HENRY BROCKEN

 With a heart of furious fancies, Whereof I am commander: With a burning spear, And a horse of air, To the wilderness I wander;

 With a Knight of ghosts and shadows, I summoned am to Tourney: Ten leagues beyond The wide world's end; Methinks it is no journey. 

 --ANON. (_Tom o' Bedlam_). 

HENRY BROCKEN

His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-ImaginableRegions of Romance

by

WALTER J. DE LA MARE

("WALTER RAMAL")

LondonJohn Murray, Albemarle Street, W. 

1904

CONTENTS

I. WHITHER?

 Come hither, come hither, come hither!

 --SHAKESPEARE. 

II. LUCY GRAY

 Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray; And, when I crossed the wild, I chanced to see at break of day The solitary child. 

 --WORDSWORTH. 

III. JANE EYRE

 I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams ... Where amidst unusual scenes ... I still again and again met Mr. Rochester;... And then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him--the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. 

 --CHARLOTTE BRONTË (_Jane Eyre_, Ch. Xxxii. ). 

IV. JULIA, ELECTRA, DIANEME

 Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying. 

 The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun, The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he's to setting. 

 That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. 

 Then be not coy, but use your time; And while ye may, go marry: For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry. 

 ANTHEA--

 Now is the time when all the lights wax dim, And thou, Anthea, must withdraw from him Who was thy servant. Dearest, bury me Under the holy-oak or gospel tree;... Or, for mine honour, lay me in that tomb In which thy sacred relics shall have room: For my embalming, sweetest, there will be No spices wanting when I'm laid by thee. 

 --HERRICK (_Hesperides_). 

V. NICK BOTTOM 43

 BOT. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine. 

 --_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act III. , Sc. I. 

VI. SLEEPING BEAUTY

VII. & VIII. LEMUEL GULLIVER

 I must freely confess that since my last return some corruptions of my Yahoo nature have revived in me, by conversing with a few of your species, and particularly those of my own family, by an unavoidable necessity; else I should never have attempted so absurd a project as that of reforming the Yahoo race in this kingdom: but I have done with all such visionary schemes for ever. --_Gulliver's Letter to his Cousin. _

 The first money I laid out was to buy two young stone horses, which I kept in a good stable, and next to them the groom is my greatest favourite; for I feel my spirits revived by the smell he contracts in the stable. 

 --SWIFT (_A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms_, Ch. Xi. ). 

IX. & X. MISTRUST, OBSTINATE, LIAR, ETC. 

 And as he read he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, "What shall I do?"... 

 The neighbours also came out to see him run; and as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, and some cried after him to return. 

ATHEIST--

 Now, after awhile, they perceived afar off, one coming softly and alone, all along the highway, to meet them. 

 --BUNYAN (_The Pilgrim's Progress_). 

XI. LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

 "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. 

 "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. "

 --KEATS. 

XII. SLEEP AND DEATH

 Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon-- Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved Night-- Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon!

 --SHELLEY. 

XIII. & XIV. A DOCTOR OF PHYSIC

 Well, well, well, -- ... God, God forgive us all!

 --_Macbeth_, Act V. , Sc. I. 

XV. ANNABEL LEE

 I was a child, and she was a child In this kingdom by the sea; And we loved with a love that was more than love-- I and my Annabel Lee-- With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. 

 --EDGAR ALLAN POE. 

XVI. CRISEYDE

 ... Love hadde his dwellinge With-inne the subtile stremes of hir yën. 

 Book I. , 304-5. 

 Y-wis, my dere herte, I am nought wrooth, Have here my trouthe and many another ooth; Now speek to me, for it am I, Criseyde!

 Book III. , 1110-2. 

 And fare now wel, myn owene swete herte!

 Book V. , 1421. 

 --CHAUCER (_Troilus and Criseyde_). 

THE TRAVELLERTOTHE READER

The traveller who presents himself in this little book feels howtedious a person he may prove to be. Most travellers, that he everheard of, were the happy possessors of audacity and rigour, a zeal forfacts, a zeal for Science, a vivid faith in powder and gold. Who, then, will bear for a moment with an ignorant, pacific adventurer, without even a gun?

He may, however, seem even more than bold in one thing, and that is indescribing regions where the wise and the imaginative and the immortalhave been before him. For that he never can be contrite enough. Andyet, in spite of the renown of these regions, he can present neithermap nor chart of them, latitude nor longitude: can affirm only thattheir frontier stretches just this side of Dream; that they borderImpossibility; lie parallel with Peace. 

But since it is his, and only his, journey and experiences, his wonderand delight in these lands that he tells of--a mere microcosm, as itwere--he entreats forgiveness of all who love them and their people asmuch as he loves them--scarce "on this side idolatry. "

H. B. 

I

 _Oh, what land is the Land of Dream?_

 --WILLIAM BLAKE. 

I lived, then, in the great world once, in an old, roomy house besidea little wood of larches, with an aunt of the name of Sophia. Myfather and mother died a few days before my fourth birthday, so that Ican conjure up only fleeting glimpses of their faces by which toremember what love was then lost to me. Both were youthful at death, but my Aunt Sophia was ever elderly. She was keen, and just, seldomless than kind; but a child was to her something of a little animal, and it was nothing more. In consequence, well fed, warmly clad, and infreedom, I grew up almost in solitude between my angels, hearkeningwith how simple a curiosity to that everlasting warfare of persuasionand compulsion, terror and delight. 

Which of them it was that guided me, before even I could read, to thelittle room dark with holly trees that had been of old my uncle'slibrary, I know not. Perhaps at the instant it chanced there hadfallen a breathless truce between them, and I being solitary, my owninstinct took me. But having once found that pictured haven, I hadfound somewhat of content. 

I think half my youthful days passed in that low, book-walled chamber. The candles I burned through those long years of evening would deckAlps' hugest fir; the dust I disturbed would very easily fill againthe measure that some day shall contain my own; and the small studiousthumbmarks that paced, as if my footprints, leaf by leaf of that longjourney, might be the history of life's experience in little, --fromclearer, to clear, to faint--how very faint at last!

I do not remember ever to have been discovered in this retreat. I was(by nature) prompt at meals, and wary to be in bed at my hour, howevertransitory its occupation might be. Indeed, I very well recollectdawn painting the page my eyes dwelt on, surprising me with itsmystery and stealth in a house as silent as the grave. 

Thus entertained then by insubstantial society I grew up, and began tobe old, before I had yet learned age is disastrous. And it was there, in that cold, bright chamber, one snowy twilight, first suddenly awokein me an imperative desire for distant lands. 

Even while little else than a child I had begun to cast my mind totravel. I doubt if ever Columbus suffered such vexation from an itchto be gone. 

But whither?

Now, it seemed clear to me after long brooding and musing that howeverbeautiful were these regions of which I never wearied to read, andhowever wild and faithful and strange and lovely the people of thebooks, somewhere the former must remain yet, somewhere, in immortalityserene, dwell they whom so many had spent life in dreaming of, andwriting about. 

In fact, take it for all in all, what could these authors have beenat, if they laboured from dawn to midnight, from laborious midnight todawn, merely to tell of what never was, and never by any chance couldbe? It was heaven-clear to me, solitary and a dreamer; let me but gainthe key, I would soon unlock that Eden garden-door. Somewhere yet, Iwas sure, Imogen's mountains lift their chill summits into heaven;over haunted sea-sands Ariel flits; at his webbed casement next thestars Faust covets youth, till the last trump shall ring him out ofdream. 

It was on a blue March morning, with all the trees of my aunt's woodsin a pale-green tumult of wind, that, quite unwittingly, I set out ona journey that has not yet come to an end. 

There was a hint in the air at my waking, I fancied, not quite of mereearth, the perfume of the banners of Flora, of the mould where inmelting snow the crocus blows. I looked from my window, and thewestern clouds drew gravely and loftily in the illimitable air towardsthe whistling house. Strange trumpets pealed in the wind. Even mypoor, aged Aunt Sophia had changed with the universal change; hergreat, solitary face reminded me of some long-forgotten April. 

And a little before eleven I saddled my uncle's old mare Rosinante(poor female jade to bear a name so glorious!), and rode out (as forhow many fruitless seasons I had ridden out!), down the stony, nettle-narrowed path that led for a secret mile or more, beneathlindens, towards the hills. 

II

 _Still thou art blest compared wi' me!_

 --ROBERT BURNS. 

It is to be wondered at that in so bleak a wind I could possibly fallinto reverie. But the habit was rooted deep in me; Rosinante wasprosaic and trustworthy; the country for miles around familiar to meas the palm of my hand. Yet so deeply was I involved, and so steadilyhad we journeyed on, that when at last I lifted my eyes with a greatsigh that was almost a sob, I found myself in a place utterly unknownto me. 

But more inexplicable yet, not only was the place strange, but, bysome incredible wizardry, Rosinante seemed to have carried me out of aMarch morning, blue and tumultuous and bleak, into the grey, sweetmist of a midsummer dawn. 

I found that we were ambling languidly on across a green and levelmoor. Far away, whether of clouds or hills I could not yet tell, rosecold towers and pinnacles into the last darkness of night. Above us inthe twilight invisible larks climbed among the daybeams, singing asthey flew. A thick dew lay in beads on stick and stalk. We were alonewith the fresh wind of morning and the clear pillars of the East. 

