_The Luring of the People of the Marshes_
As the evening that followed was beginning to fade a traveller might
have been seen approaching the marshes, which some way south-eastwards
of Erl lay along the edge of the farmsteads and stretched their terrible
waste as far as the sky-line, and even over the border and into the
region of Elfland. They glimmered now as the light was leaving the land.
So black were the solemn clothes and the high grave hat of the traveller
that he could have been seen from far against the dim green of the
fields, going down to the edge of the marsh through the grey evening.
But none were there to see at such an hour beside that desolate place,
for the threat of darkness was already felt in the fields, and all the
cows were home and the farmers warm in their houses; so the traveller
walked alone. And soon he was come by unsure paths to the reeds and the
thin rushes, to which a wind was telling tales that have no meaning to
man, long histories of bleakness and ancient legends of rain; while on
the high darkening land far off behind him he saw lights begin to blink
where the houses were. He walked with the gravity and the solemn air of
one who has important business with men; yet his back was turned to
their houses and he went where no man wandered, travelling towards no
hamlet or lonely cottage of man, for the marsh ran right into Elfland.
Between him and the nebulous border that divides Earth from Elfland
there was no man whatever, and yet the traveller walked on as one that
has a grave errand. With every venerable step that he took bright mosses
shook and the marsh seemed about to engulf him, while his worthy staff
sank deep into slime, giving him no support; and yet the traveller
seemed only to care for the solemnity of his pacing. Thus he went on
over the deadly marsh with a deportment suitable to the slow procession
when the elders open the market on special days, and the gravest blesses
the bargaining, and all the farmers come to the booths and barter.
And up and down, up and down, song-birds went wavering home, skirting
the marsh's edge on their way to their native hedges; pigeons passed
landward to roost in high dark trees; the last of a multitude of rooks
was gone; and all the air was empty.
And now the great marsh thrilled to the news of the coming of a
stranger; for, no sooner had the traveller gravely set a foot on one of
those brilliant mosses that bloom in the pools, than a thrill shot under
their roots and below the stems of the bulrushes, and ran like a light
beneath the surface of the water, or like the sound of a song, and
passed far over the marshes, and came quivering to the border of magical
twilight that divides Elfland from Earth; and stayed not there, but
troubled the very border and passed beyond it and was felt in Elfland:
for where the great marshes run down to the border of Earth the
frontier is thinner and more uncertain than elsewhere.
And as soon as they felt that thrill in the deep of the marshes the
will-o'-the-wisps soared up from their fathomless homes, and waved their
lights to beckon the traveller on, over the quaking mosses at the hour
when the duck were flighting. And under that whirr and rush and
rejoicing of wings that the ducks make in that hour the traveller
followed after the waving lights, further and further into the marshes.
Yet sometimes he turned from them, so that for a while they followed
him, instead of leading as they were accustomed to do, till they could
get round in front of him and lead him once more. A watcher, if there
had been one in such bad light and in such a perilous place, had noticed
after a while in the venerable traveller's movements a queer resemblance
to those of the hen green plover when she lures the stranger after her
in Spring, away from the mossy bank where her eggs lie bare. Or perhaps
such a resemblance is merely fanciful, and a watcher might have noticed
no such thing. At any rate on that night in that desolate place there
was no watcher whatever.
And the traveller followed his curious course, sometimes towards the
dangerous mosses, sometimes towards the safe green land, always with
grave demeanour and reverent gait; and the will-o'-the-wisps in
multitudes gathered about him. And still that deep thrill that warned
the marsh of a stranger throbbed on through the ooze below the roots of
the rushes; and did not cease, as it should as soon as the stranger was
dead, but haunted the marsh like some echo of music that magic has made
everlasting, and troubled the will-o'-the-wisps even over the border in
Elfland.
Now it is far from my intention to write anything detrimental to
will-o'-the-wisps, or anything that may be construed as being a slight
upon them: no such construction should be put upon my writings. But it
is well known that the people of the marshes lure travellers to their
doom, and have delighted to follow that avocation for centuries, and I
may be permitted to mention this in no spirit of disapproval.
