they were, except the dogs, whose work it is to watch, and
who know of all things that pass, their degree of remoteness to man. At
gipsies, tramps, and all that go without houses, dogs bark whenever they
pass; at the wild things of the woods they bark with greater abhorrence,
knowing well the rebellious contempt in which they hold man; at the fox,
for his touch of mystery and his far wanderings, they bark more
furiously: but to-night the barking of dogs was beyond all abhorrence
and fury; many a farmer this night believed that his dog was choking.
And passing over these fields, staying not to laugh at the clumsy scared
running of sheep, for they kept their laughter for man, they came soon
to the downs above Erl; and there below them was night and the smoke of
men, all grey together. And not knowing from what slight causes the
smoke arose, here from a woman boiling a kettle of water, or there
because one dried the frock of a child, or that a few old men might warm
their hands in the evening, the trolls forbore to laugh as they had
planned to do as soon as they should meet with the things of man.
Perhaps even they, whose gravest thoughts were just under the surface of
laughter, even they were a little awed by the strangeness and nearness
of man sleeping there in his hamlet with all his smoke about him. Though
awe in these light minds rested no longer than does the squirrel on the
thin extremest twigs.
In a while they lifted their eyes up from the valley, and there was the
western sky still shining above the last of the gloaming, a little strip
of colour and dying light, so lovely that they believed that another
elfland lay the other side of the valley, two dim diaphonous magical
elfin lands hemming in this valley and few fields of men close upon
either side. And, sitting there on the hillside peering westward, the
next thing they saw was a star: it was Venus low in the West brimming
with blueness. And they all bowed their heads many times to this
pale-blue beautiful stranger; for though politeness was rare with them
they saw that the Evening Star was nothing of Earth and no affair of
man's, and believed it came out of that elfland they did not know on the
western side of the world. And more and more stars appeared, till the
trolls were frightened, for they knew nothing of these glittering
wanderers that could steal out of the darkness and shine: at first they
said "There are more trolls than stars," and were comforted, for they
trusted greatly in numbers. Then there were soon more stars than trolls;
and the trolls were ill at ease as they sat in the dark underneath all
that multitude. But presently they forgot the fancy that troubled them,
for no thought remained with them long. They turned their light
attention instead to the yellow lights that glowed here and there on the
hither side of the greyness, where a few of the houses of men stood warm
and snug near the trolls. A beetle went by, and they hushed their
chatter to hear what he would say; but he droned by, going home, and
they did not know his language. A dog far off was ceaselessly crying
out, and filling all the still night with a note of warning. And the
trolls were angry at the sound of his voice, for they felt that he
interfered between them and man. Then a soft whiteness came out of the
night and lit on the branch of a tree, and bowed its head to the left
and looked at the trolls, and then bowed over to the right and looked at
them again from there, and then back to the left again for it was not
yet sure about them. "An owl," said Lurulu; and many besides Lurulu had
seen his kind before, for he flies much along the edge of Elfland. Soon
he was gone and they heard him hunting across the hills and the hollows;
and then no sound was left but the voices of men, or the shrill shouts
of children, and the bay of the dog that warned men against the trolls.
"A sensible fellow," they said of the owl, for they liked the sound of
his voice; but the voices of men and their dog sounded confused and
tiresome.
They saw sometimes the lights of late wayfarers crossing the downs
towards Erl, or heard men that cheered themselves in the lonely night by
singing, instead of by lantern's light. And all the while the Evening
Star grew bigger, and great trees grew blacker and blacker.
Then from underneath the smoke and the mist of the stream there boomed
all of a sudden the brazen bell of the Freer out of deep night in the
valley. Night and the slopes of Erl and the dark downs echoed with it;
and the echoes rode up to the trolls and seemed to challenge them, with
all accursed things and wandering spirits and bodies unblessed of the
Freer.
And the solemn sound of those echoes going alone through the night from
every heavy swing of the holy bell cheered that band of trolls among all
the strangeness of Earth, for whatever is solemn always moves trolls to
levity. They turned merrier now and tittered among themselves.
And while they still watched all that host of stars, wondering if they
were friendly, the sky grew steely blue and the eastern stars dwindled,
and the mist and the smoke of men turned white, and a radiance touched
the further edge of the valley; and the moon came up over the downs
behind the trolls. Then voices sang from the holy place of the Freer,
chaunting moon matins; which it was their wont to sing on nights of the
full moon while the moon was yet low. And this rite they named
moon's-morning. The bell had ceased, chance voices spoke no more, they
had hushed their dog in the valley and silenced his warning, and lonely
and grave and solemn that people's song floated up from before the
candles in their small square sacred place, built of grey stone by men
that were dead for ages and ages; all solemn the song welled up in the
time of the moon's rising, grave as the night, mysterious as the full
moon, and fraught with a meaning that was far beyond the highest
thoughts of the trolls. Then the trolls leaped up with one accord from
the frosted grass of the downs and all poured down the valley to laugh
at the ways of men, to mock at their sacred things and to dare their
singing with levity.
Many a rabbit rose up and fled from their onrush, and thrills of
laughter arose from the trolls at their fear. A meteor flashed
westwards, racing after the sun; either as a portent to warn the hamlet
of Erl that folk from beyond Earth's borders approached them now, or
else in fulfilment of some natural law. To the trolls it seemed that one
of the proud stars fell, and they rejoiced with elvish levity.
Thus they came giggling through the night, and ran down the street of
the village, unseen as any wild creature that roams late through the
darkness; and Lurulu led them to the pigeon-loft, and they all poured
clambering in. Some rumour arose in the village that a fox had jumped
into the pigeon-loft, but it ceased almost as soon as the pigeons
returned to their homes, and the folk of Erl had no more hint till the
morning that something had entered their village from beyond the borders
of Earth.
In a brown mass thicker than young pigs are along the edge of a trough
the trolls encumbered the floor of the pigeons' home. And time went over
them as over all earthly things. And well they knew, though tiny was
their intelligence, that by crossing the border of twilight they
incurred the wasting of time; for nothing dwells by the brink of any
danger and lives ignorant of its menace: as conies in rocky altitudes
know the peril of the sheer cliff, so they that dwell near Earth's
border knew well the danger of time. And yet they came. The wonder and
lure of Earth had been overstrong for them. Does not many a young man
squander youth as they squandered immortality?
And Lurulu showed them how to hold off time for a while, which otherwise
would make them older and older each moment and whirl them on with
Earth's restlessness all night long. Then he curled up his knees and
shut his eyes and lay still. This, he told them, was sleep; and,
cautioning them to continue to breathe, though being still in other
respects, he then slept in earnest: and after some vain attempts the
brown trolls did the same.
When sunrise came, awaking all earthly things, long rays came through
the thirty little windows and awoke both birds and trolls. And the mass
of trolls went to the windows to look at Earth, and the pigeons
fluttered to rafters and jerked sidelong looks at the trolls. And there
that heap of trolls would have stayed, crowded high on each other's
shoulders, blocking the windows while they studied the variety and
restlessness of Earth, finding them equal to the strangest fables that
wayfarers had brought to them out of our fields; and, though Lurulu
often reminded them, they had forgotten the haughty white unicorns that
they were to hunt with dogs.
But Lurulu after a while led them down from the loft and brought them to
the kennels. And they climbed up the high palings and peered over the
top at the hounds.
When the hounds saw those strange heads peering over the palings they
made a great uproar. And presently folk came to see what troubled the
hounds. And when they saw that mass of trolls all round the top of the
palings they said to each other, and so said all that heard of it:
"There is magic in Erl now."