On I went, heedless, curious, marvelling; my only desire to pressforward to the goal whereto destiny was directing me. I suppose afterthis we had journeyed about an hour, and the risen sun was on theextreme verge of the gilded horizon, when I espied betwixt me and thedeep woods that lay in the distance a little child walking. 

She, at any rate, was not a stranger to this moorland. Indeed, something in her carriage, in the grey cloak she wore, in her light, insistent step, in the old lantern she carried, in the shrill littlesong she or the wind seemed singing, for a moment half impelled me toturn aside. Even Rosinante pricked forward her ears, and stooped hergentle face to view more closely this light traveller. And she pawedthe ground with her great shoe, and gnawed her bit when I drew reinand leaned forward in the saddle to speak to the child. 

"Is there any path here, little girl, that I may follow?" I said. 

"No path at all, " she answered. 

"But how then do strangers find their way across the moor?" I said. 

She debated with herself a moment. "Some by the stars, and some by themoon, " she answered. 

"By the moon!" I cried. "But at day, what then?"

"Oh, then, sir, " she said, "they can see. "

I could not help laughing at her demure little answers. "Why!" Iexclaimed, "what a worldly little woman! And what is your name?"

"They call me Lucy Gray, " she said, looking up into my face. I thinkmy heart almost ceased to beat. 

"Lucy Gray!" I repeated. 

"Yes, " she said most seriously, as if to herself, "in all this snow. "

"'Snow, '" I said--"this is dewdrops shining, not snow. "

She looked at me without flinching. "How else can mother see how I amlost?" she said. 

"Why!" said I, "how else?" not knowing how to reach her bright belief. "And what are those thick woods called over there?"

She shook her head. "There is no name, " she said. 

"But you have a name--Lucy Gray; and you started out--do youremember?--one winter's day at dusk, and wandered on and on, on andon, the snow falling in the dark, till--Do you remember?"

She stood quite still, her small, serious face full to the east, striving with far-off dreams. And a merry little smile passed over herlips. "That will be a long time since, " she said, "and I must be offhome. " And as if it had been but an apparition of my eyes that hadbeset and deluded me, she was gone; and I found myself sitting astridein the full brightness of the sun's first beams, alone. 

What omen was this, then, that I should meet first a phantom on myjourney? One thing only was clear: Rosinante could trust to her fivewits better than I to mine. So leaving her to take what way shepleased, I rode on, till at length we approached the woods I haddescried. Presently we were jogging gently down into a deep and mistyvalley flanked by bracken and pines, from which issued into the crispair of morning a most delicious aromatic smell, that seemed at leastto prove this valley not far remote from Araby. 

I do not think I was disturbed, though I confess to having been alittle amazed to see how profound this valley was into which we weredescending, yet how swiftly climbed the sun, as if to pace with us sothat we should not be in shadow, howsoever fast we journeyed. I wasastonished to see flowers of other seasons than summer by the wayside, and to hear in June, for no other month could bear such greenabundance, the thrush sing with a February voice. Here too, almost atmy right hand, perched a score or more of robins, bright-dyed, warbling elvishly in chorus as if the may-boughs whereon they sat werewhite with hoarfrost and not buds. Birds also unknown to me in voiceand feather I saw, and little creatures in fur, timid yet not wild;fruits, even, dangled from the trees, as if, like the bramble, blossomand seed could live here together and prosper. 

Yet why should I be distracted by these things, thought I. Iremembered Maundeville and Hithlodaye, Sindbad and Gulliver, and manyanother citizen of Thule, and was reassured. A man must either believewhat he sees, or see what he believes; I know no other course. Why, too, should I mistrust the bounty of the present merely for thescarcity of the past? Not I!

I rode on, and it seemed had advanced but a few miles before the sunstood overhead, and it was noon. We were growing weary, I think, ofsheer delight: Rosinante, with her mild face beneath its dark forelockgazing this side, that side, at the uncustomary landscape; and I everpeering forward beneath my hat in eagerness to descry some livingcreature a little bigger than these conies and squirrels, to prove meyet in lands inhabited. But the sun was wheeling headlong, and thestillness of late afternoon on the woods, when, dusty and parched andheavy, we came to a break in the thick foliage, and presently to agreen gate embowered in box. 

III

 _Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice To make dreams truth, and fables histories. _

 --JOHN DONNE. 

I dismounted and, with the nose of my beast in my bosom, stood awhilegazing, in the half-dream weariness brings, across the valley at thedense forests that covered the hills. And while thus standing, doubtful whether to knock at the little gate or to ride on, it beganto open, and a great particoloured dog looked out on us. There wascertainly something unusual in the aspect of this animal, for thoughhe lifted on us grave and sagacious eyes, he scarcely seemed to seeus, manifested neither pleasure nor disapproval, neither wagged histail to give us welcome nor yawned to display his armament. He seemeda kind of dream-dog, a dog one sees without zeal, and sees againpartly with the eye, but most in recollection. 

Thus however we stood, stranger, horse, and dog, till a morose voicecalled somewhere from beyond, "Pilot, sir, come here, Pilot. " Semi-dogor no, he knew his master. Whereupon, tying up my dejected Rosinanteto a ring in the gateway, I followed boldly after "Pilot" into thatsequestered garden. 

Meanwhile, however, he had disappeared--down a thick green alley tothe left, I supposed. So I went forward by a clearer path, and when Ihad advanced a few paces, met face to face a lady whose dark eyesseemed strangely familiar to me. 

She was evidently a little disquieted at meeting a stranger sounceremoniously, but stood her ground like a small, black, fearlessnote of interrogation. 

I explained at once, therefore, as best I could, how I came to bethere: described my journey, my bewilderment, and how that I knew notinto what country nor company fate had beguiled me, except that theone was beautiful, and the other in some delightful way familiar, andI begged her to tell me where I really was, and how far from home, and of whom I was now beseeching forgiveness. 

Her thoughts followed my every word, passing upon her face likeshadows on the sea. I have never seen a listener so completely stilland so completely engrossed in listening. And when I had finished, shelooked aside with a transient, half-sly smile, and glanced at me againcovertly, so that I could not see herself for seeing her eyes; and shelaughed lightly. 

"It is indeed a strange journey, " she replied. "But I fear I cannot inthe least direct you. I have never ventured my own self beyond thewoods, lest--I should penetrate too far. But you are tired and hungry. Will you please walk on a few steps till you come to a stone seat? Myname is Rochester--Jane Rochester"--she glanced up between the hollieswith a sigh that was all but laughter--"Jane Eyre, you know. "

I went on as she had bidden, and seated myself before an old, white, many-windowed house, squatting, like an owl at noon, beneath its greencovert. In a few minutes the great dog with dripping jowl passedalmost like reality, and after him his mistress, and on her arm hermaster, Mr. Rochester. 

There seemed a night of darkness in that scarred face, and starsunearthly bright. He peered dimly at me, leaning heavily on Jane'sarm, his left hand plunged into the bosom of his coat. And when he wascome near, he lifted his hat to me with a kind of Spanish gravity. 

"Is this the gentleman, Jane?" he enquired. 

"Yes, sir. "

"He's young!" he muttered. 

"For otherwise he would not be here, " she replied. 

"Was the gate bolted, then?" he asked. 

"Mr. Rochester desires to know if you had the audacity, sir, to scalehis garden wall, " Jane said, turning sharply on me. "Shall I count thestrawberries, sir?" she added over her shoulder. "

"Jane, Jane!" he exclaimed testily. "I have no wish to be uncivil, sir. We are not of the world--a mere dark satellite. I am dim; andsuspicious of strangers, as this one treacherous eye should manifest. I'll but ask your name, sir, --there are yet a few names left, oncepleasing to my ear. "

"My name is Brocken, sir--Henry Brocken, " I answered. 

"And--did you walk? Pah! there's the mystery! God knows how else youcould have come, unless you are a modern Ganymede. Where then's youraquiline steed, sir? We have no neighbours here--none to stare, andpry, and prate, and slander. "

I informed him that I was as ignorant as he what power had spirited meto his house, but that so far as obvious means went, my old horse wasprobably by this time fast asleep beside the green gate at which I hadentered. Jane stood on tip-toe and whispered in his ear, and, noddingimperiously at him, withdrew into the house. 

Complete silence fell between us after her departure. The woods stooddark and motionless in the yellow evening light. There was no sound ofwind or water, no sound of voices or footsteps; only far away theclear, scarce-audible warbling of a sleepy bird. 

"Well, sir, " Mr. Rochester said suddenly, "I am bidden invite you topass the night here. There are stranger inhabitants than Mr. And Mrs. Rochester in these regions you have by some means strayed into--wilderdenizens, by much; for youth's seraphic finding. Not for mine, sir, Ivow. Depart again in the morning, if you will: we shall neither of usbe displeased by then to say farewell, I dare say. I do not seekcompany. My obscure shell is enough. " I rose. "Sit down--sit downagain, my dear sir; there's no mischief in the truth between two menof any world, I suppose, assuredly not of this. My wife will see toyour comfort. There! hushie now, here he floats; sit still, sitstill--I hear his wings. It is my 'Four Evangels, ' sir!"