The will-o'-the-wisps then that were about this traveller redoubled
their efforts with fury; and when still he eluded their last enticements
only on the very edge of the deadliest pools, and still lived and still
travelled, and the whole marsh knew of it, then the greater
will-o'-the-wisps that dwell in Elfland rose up from their magical mire
and rushed over the border. And the whole marsh was troubled.
Almost like little moons grown nimbly impudent the people of the marshes
glowed before that solemn traveller, leading his reverend steps to the
edge of death only to retrace their steps again to beckon him back once
more. And then in spite of the great height of his hat and the dark
length of his coat that frivolous people began to perceive that mosses
were bearing his weight which never before had supported any traveller.
At this their fury increased and they all leaped nearer to him; and
nearer and nearer they flocked wherever he went; and in their fury their
enticements were losing their craftiness.
And now a watcher in the marshes, if such there had been, had seen
something more than a traveller surrounded by will-o'-the-wisps; for he
might have noticed that the traveller was almost leading them, instead
of the will-o'-the-wisps leading the traveller. And in their impatience
to have him dead the people of the marshes had never thought that they
were all coming nearer and nearer to the dry land.
And when all was dark but the water they suddenly found themselves in a
field of grass with their feet rasping against the rough pasture, while
the traveller was seated with his knees gathered up to his chin and was
eyeing them from under the brim of his high black hat. Never before had
any of them been lured to dry land by traveller, and there were amongst
them that night those eldest and greatest among them who had come with
their moon-like lights right over the border from Elfland. They looked
at each other in uneasy astonishment as they dropped limply onto the
grass, for the roughness and heaviness of the solid land oppressed them
after the marshes. And then they began to perceive that that venerable
traveller whose bright eyes watched them so keenly out of that black
mass of clothes was little larger than they were themselves, in spite of
his reverend airs. Indeed, though stouter and rounder he was not quite
so tall. Who was this, they began to mutter, who had lured
will-o'-the-wisps? And some of those elders from Elfland went up to him
that they might ask him with what audacity he had dared to lure such as
them. And then the traveller spoke. Without rising or turning his head
he spoke where he sat.
"People of the marshes," he said, "do you love unicorns?"
And at the word unicorns scorn and laughter filled every tiny heart in
all that frivolous multitude, excluding all other emotions, so that they
forgot their petulance at having been lured; although to lure
will-o'-the-wisps is held by them to be the gravest of insults, and
never would they have forgiven it if they had had longer memories. At
the word unicorns they all giggled in silence. And this they did by
flickering up and down like the light of a little mirror flashed by an
impudent hand. Unicorns! Little love had they for the haughty creatures.
Let them learn to speak to the people of the marshes when they came to
drink at their pools. Let them learn to give their due to the great
lights of Elfland, and the lesser lights that illumined the marshes of
Earth!
"No," said an elder of the will-o'-the-wisps, "none loves the proud
unicorns."
"Come then," said the traveller, "and we will hunt them. And you shall
light us in the night with your lights, when we hunt them with dogs over
the fields of men."
"Venerable traveller," said that elder will-o'-the-wisp: but at those
words the traveller flung up his hat and leaped from his long black
coat, and stood before the will-o'-the-wisps stark naked. And the people
of the marshes saw that it was a troll that had tricked them.
Their anger at this was slight; for the people of the marshes have
tricked the trolls, and the trolls have tricked the people of the
marshes, each of them so many times for ages and ages, that only the
wisest among them can say which has tricked the other most and is how
many tricks ahead. They consoled themselves now by thinking of times
when trolls had been made to look ludicrous, and consented to come with
their lights to help to hunt unicorns, for their wills were weak when
they stood on the dry land and they easily acquiesced in any suggestion
or followed anyone's whim.
It was Lurulu who had thus tricked the will-o'-the-wisps, knowing well
how they love to lure travellers; and, having obtained the highest hat
and gravest coat he could steal, he had set out with a bait that he
knew would bring them from great distances. Now that he had gathered
them all on the solid land and had their promise of light and help
against unicorns, which such creatures will give easily on account of
the unicorns' pride, he began to lead them away to the village of Erl,
slowly at first while their feet grew accustomed to the hard land; and
over the fields he brought them limping to Erl.
And now there was nothing in all the marshes that at all resembled man,
and the geese came down on a huge tumult of wings. The little swift teal
shot home; and all the dark air twanged with the flight of the duck.