It was a sleek blackbird that had alighted and now set to singing onthe topmost twig of a lofty pear-tree near by; and with his first noteJane reappeared. And while we listened, unstirring, to that rich, undaunted voice, I had good opportunity to observe her, and not, Ithink, without her knowledge, not even without her approval. 

This, then, was the face that had returned wrath for wrath, remorsefor remorse, passion for passion to that dark egotist Jane in thelooking-glass. Yet who, thought I, could be else than beautiful witheyes that seemed to hide in fleeting cloud a flame as pure as amber?The arch simplicity of her gown, her small, narrow hands, theexquisite cleverness of mouth and chin, the lovely courage andsincerity of that yet-childish brow--it seemed even Mr. Rochester's"Four Evangels" out of his urgent rhetoric was summoning withreiterated persuasions, "Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre, Ja ... Ne!"

Light faded from the woods; a faint wind blew cold upon our faces. Jane took Mr. Rochester's hand and looked into his face. 

She turned to me. "Will you come in, Mr. Brocken? I have seen thatyour horse is made quite easy. He was fast asleep, poor fellow, asyou surmised; and, I think, dreaming; for when I proffered him a lumpof sugar, he thrust his nose into my face and breathed as if I were apeck of corn. The candles are lit, sir; supper is ready. "

We went in slowly, and Jane bolted the door. "But who it is that canbe bolted out, " she said, "I know not; though there's much to bolt in. I have stood here, Mr. Brocken, on darker nights as still as this, andhave heard what seemed to be the sea breaking, far away, leagues uponleagues beyond the forests--the gush forward, the protracted, heavyretreat, --listened till I could have wept to think that it was only myown poor furious heart beating. You may imagine, then, I push thebolts home. "

"But why, Jane--why?" cried Mr. Rochester incredulously. "Violentfancies, child!"

"Why, sir, it was, I say, not the sea I heard, but a trickling tideone icy tap might stay, if it found but entry there. "

"You talk wildly, Jane--wildly, wildly; the air's afloat withlisteners; so it seems, so it seems. Had I but one clear lamp in thisdark face!"

We sat down in the candle-lit twilight to supper. It was to me likethe supper of a child, taken at peace in the clear beams, ere hedescend into the shadow of sleep. 

They sat, try as I would not to observe them, hand touching handthroughout the meal. But to me it was as if one might sit to eatbefore a great mountain ruffled with pines, and perpetually clamorouswith torrents. All that Mr. Rochester said, every gesture, these werebut the ghosts of words and movements. Behind them, gloomy, imperturbable, withdrawn, slumbered a strange, smouldering power. Ibegan to see how very hotly Jane must love him, she who loved aboveall things storm, the winds of the equinox, the illimitable night-sky. 

She begged him to take a little wine with me, and filled his glasstill it burned like a ruby between their hands. 

"It paints both our hands!" she cried glancing up at him. 

"Ay, Janet, " he answered; "but where is yours?"

"And what goal will you make for when you leave us, " she enquired ofme. "_Is_ there anywhere else?" she added, lifting her slim eyebrows. 

"I shall put trust in Chance, " I replied, "which at least is steadfastin change. So long as it does not guide me back, I care not how farforward I go. "

"You are right, " she answered; "that is a puissant battlecry, here andhereafter. "

Mr. Rochester rose hastily from his chair. "The candles irk me, Jane. I would like to be alone. Excuse me, sir. " He left the room. 

Jane lifted a dark curtain and beckoned me to bring the lights. Shesat down before a little piano and desired me to sit beside her. Andwhile she played, I know not what, but only it seemed old, well-remembered airs her mood suggested, she asked me many questions. 

"And am I indeed only like that poor mad thing you thought Jane Eyre?"she said, "or did you read between?"

I answered that it was not her words, not even her thoughts, not evenher poetry that was to me Jane Eyre. 

"What then is left of me?" she enquired, stooping her eyes over thekeys and smiling darkly. "Am I indeed so evanescent, a wintry wraith?"

"Well, " I said, "Jane Eyre is left. "

She pressed her lips together. "I see, " she said brightly. "But then, was I not detestable too? so stubborn, so wilful, so demented, so--vain?"

"You were vain, " I answered, "because--"

"Well?" she said, and the melody died out, and the lower voices of hermusic complained softly on. 

"For a barrier, " I answered. 

"A barrier?" she cried. 

"Why, yes, " I said, "a barrier against cant, and flummery, andcoldness, and pride, and against--why, against your own vanity too. "

"That's really very clever--penetrating, " she said; "and I reallydesired to know, not because I did not know already, but to know Iknew all. You are a perspicacious observer, Mr. Brocken; and to bethat is to be alive in a world of the moribund. But then too how highone must soar at times; for one must ever condescend in order toobserve faithfully. At any rate, to observe all one must range at analtitude above all. "

"And so, " I said, "you have taken your praise from me--"

"But you are a man, and I a woman: we look with differing eyes, eachsex to the other, and perceive by contrast. Else--why, how else couldyou forgive my presumption? He sees me as an eagle sees the creepingtortoise. I see him as the moon the sun, never weary of gazing. Iborrow his radiance to observe him by. But I weary you with mygarrulous tongue.... Have you no plan at all in your journey? 'Tis notthe dangers, but to me the endless restlessness of such aventure--that 'Oh, where shall wisdom be found?'... Will you notpause?--stay with us a few days to consider again this rash journey?To each his world: it is surely perilous to transgress its fixedboundaries. "

"Who knows?" I cried, rather arrogantly perhaps. "The sorcery thatlured me hither may carry me as lightly back. But I have tasted honeyand covet the hive. "

She glanced sidelong at me with that stealthy gravity that lay underall her lightness. 

"That delicious Rosinante!" she exclaimed softly.... "And I reallybelieve too _I_ must be the honey--or is it Mr. Rochester? Ah! Mr. Brocken, they call it wasp-honey when it is so bitter that it blistersthe lips. " She talked on gaily, as if she had forgotten I was but astranger until now. Yet none the less she perceived presently my eyesever and again fixed upon the little brooch of faintest gold hair ather throat, and flinched and paled, playing on in silence. 

"Take the whole past, " she continued abruptly, "spread it out beforeyou, with all its just defeats, all its broken faith, and overweeninghopes, its beauty, and fear, and love, and its loss--its loss; thenturn and say: this, this only, this duller heart, these duller eyes, this contumacious spirit is all that is left--myself. Oh! who couldwish to one so dear a destiny so dark?" She rose hastily from thepiano. "Did I hear Mr. Rochester's step by the window?" she said. 

I crossed the room and looked out into the night. The brightening moonhung golden in the dark clearness of the sky. Mr. Rochester stoodmotionless, Napoleon-wise, beneath the black, unstirring foliage. Andbefore I could turn, Jane had begun to sing:--

 You take my heart with tears; I battle uselessly; Reft of all hopes and doubts and fears, Lie quietly. 

 You veil my heart with cloud; Since faith is dim and blind, I can but grope perplex'd and bow'd, Seek till I find. 

 Yet bonds are life to me; How else could I perceive The love in each wild artery That bids me live?

Jane's was not a rich voice, nor very sweet, and yet I fancied noother voice than this could plead and argue quite so clearly and withsuch nimble insistency--neither of bird, nor child, nor brook;because, I suppose, it was the voice of Jane Eyre, and all that wasJane's seemed Jane's only. 

The music ceased, the accompaniment died away; but Mr. Rochester stoodimmobile yet--a little darker night in that much deeper. When Iturned, Jane was gone from the room. I sat down, my face towards thestill candles, as one who is awake, yet dreams on. The faint scent ofthe earth through the open window; the heavy, sombre furniture; thedaintiness and the alertness in the many flowers and few womanlygew-gaws: these too I shall remember in a tranquillity that cannotchange. 

A sudden, trembling glimmer at the window lit the garden and, instantaneously, the distant hills; lit also the figures of Jane andMr. Rochester beneath the trees. They entered the house, and once moreJane drew the bolts against that phantom fear. A tinge of scarletstood in her cheeks, an added lustre in her eyes. They were strangelovers, these two--like frost upon a cypress tree; yet summer lay allaround us. 

I bade them good night and ascended to the little room prepared forme. There was a great pincushion on the sprigged and portly toilettable, and I laboured till the constellations had changed beyond mywindow, in printing from a box of tiny pins upon that lavenderedmound, "Ave, Ave, atque Vale!"

Far in the night a dreadful sound woke me. I rose and looked out ofthe window, and heard again, deep and reverberating, Pilot baying Iknow not what light minions of the moon. The Great Bear wheeledfaintly clear in the dark zenith, but the borders of the east weregrey as glass; and far away a fierce hound was answering from hisecho-place in the gloom, as if the dread dog of Acheron kept post uponthe hills. 

A light tap woke me in the sunlight, and a lighter voice. Mr. Rochester took breakfast with us in a gloomy old dressing-room, moodyand taciturn, unpacified by sleep. But Jane, whimsical and deft, hadtied a yellow ribbon in the darkness of her hair. 

Rosinante awaited me at the little green gate, eyeing forlornly thesteep valley at her feet. And I rode on. The gate was shut on me; andMr. Rochester again, perhaps, at his black ease. 

I had jogged on, with that peculiar gravity age brings to equinehoofs, about a mile, when the buttress of a thick wall came into viewabutting on the lane, and perched thereon what at first I deemed acoloured figment of the mist that festooned the branches and clungalong the turf. But when I drew near I saw it was indeed a child, pinkand gold and palest blue. And she raised changeling hands at me, andlaughed and danced and chattered like the drops upon a waterfall; andclear as if a tiny bell had jingled I heard her cry. 

And my heart smote me heavily since I had of my own courtesy notremembered Adèle. 

IV

 _Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, tu-witta-woo. _

 --THOMAS NASH. 

It was yet early, and refreshing in the chequered shade. We ploddedearnestly after our gaunt shadow in the dust, and ever downward, tillat last we drew so near to the opposite steep that I could well nighcount its pines. 

It was about the hour when birds seek shade and leave but few amongtheir fellows to sing, that at a stone's throw from the foot of thehill I came to where a faint bridle-path diverged. And since it wassmooth with moss, and Rosinante haply tired of pebbles; since any butthe direct road seems ever the more delectable, I too turned aside, and broke into the woods through which this path meandered. 

Maybe it is because all woods are enchanted that the path seemed morethan many miles long. Often too we loitered, or stood, head by head, to listen, or to watch what might be after all only wings, meresunbeams. Shall I say, then, that it began to be thorny, and, wherethe thorns were, pale with roses, when at length the knitted boughsgradually drew asunder, and I looked down between twitching, hairyears upon a glade so green and tranquil, I deemed it must be theGarden of the Hesperides?

And because there ran a very welcome brook of water through thisglade, I left Rosinante to follow whithersoever a sweet tooth mightdictate, and climbed down into the weedy coolness at the waterbrink. 

I confess I laughed to see so puckered a face as mine in the clearblue of the flowing water. But I dipped my hands and my head into thecold shallows none the less pleasantly, and was casting about for adeeper pool where I might bathe unscorned of the noonday, when I hearda light laughter behind me, and, turning cautiously, perceived underthe further shadow of the glade three ladies sitting. 

Not even vanity could persuade me that they were laughing at anythingmore grotesque than myself, so, putting a bold face on matters sohumiliating, I sauntered as carelessly and loftily as I dared in theirdirection. My courage seemed to abash them a little; they gatheredback their petticoats like birds about to fly. But at hint of atitter, they all three began gaily laughing again till their eyessparkled brighter than ever, and their cheeks seemed shadows of theroses above their heads. 

"Ladies, " I began gravely, "I have left my horse, that is very old andvery thirsty, above in the wood. Is there any path I may discover bywhich she may reach the water without offence?"

"Is she very old?" said one. 

"She is very old, " I said. 

"But is she very thirsty?" said another. 

"She is perhaps very thirsty, " I said. 

"Perhaps!" cried they all. 

"Because, ladies, " I replied, "being by nature of a timid tongue, andcompelled to say something, and having nothing apt to say, Iremembered my old Rosinante above in the wood. "

They glanced each at each, and glanced again at me. 

"But there is no path down that is not steep, " said the fairest of thethree. 

"There never was a path, not even, we fear, for a traveller on foot, "continued the second. 

I waited in silence a moment. "Forgive me, then, " I said; "I willoffend no longer. "

But this seemed far from their design. 

"You see, being come, " began the fairest again, "Julia thinks Fortunemust have brought you. Are we not all between Fortune's finger andthumb?"

"If pinching is to prove anything, " said the other. 

"And Fortune is fickle, too, " added Julia--"that's early wisdom; butnot quite so fickle as you would wish to show her. Here we have sat inthese mortal glades ever since our poor Herrick died. And here itseems we are like to sit till he rises again. It is all so--dubious. But since Electra has invited you to rest awhile, will you not reallyrest? There is shade as deep, and fruit to refresh you, in a littlearbour yonder. Perhaps even Anthea will dip out of her weeping awhileif she hears that ... A poor old thirsty horse is tethered in thewoods. "

They rose up together with a prolonged rustling as of a peacockdisplaying his plumes; and I found myself irretrievably their captive. 

Moreover, even if they were but sylphs and fantasies of the morning, they were fantasies lovely as even their master had portrayed; whilethe dells through which they led me were green and deep and white andgolden with buds. 

It was now, I suppose, about the middle of the morning, yet though thesun was high, his heat was that of dawn. Dawn lingered in the shadows, as snow when winter is over and gone, and dwelt among the sunbeams. Dew lay heavy on the grass, as the dainty heels of my captressestestified, yet they trod lightly upon daisies wide-open to the bluesky, while daffadowndillies stooped in a silence broken only by theirlaughter. 

We came presently to a little stone summerhouse or arbour, enclustered with leaves and flowers of ivy and convolvulus, whereintwo great dishes of cherries stood and bowls of honeycomb andsillabub. 

There we sat down; but they kept me close too in the midst of thearbour, where perhaps I was not so ill-content to be as I should liketo profess. How then could I else than bob for cherries as often as Idared, and prove my wit to conceal my hunger?

"And now, Sir Traveller, " said she of the sparkling eyes, namedDianeme, "since we have got you safe, tell us of all we have neverheard or seen!"

"And oh! are we forgot?" cried Electra, laying a lip upon a cherry. 

"There's not a poet in his teens but warbles of you morn, noon, andnight, " I answered. "There's not a lover mad, young, true, and tender, but borrows your azure, and your rubies, and your roses, and yourstars, to deck his sweetheart's name with. "

"Boys perhaps, " cried Julia softly, "but _men_ soon forget. "

"Youth never, " I replied. 

"Why 'Youth'?" said Dianeme. "Herrick was not always young. "

"Ay, but all men once were young, please God, " I said, "and youth isthe only 'once' that's worth remembrance. Youth with the heart ofyouth adores you, ladies; because, when dreams come thick upon them, they catch your flying laughter in the woods. When the sun is sunk, and the stars kindle in the sky, then your eyes haunt the twilight. You come in dreams, and mock the waking. You the mystery; you thebravery and danger; you the long-sought; you the never-won; memories, hopes, songs ere the earth is mute. You will always be loved, believeme, O bright ladies, till youth fades, turns, and loves no more. " AndI gazed amazed on cherries of such potency as these. 

"But once, sir, " said Julia timidly, "we were not only loved but_told_ we were loved. "

"Where is the pleasure else?" cried Dianeme. 

"Besides, " said Electra, "Anthea says if we might but find where Styxflows one draught--my mere palmful--would be sweeter than all thepoetry ever writ, save some. "

"It is idle, " cried Dianeme; "Herrick himself admired us most onpaper. "

"And ink makes a cross even of a kiss, that is very well known, " saidJulia. 

"Ah!" said I, "all men have eyes; few see. Most men have tongues:there is but one Robin Herrick. "

"I will tell you a secret, " said Dianeme. 

And as if a bird of the air had carried her voice, it seemed a hushfell on sky and greenery. 

"We are but fairy-money all, " she said, "an envy to see. Takeus!--'tis all dry leaves in the hand. Herrick stole the honey, and thebees he killed. Blow never so softly on the tinder, it flames--anddies. "

"I heard once, " said Electra, with but a thought of pride, "that had Ilived a little, little earlier, I might have been the Duchess ofMalfi. "

"I too, Flatterer, " cried Julia, "I too--Desdemona slain by ablackamoor. To some it is the cold hills and the valleys 'green andsad, ' and the sea-birds' wailing, " she continued in a low, strangevoice, "and to some the glens of heather, and the mountain-brooks, andthe rowans. But, come to an end, what are we all? This man's eyes willtell ye! I would give white and red, nectar and snow and roses, andall the similes that ever were for--"

"For what?" said I. 

"I think, for Robin Herrick, " she said. 

It was a lamentable confession, for that said, gravity fled away; andElectra fetched out a lute from a low cupboard in the arbour, andwhile she played Julia sang to a sober little melody I seemed to knowof old:

 Sighs have no skill To wake from sleep Love once too wild, too deep. 

 Gaze if thou will, Thou canst not harm Eyes shut to subtle charm. 

 Oh! 'tis my silence Shows thee false, Should I be silent else?

 Haste thou then by! Shine not thy face On mine, and love's disgrace!

Whereat Dianeme lifted on me so naïve an afflicted face I must needsbeseech another song, despite my drowsy lids. Wherefore I heard, faraway as it were, the plucking of the strings, and a voice betwixtdream and wake sing:

 All sweet flowers Wither ever, Gathered fresh Or gathered never; But to live when love is gone!-- Grieve, grieve, lute, sadly on!

 All I had-- 'Twas all thou gav'st me; That foregone, Ah! what can save me? If the exórcised spirit fly, Nought is left to love me by. 

 Take thy stars, My tears then leave me; Thine my bliss, As thine to grieve me; Take.... 

For then, so insidious was the music, and not quite of this earth thevoice, my senses altogether forsook me, and I fell asleep. 

Would that I could remember much else! But I confess it is the heartremembers, not the poor, pestered brain that has so many thoughts andbut one troubled thinker. Indeed, were I now to be asked--Were thefingers cold of these bright ladies? Were their eyes blue, or hazel, or brown? or, haply, were Dianeme's that incomparable, dark, sparklinggrey? Wore Julia azure, and Electra white? And was that our poet wroteour poet's only, or truly theirs, and so even more lovely?--I fear Icould not tell. 

I fell asleep; and when I awoke no lute was sounding. I was alone; andthe arbour a little house of gloom on the borders of evening. I caughtup yet one more handful of cherries, and stumbled out, heavy and dim, into a pale-green firmanent of buds and glow-worms, to seek the poorRosinante I had so heedlessly deserted. 

But I was gone but a little way when I was brought suddenly to astandstill by another sound that in the hush of the garden, in thebright languor after sleep, went to my heart: it was as if a childwere crying. 

I pushed through a thick and aromatic clump of myrtles, and peeringbetween the narrow leaves, perceived the cold, bright face of a littlemarble god beneath willows; and, seated upon a starry bank near by, one whom by the serpentry of her hair and the shadow of her lips Iknew to be Anthea. 

"Why are you weeping?" I said. 

"I was imitating a little brook, " she said. 

"It is late; the bat is up; yet you are alone, " I said. 

"Pan will protect me, " she said. 

"And nought else?"

She turned her face away. "None, " she said. "I live among shadows. There was a world, I dreamed, where autumn follows summer, and afterautumn, winter. Here it is always June, despite us both. "

"What, then, would you have?" I said. 

"Ask him, " she replied. 

But the little god looking sidelong was mute in his grey regard. 

"Why do you not run away? What keeps you here?"

"You ask many questions, stranger! Who can escape? To live is toremember. To die--oh, who would forget! Even had I been weeping, andnot merely mocking time away, would my tears be of Lethe at my mouth'scorners? No, " said Anthea, "why feign and lie? All I am is but amemory lovely with regret. "

She rose, and the myrtles concealed her from me. And I, in the midstof the dusk where the tiny torches burned sadly--I turned to thesightless eyes of that smiling god. 

What he knew, being blind, yet smiling, I seemed to know then. Butthat also I have forgotten. 

I whistled softly and clearly into the air, and a querulous voiceanswered me from afar--the voice of a grasshopper--Rosinante's. 

V

 _How should I your true love know From another one?_

 --WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

But even then she was difficult finding, so cunningly had ivy andblackberry and bindweed woven snares for the trespasser's foot. 

But at last--not far from where we had parted--I found her, a pillarof smoke in the first shining of the moon. She turned large, smouldering eyes on me, her mane in elf locks, her flanks heaving andwet, her forelock frizzed like a colt's. Yet she showed only pleasureat seeing me, and so evident a desire to unburden the day's history, that I almost wished I might be Balaam awhile, and she--Dapple!

It would be idle to attempt to ride through these thick, glimmeringbrakes. The darkness was astir. And as the moon above the valleybrightened, casting pale beams upon the folded roses and droopingbranches, if populous dream did not deceive me, a tiny multitude wasafoot in the undergrowth--small horns winding, wee tapers burning. 

Presently as with Rosinante's nose at my shoulder we pushed slowlyforward, a nightingale burst close against my ear into so passionate adescant I thought I should be gooseflesh to the end of my days. 

The heedless tumult of her song seemed to give courage to sounds andvoices much fainter. Soon a lovelit rival in some distant thicketbroke into song, and far and near their voices echoed above the elfindin of timbrel and fife and hunting-horn. I began to wish the moonaway that dazzled my eyes, yet could not muffle my ears. 

In the heavy-laden boughs dim lanterns burned. There, indeed, when wedipped into the deeper umbrage of some loftier tree, I espied thepattering hosts--creatures my Dianeme might have threaded for abangle, yet breeched and armed and fiercely martial. 

Down, too, in a watery dell of harts-tongue, around the root of aswelling fungus, a lovely company floated of an insubstantialitysubtile as taper-smoke, and of a beauty as remote as the babes inchildren's eyes. 

We passed unheeded. Four bearded hoofs rose and fell upon the mosswith all the circumspection snorting Rosinante could compass. But onemight as well go snaring moonbeams as dream to crush such airy beings. Ever and again a gossamer company would soar like a spider on hismagic thread, and float with a whisper of remotest music past my ear;or some bolder pigmy, out of the leaves we brushed in passing, skipsuddenly across the rusty amphitheatre of my saddle into the furthercovert. 

So we wandered on, baffled and confused, through a hundred pathlessglens and dells till already gold had begun to dim the swelling moon'sbright silver, and by the freshness and added sweetness of the air itseemed dawn must be near, when, on a sudden, a harsh, preposterousvoice broke on my ear, and such a see-saw peal of laughter as I havenever tittered in sheer fellowship with before, or since. We stoodlistening, and the voice broke out again. 

"Tittany--nay, Tittany, you'll crack my sides with laughing. Haveagain at you! love your master and you'll wax nimble. Bottom willlearn you all. Trust Time and Bottom; though in sooth your weenyMajesty is something less than natural. Drive thy straw deeper, Mounsieur Mustardseed! there squats a pestilent sweet notion in thatchamber could spellican but set him capering. Prithee your mousemilkhand on this smooth brow, mistress! Your nectar throbbeth like ablacksmith's anvil. Master Moth, draw you these bristling lashes down, they mirk the stars and call yon nothing Quince to mind--a vain, official knave, in and out, to and fro, play or pleasure; and old SamSnout, the wanton! Lad's days and all--'twas life, Tittany; and I wasever foremost. They'd bob and crook to me like spaniels at a trencher. Mine was the prettiest conceit, this way, that way, past allunravelling till envy stretched mine ears. Now I'm old dreams. Goneall men's joy, your worships, since Bully Bottom took to moonshine. Where floats your babe's-hand now, Dame Lovepip?"

There he lolled, immortal Bottom, propped on a bed of asphodel andmoly that seemed to curd the moonshine; and at his side, Titania slimand scarlet, and shimmering like a bride-cake. The sky was dark abovethe tapering trees, but here in the secret woods light seemed to clingin flake and scarf. And it so chanced as our two noses leaned forwardinto his retreat that Bottom's head lolled back upon its pillow, andhis bright, simple eyes stared deep into our own. 

"Save me, ye shapes of nought, " he bellowed, "no more, no more, forlove's sake. I begin to see what men call red Beelzebub, and that's anend to all true fellowship. Whiffle your tufted bee's wing, SigniorCobweb, I beseech you--a little fiery devil with four eyes floats inmy brain, and flame's a frisky bedfellow. Avaunt! avaunt ye! Would nowmy true friend Bottom the weaver were at my side. His was a courageto make princes great. Prithee, Queen Tittany, no more such cozeningpossets!"

I drew Rosinante back into the leaves. 

"Droop now thy honeyed lids, my dearest love!" I heard a clear voiceanswer. "There's nought can harm thee in these silvered woods: no birdthat pipes but love incites his throat, and never a dewdrop wells butwhispers peace!"

"Ay, ay, 'tis very well, you have a gift, you have a gift, Tittany'sfor twisting words to sugarsticks. But la, there, what wots yourtrickling whey of that coal-piffling Prince of Flies! I'm Bottom theweaver, I am. He knows not his mother's ring-finger that knows notNick Bottom. Back, back, ye jigging dreams! 'Tis Puckling nods. Ha'done, ha' done--there's no sweet sanity in an asshead more if I quafftheir elvish ... Out now ... Ha' done, I say!"

Then indeed he slumbered truly, this engarlanded weaver, his lidsconcealing all bright speculation, his jowl of vanity (foe of thePhilistine) at peace: and I might gaze unperceived. The moon filledhis mossy cubicle with her untrembling beams, streamed upon blossomssweet and heavy as Absalom's hair, while tiny plumes wafted into thenight the scent of thyme and meadow-sweet. 

I know not how long they would have kept me prisoner with theirillusive music. I dared not move, scarce wink; for much as immortalitymay mollify hairiness, I had no wish to live too frank. 

How, also, would this weaver who slumbered so cacophonously welcome arival to his realms. I say I sat still, like Echo in the woods whennone is calling; like too, I grant, one who ached not a little afterjolts and jars and the phantasmal mists of this engendering air. Butnone stirred, nor went, nor came. So resting my hands cautiously on alittle witch's guild of toadstools that squatted cold in shade, Ilifted myself softly and stood alert. 

And in a while out of that numerous company stepped one whom by hisprimrose face and mien I took to be Mounsieur Mustardseed, and Ifollowed after him. 

VI

 _Care-charming Sleep ... ... Sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince!_

 --JOHN FLETCHER. 

Away with a blink of his queer green eye over his shoulder hesauntered by a devious path out of the dell. Forgetful of thorn andbrier, trickery and wantonness, we clambered down after him, out ofthe moonlight, into a dark, clear alley, soundless and solitary amidthese enchanted woods. 

As I have said already, another air than that of night was abroad inthe green-grey shadows of the woods. Yet between the lofty andheavy-hooded pines scarce a beam of dawn pierced downward. 

Wider swept the avenue, but ever dusky and utterly silent. Deeper mosscouched here; unfallen moondrops glistened; mistletoe palely sproutedfrom the gnarled boughs. Nor could I discern, though I searched closeenough, elder or ash tree or bitter rue. We journeyed softly on till Ilost all count of time, lost, too, all guidance; for as a flower fallshad vanished Mustardseed. 

Far away and ever increasing in volume I heard the trembling crash ofsome great water falling. What narrow isles of sky were visiblebetween the branches lay sunless and still. Yet already, on a mantledpool we journeyed softly by, the waterlily was unfolding, the swanafloat in beauty. 

In a dim, still light we at last slowly descended out of the darkerglade into a garden of grey terraces and flowerless walks. EvenRosinante seemed perturbed by the stillness and solitude of this wildgarden. She trod with cautious foot and peering eye the green, rainworn paths, that led us down presently to where beneath the vaultof its trees a river flowed. 

Surely I could not be mistaken that here a voice was singing as if outof the black water-deeps, so clear and hollow were the notes. I burstthrough the knotted stalks of the ivy, and stooping like some poortravesty of Narcissus, with shaded face pierced down deep--deep intoeyes not my own, but violet and unendurable and strange--eyes of theliving water-sprite drawing my wits from me, stilling my heart, till Iwas very near plunging into that crystal oblivion, to be fishesevermore. 

But my fingers still grasped my friend's kind elf-locks, and hergoose-nose brooded beside mine upon that water of undivulged delight. Out of the restless silence of the stream floated this long-drawnsinging:

 Pilgrim forget; in this dark tide Sinks the salt tear to peace at last; Here undeluding dreams abide, All sorrow past. 

 Nods the wild ivy on her stem; The voiceless bird broods on the bough; The silence and the song of them Untroubled now. 

 Free that poor captive's flutterings, That struggles in thy tired eyes, Solace its discontented wings, Quiet its cries!

 Knells now the dewdrop to its fall, The sad wind sleeps no more to rove; Rest, for my arms ambrosial Ache for thy love!

I cannot think how one so meekened with hunger as I, resisted thatwater-troubled hair, eyes that yet haunt me, that heart-alluringvoice. 

"No, no, " I said faintly, and the words of Anthea came unbidden tomind, "to sleep--oh! who would forget? You plead merely with some olddream of me--not _all_ me, you know. Gold is but witchcraft. And asfor sorrow--spread me a magical table in this nettle-garden, I'llleave all melancholy!"

I must indeed have been exhausted to chop logic with a water-witch. Aswell argue with minnows, entreat the rustling of ivy-leaves. It wasRosinante, wearying, I suppose, of the reflection of her own mildcountenance, that drew me back from dream and disaster. She turnedwith arched neck seeking a more wholesome pasture than these deepmosses. 

Leaving her then to her own devices, and yet hearkening after thevoice of the charmer, I came out again into the garden, and perceivedbefore me a dark palace with one lofty tower. 

It seemed strange I had not seen the tower at my first coming intothis wilderness. It stood with clustered summit and stoopinggargoyles, appealing as it were to fear, in utter silence. 

Though I knew it must be day, there was scarcely more than a greentwilight around me, ever deepening, until at last I could but dimlydiscern the upper windows of the palace, and all sound waned but theroar of distant falling water. 

Then it was I found that I was not alone in the garden. Two littleleaden children stood in an attitude of listening on either side ofthe carved porch of the palace, and between them a figure that seemedto be watching me intently. 

I looked and looked again--saw the green-grey folds, the tawny locks, the mistletoe, the unearthly eyes of this unstirring figure, yet, whenI advanced but one strenuous pace, saw nought--only the little leadenboys and the porch between them. 

These childish listeners, the straggling briers, the impenetrablethickets, the emerald gloaming, the marble stillness of the loftylichenous tower: I took courage. Could such things be in else thanElfland? And she who out of beauty and being vanishes and eludes, whatelse could she be than one of Elfland's denizens from whom a light andcredulous heart need fear nothing. 

I trod like a shadow where the phantom had stood and opened the unuseddoor. I was about to pass into the deeper gloom of the house when ahound appeared and stood regarding me with shining eyes in the faintgloaming. He was presently joined by one as light-footed, butmilk-white and slimmer, and both turned their heads as if in questionof their master, who had followed close behind them. 

This personage, because of the gloom, or the better to observe theintruder on his solitude, carried a lantern whose beams were reflectedupon himself, attired as he was from head to foot in the palestprimrose, but with a countenance yet paler. 

There was no hint of enmity or alarm or astonishment in thecolourless eyes that were fixed composedly on mine, nothing butcourtesy in his low voice. 

"Back, Safte!--back, Sallow!" he cried softly to his hounds; "is thisyour civility? Indeed, sir, " he continued to me, "it was all I coulddo to dissuade the creatures from giving tongue when you firstappeared on the terrace of my solitary gardens. I heard too thewater-sprite: she only sings when footsteps stray upon the banks. " Hesmiled wanly, and his nose seemed even sharper in his pale face, andhis yellow hair leaner about his shoulders. "I feared her voice mightprove too persuasive, and deprive me of the first strange face I haveseen these many decades gone. "

I bowed and murmured an apology for my intrusion, just as I mightperhaps to some apparition of nightmare that over-stayed its welcome. 

"I beseech you, sir, " he replied, "say no more! It may be I deemed youat first a visitor perchance even more welcome--if it be possible, ... Yet I know not that either. My name is Ennui, "--he smiledagain--"Prince Ennui. You have, perchance, heard somewhere our sadstory. This is the perpetual silence wherein lies that once-happyprincess, my dear sister, Sleeping Beauty. "

His voice seemed but an echo amongst the walls and arches of this oldhouse, and he spoke with a suave enunciation as if in an unfamiliartongue. 

I replied that I had read the ever-lovely story of Sleeping Beauty, indeed knew it by heart, and assured him modestly that I had not theleast doubt of a happy ending--"that is, if the author be the leastauthority. "

He narrowed his lids. "It is a tradition, " he replied; "meanwhile, thethickets broaden. "

Whereupon I begged him to explain how it chanced that among thatfestive and animated company I had read of, he alone had resisted thewicked godmother's spell. 

He smiled distantly, and bowed me into the garden. 

"That is a simple thing, " he said. 

Yet for the life of me I could not but doubt all he told me. He whocould pass spring on to spring, summer on to summer, in the company ofbeasts so sly and silent, so alert and fleet as these hounds of his, could not be quite the amiable prince he feigned to be. I began towish myself in homelier places. 

It seems that on the morning of the fatal spindle, he had gonecoursing, with this Safte and Sallow and his horse named "Twilight, "and after wearying and heating himself at the sport, a little afternoon, leaving his attendants, had set out to return to the palacealone. But allured by the cool seclusion of a "lattice-arbour" in hispath, he had gone in, and then and there, "Twilight" beneath thewillows, his hounds at his feet, had fallen asleep. 

Undisturbed, dreamless, "the unseemly hours sped light of foot. " Heawoke again, between sunset and dark; the owl astir; "the silver gnatsyet netting the shadows, " and so returned to the palace. 

But the spell had fallen--king and courtier, queen and lady and pageand scullion, hawk and hound, slept a sleep past waking--"while I, roamed and roam yet in a solitary watch beyond all sleeping. Wherefore, sir, I only of the most hospitable house in these lands amawake to bid you welcome. But as for that, a few dwindling and harshfruits in my orchards, and the cold river water that my dogs lap withme, are all that is left to offer you. For I who never sleep am neverhungry, and they who never wake--I presume--never thirst. Would, sir, it were otherwise! After such long silence, then, conceive howstrangely falls your voice on ears that have heard only wingsfluttering, dismal water-songs, and the yelp and quarrel andnight-voice of unseen hosts in the forests. "

He glanced at me with a mild austerity and again lowered his eyes. Icannot now but wonder how the rhythm of a voice so soft, somonotonous, could give such pleasure to the ear. I almost doubted myown eyes when I looked upon his yellow, on that unmoved, sad, mad, pale face. 

I had no doubt of his dogs, however, and walked scarcely at easebeside him, while they, shadow-footed, closely followed us at heel. 

"Prince Ennui" conducted me with shining lantern into a dense orchardthickly under-grown, marvellously green, with a small, hard fruit uponits branches, shaped like a medlar, of a crisp, sweet odour and, despite its hardness, a delicious taste. The interwoven twigs of thestooping trees were thickly nested; a veritable wilderness of moonlikeand starry flowers ran all to seed amid the nettles and nightshade ofthis green silence. And while I ate--for I was hungry enough--PrinceEnnui stood, his hand on Sallow's muzzle, lightly thridding the duskylabyrinths of the orchard with his faint green eyes. 

Mine, too, were not less busy, but rather with its lord than with hisorchard. And the strange thought entered my mind, Was he in very deedthe incarnation of this solitude, this silence, this lawlessabundance? Somewhere, in the green heats of summer, had he come forth, taken shape, exalted himself? What but vegetable ichor coursed throughveins transparent as his? What but the swarming mysteries of thesethick woods lurked in his brain? As for his hounds, theirs was thesame stealth, the same symmetry, the same cold, secret unhumanity ashis. Creatures begotten of moonlight on silence they seemed to me, with instincts past my workaday wits to conceive. 

And Rosinante! I laughed softly to think of her staid bones beside thephantom creature this prince had called up to me at mention of"Twilight. "

I ate because I was ravenously hungry, but also because, while eating, I was better at my ease. 

Suddenly out of the stillness, like an arrow, Safte was gone; and faraway beneath the motionless leaves a faint voice rang dwindling intosilence. I shuddered at my probable fate. 

Prince Ennui glanced lightly. "When the magic horn at last resounds, "he said, "how strange a flight it will be! These thorny briersencroach ever nearer on my palace walls. I am a captive ever less atease. Summer by summer the sun rises shorn yet closer of his beams, and now the lingering transit of the moon is but from one wood by anarrow crystal arch to another. They will have me yet, sir. How wearywill the sleepy ones be of my uneasy footfall!"

And even as Safte slipped softly back to his watching mate, the patterand shrill menace of voices behind him hinted not all was concordbetween these hidden multitudes and their unseemly prince. 

The master-stars shone earlier here; already sparkling above the towerwas a canopy of clearest darkness spread, while the leafy fringes ofthe sky glowed yet with changing fires. 

We returned to the lawns before the palace porch, and, with hislantern in his hand, the Prince signed to me to go in. I was not alittle curious to view that enchanted household of which I had read sooften and with so much delight as a child. 

In the banqueting-hall only the matted windows were visible in thelofty walls. Prince Ennui held his lantern on high, and by its flame, and the faint light that flowed in from above, I could presently see, distinct in gloom, as many sleepers as even Night could desire. 

Here they reclined just as sorcerous sleep had overtaken them. But howdimmed, how fallen! For Time that could not change the sleeper hadchanged with quiet skill all else. Tarnished, dusty, withered, overtaken, yellowed, and confounded lay banquet and cloth-of-gold, flagon, cup, fine linen, table, and stool. But in all the ruin, likebuds of springtime in a bare wood, or jewels in ashes, slumbered youthand beauty and bravery and delight. 

I lifted my eyes to the King. The gold of his divinity was fallen, hissplendour quenched; but life's dark scrutiny from his face was gone. He made no stir at our light, slumbered untreasoned on. The lids ofhis Queen were lightlier sealed, only withheld beauty as a cloud thesky it hides. His courtiers flattered more elusively, being sincerelymute, and only a little red dust was all the wine left. 

I seemed to hear their laughter clearer now that the jest wasforgotten, and to admire better the pomp, and the mirth, and thegrace, and the vanity, now that time had so far travelled from thislittle tumult once their triumph. 

In a kind of furtive bravado, I paced the length of the long, throngedtables. Here sat a little prince that captivated me, dipping hisfingers into his cup with a sidelong glance at his mother. There ahigh officer, I know not how magnificent and urgent when awake, slumbered with eyes wide open above his discouraged moustaches. 

Simply for vanity of being awake in such a sleepy company, I struttedconceitedly to and fro. I bent deftly and pilfered a little cockledcherry from between the very fingertips of her whose heart wasdoubtless like its--quite hard. And the bright lips never said a word. I sat down, rather clownishly I felt, beside an aged and simperingchancellor that once had seemed wise, but now seemed innocent, nibbling a biscuit crisp as scandal. For after all the horn _would_sound. Childhood had been quite sure of that--needed not even theauthor's testimony. They were alert to rise, scattering all dust, victors over Time and outrageous Fortune. 

Almost with a cry of apprehension I perceived again the solitaryPrince. But he merely smiled faintly. "You see, sir, " he said, "howweary must a guardianship be of them who never tire. The snow falls, and the bright light falls on all these faces; yet not even my LadyMelancholy stirs a dark lid. And all these dog-days--" He glanced athis motionless hounds. They raised languidly their narrow heads, whimpering softly, as if beseeching of their master that long-delayedsupper--haplessly me. "No, no, sirs, " said the Prince, as if he hadread their desire as easily as he whom it so much concerned. "Guard, guard, and hearken. This gentleman is not the Prince we await, Sallow;not the Prince, Safte! And now, sir, "--he turned again to me--"thereis yet one other sleeper--she who hath brought so much quietude on afestive house. "

We climbed the staircase where dim light lay so invitingly, and camepresently to a little darker chamber. Green, blunt things had pushedand burst through the casement. The air smelled faintly-sour of brier, and was as still as boughs of snow. There the not-unhappy Princessreclined before a looking-glass, whither I suppose she had run to viewher own alarm when the sharp needle pierced her thumb. All alarm wasstilled now on her face. She, one might think, of all that company ofthe sleepy, was the only one that dreamed. Her youthful lips lay alittle asunder; the heavy beauty of her hair was parted on herforehead; her childish hands sidled together like leverets in her lap. "Why!" I cried aloud, almost involuntarily, "she breathes!"

And at sound of my voice the hounds leapt back; and, on a traveller'soath, I verily believe, once, and how swiftly, and how fearfully andbrightly, those childish lids unsealed their light as of lilac thatlay behind, glanced briefly, fleetingly, on one who had ventured sofar, and fell again to rest. 

"And when, " I cried harshly, "when will that laggard burst throughthis agelong silence? Here's dust enough for all to see. And all thisruin, this inhospitable peace!"

Prince Ennui glanced strangely at me. 

"I assure you, O suddenly enkindled, " he said in his suave, monotonousvoice, "it is not for _my_ indifference he does not come. I wouldwillingly sleep; these--my dear sister, all these old fineries andlove-jinglers would as fain wake. " He turned away his treacherous eyesfrom me. "Maybe the Lorelei hath snared him!... " he said, smiling. 

I relished not at all the thought of sleeping in this mansion ofsleep. Yet it seemed politic to refrain from giving offence to fangsapparently so eager to take it. Accordingly I followed this Ennui to aloftier chamber yet that he suggested for me. 

Once there, however, and his soft footfall passed away, I looked aboutme, first to find a means for keeping trespassers from coming in, andnext to find a means for getting myself out. 

It was a long and arduous, but not a perilous, descent from the windowby the thick-grown greenery that cumbered the walls. But I determinedto wait awhile before venturing, --wait, too, till I could see plainlywhere Rosinante had made her night-quarters. By good fortune Idiscovered her beneath the greenish moon that hung amid mist above theforest, stretching a disconsolate neck at the waterside as if insearch of the Lorelei. 

When, as it seemed to me, it must be nearing dawn, though how thehours flitted so swiftly passed my comprehension, I very cautiouslyclimbed out of my narrow window and descended slowly to the lawnsbeneath. My foot had scarcely touched ground when ringing and menacingfrom some dark gallery of the palace above me broke out a distantbaying. 

Nothing shall persuade me to tell how fast I ran; how feverishly Ihaled poor Rosinante out of sleep, and pushed her down into the deepsof that coal-black stream; with what agility I clambered into thesaddle. 

Yet I could not help commiserating the while the faithful soul whofloated beneath me. The stream was swift but noiseless, the waterrather rare than cold, yet, despite all the philosophy beaming out ofher maidenly eyes across the smooth surface of the tide, Rosinantemust have preferred from the bottom of her heart dry land. 

I, too, momentarily, when I discovered that we were speedilyapproaching the roaring fall whose reverberations I had heard longsince. 

Out of the emerald twilight we floated from beneath the overarchingthickets. Pale beams were striking from the risen sun upon the glidingsurface, and dwelt in splendour where danger sat charioted beneath apalely gorgeous bow. Yet I doubt if ever mortal man swept on to defeatat last so rapturously as I. 

The gloomier trees had now withdrawn from the banks of the river. Apale morning sky over-canopied the shimmering forests. Here rose thesolitary tower where Echo tarried for the Hornblower. And straightbefore us, across that level floor, beyond a tremulous cloud of foamand light and colour, lurked the unseen, the unimaginable, theever-dreamed-of, Death. 

Heedless of Lorelei, heedless of all save the beauty and terror andglory in which they rode, down swept snorting ship and master to doom. 

The crystal water jargoned past my saddle. Sky, earth, and tower, likethe panorama of a dream, wheeled around me. Light blinded me; clamourdeafened me; foam and the pure wave and cold darkness whelmed over me. We surged, paused, gazed, nodded, crashed:--and so an end to Ennui. 

VII

 _He loves to talk with marineres That come from a far countree. _

 --SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 

How long my body was the sport of that foaming water I cannot tell. But when I again opened my eyes, I found, first, that the sun wasshining dazzling clear high above me, and, next, that the delightfulnoise of running water babbled close against my ear. I lay upon astrip of warm sward by the river's brink. Near by me grew somerank-smelling waterside plant, and overhead the air seemed peopledwith larks. 

I crawled, confused and aching, to the water, and dipped my head andhands into the cold rills. This soon refreshed me, for the sun had, itwould seem, long been dwelling on that passive corse of mine by thewaterside and had parched it to the skin. 

But it was some little while yet before my mind returned fully towhat had passed, and so to my loss. 

I sat looking at the grey, noisy water, almost incredulous thatRosinante could be gone. It might be that the same hand as must havedrawn myself from drowning had snatched her bridle also out of Fate'sgrasp. Perhaps even now she was seeking her master by the greenerpasture of the wide plains around me. Perhaps the far-off sea was hergreen sepulchre. But many waters cannot quench love. I faced, friendless and discomfited, a region as strange to me as the fartherside of the moon. 

Without more ado I rose, shook myself, and sadly began to go forward. But I had taken only a few steps along the banks of the stream--forhere was fresh water, at least--when a sound like distant thunderrolled over these flat, green lands towards me, increasing steadily involume. 

I stood, lost in wonder, and presently, at the distance, perhaps, of alittle less than a mile, descried an innumerable herd of horsesstreaming across these level pastures, and at the extremity, itseemed, of a wide ellipse, that had brought them near, and now wasgalloping them away. 

My heart beat a little faster at this extraordinary spectacle. Andwhile I stood in uncertainty gazing after the retreating concourse, Iperceived a figure running towards me, lifting his hands and cryingout in a voice sonorous and inhuman. He was of a stature much above myown, yet so gross in shape and immense of head he seemed at firstalmost dwarfish. He came to a stand twenty paces or so from me, on theridge of a gentle inclination, and gazed down on me with wild, brighteyes. Even at this distance I could perceive the almost colourlesslustre of his eyes beneath his thick locks of yellow hair. When he hadtaken his fill of me, he lifted his head again and cried out to me afew words of what certainly might be English, but was neitherintelligible nor reassuring. 

I stood my ground and stared him in the face, till I could see nothingbut wind-blown yellow, and strange, brutal eyes. Then he advanced alittle nearer. Whereupon I also raised my hand with a gesture likehis own, and demanded loudly where I was, what was this place, and whowas he. His very ears pricked forward, he listened so intently. Hecame nearer yet, then stayed, tossed his head into the air, whirledthe long leather thong he carried above his head, and, signing to meto follow, set off with so swift and easy a stride as would soon havecarried him out of sight, had he not turned and perceived how slowly Icould follow him. 

He slackened his pace then, and, thus running, we came in sight atlength of what appeared to be a vast wooden shed, or barn, with onerude chimney, and surrounded by a thick fence, or stockade, many feethigh and apparently of immense strength and stability. 

In the gateway of this fence stood the master of these solitudes, hiseyes fixed strangely on my coming with an intense, I had almost saidincredulous, interest. Nor did he cease so to regard me, while thecreature that had conducted me thither, told, I suppose, where he hadfound me, and poured out with childish zeal his own amazement anddelight. By this time, too, his voice had begun to lose its firststrangeness, and to take a meaning for me. And I was presently fullypersuaded he spoke a kind of English, and that not unpleasingly, witha liquid, shrill, voluminous ease. His master listened patientlyawhile, but at last bade his servant be silent, and himself addressedme. 

"I am informed, Yahoo, " he said with peculiar deliberation, "that youhave been borne down into my meadows by the river, and fetched outthence by my servant. Be aware, then, that all these lands fromhorizon to horizon are mine and my people's. I desire no tidings ofwhat follies may be beyond my boundaries, no aid, and no amity. Iadmit no trespasser here and will bear with none. It appears, however, that your life has passed beyond your own keeping: I may not, therefore, refuse you shelter and food, and to have you conducted insafety beyond my borders. Have the courtesy, then, to keep withinshelter of these walls till the night be over. Else"--he gazed outacross the verdant undulations--"else, Yahoo, I have no power toprotect you. "

He turned once more, and regarded me with a lofty yet tenderrecognition, as if, little though his speech might profess it, he verykeenly desired my safety. 

He then stepped aside and bade me rather sharply enter the gate beforehim. I tried to show none of the mistrust I felt at passing out ofthese open lands into this repellent yard. I glanced at theshock-haired creature, alert, half-human, beside me; across thelimitless savannah around me, echoing yet, it seemed, with the rumourof innumerable hoofs; and bowing, as it were, to odds, I went in. 

On the other hand, I felt my host had been frank with me. If this wasindeed the same Lemuel Gulliver whose repute my infancy had prized sowell, I need have no fear of blood and treachery at his hands, howeverprimitive and disgusting his household, or distorted his intellectmight be. He who had proved no tyrant in Lilliput, nor quailed beforethe enormities of Brobdingnag, might abhor the sight of me; he wouldnot play me false. 

His servant, or whatsoever else he might be, I considered not quiteso calmly. Yet even in _his_ broad countenance dwelt a something likebright honesty, less malice than simplicity. 

Wherefore, I say, I ordered down my cowardice, and, looking both ofthem as squarely in the face as I knew how, passed out of the openinto the appalling yard of this wooden house. 

I say "appalling, " but without much reason. Perhaps it was theunseemly hugeness of its balks, the foul piles of skins, the mounds ofrefuse that lay about within; perhaps the all-pervading beastlystench, the bareness and filthiness under so glassy-clear and fierce asun that revolted me. All man's seemliness and affection for thenatural things of earth were absent. Here was only a brutal and baldorder, as of an intelligence like that of the yellow-locked, swift-footed creature behind me. Perhaps also it was the mereunfamiliarity of much I saw there that estranged me. All lay inneglect, cracked and marred with rough usage, --coarse strands of akind of rope, strips of hide, gaping tubs, a huge and rusty brazier, and in one corner a great cage, many feet square and surmounted withan iron ring. 

I know not. I almost desired Sallow at my side, and would to heavenRosinante's nose lay in my palm. 

Within the house a wood-fire burned in the sun, its smoke ascending tothe roof, and flowing thence through a rude chimney. A pot steamedover the fire, burdening the air with a savour at first somewhat faintand disgusting, --perhaps because it was merely strange to me. Thewalls of this lofty room were of rough, substantial timber, bare andweatherproof; the floor was of the colour of earth, seemingly earthitself. A few rude stools, a bench, and a four-legged table stoodbeside the unshuttered window. And from this stretched the beauteousgreen of the grass-land or prairie beyond the stockade. 

The house, then, was built on the summit of a gentle mound, anddoubtless commanded from its upper window the extreme reaches of thissea of verdure. 

I sat down where Mr. Gulliver directed me, and was not displeased withthe warmth of the fire, despite the sun. I was cold after that long, watery lullaby, and cold too with exhaustion after running so far atthe heels of the creature who had found me. And I dwelt in a kind ofdream on the transparent flames, and watched vacantly the seethingpot, and smelt till slowly appetite returned the smoke of the stuffthat bubbled beneath its lid. 

Mr. Gulliver himself brought me my platter of this pottage, and thoughit tasted of nothing in my experience--a kind of sweet, cloyingmeat--I was so tired of the fruits to which enterprise had as yetcondemned me, I ate of it hungrily and heartily. Yet not so fast asthat the young "Gulliver" had not finished his before me, and sat atlength watching every mouthful I took from beneath his sun-enticingthatch of hair. Ever and again he would toss up his chin with a shrillguffaw, or stoop his head till his eyeballs were almost hiddenbeneath their thick lashes, so regarding me for minutes together witha delightful simulation of intelligence, yet with that peculiarwistful affection his master had himself exhibited at first sight ofme. 

But when our meal was done, Mr. Gulliver ordered him about hisbusiness. Without a murmur, with one last, long, brotherly glance atme, he withdrew. And presently after I heard from afar his high, melancholy "cooee, " and the crack of his thong in the afternoon air ashe hastened out to his charges. 

My companion did not stir. Only the flames waved silently along thelogs. The beam of sunlight drew across the floor. The crisp air of thepasture flowed through the window. What wonder, then, that, sitting onmy stool, I fell asleep!

VIII

 _If I see all, ye're nine to ane!_

 --OLD BALLAD. 

I was awoke by a sustained sound as of an orator speaking in anunknown tongue, and found myself in a sunny-shadowy loft, whither Isuppose I must have been carried in my sleep. In a delicious languorbetween sleeping and waking I listened with imperturbable curiosityawhile to that voice of the unknown. Indeed, I was dozing again when adifferent sound, enormous, protracted, abruptly aroused me. I got up, hot and trembling, not yet quite my own master, to discover its cause. 

Through a narrow slit between the timbers I could view the countrybeneath me, far and wide. I saw near at hand the cumbrous gate of thestockade ajar, and at a little distance on the farther side Mr. Gulliver and his half-human servant standing. In front of them was anempty space--a narrow semicircle of which Gulliver was the centre. Andbeyond--wild-eyed, dishevelled, stretching their necks as if to see, inclining their heads as if to hearken, ranging in multitude almost tothe sky's verge--stood assembled, it seemed to me, all the horses ofthe universe. 

Even in my first sensation of fear admiration irresistibly stirred. The superb freedom of their unbridled heads, the sun-nurturedarrogance of their eyes, the tumultuous, sea-like tossing of crest andtail, their keenness and ardour and might, and also in simple truththeir numbers--how could one marvel if this solitary fanatic dreamedthey heard him and understood?

Unarmed, bareheaded, he faced the brutal discontent of his people. Words I could not distinguish; but there was little chance ofmisapprehending the haughty anguish with which he threatened, pleaded, cajoled. Clear and unfaltering his voice rose and fell. He dealt outfearlessly, foolishly, to that long-snouted, little-brained, wild-eyed multitude, reason beyond their instinct, persuasion beyondtheir savagery, love beyond their heed. 

But even while I listened, one thing I knew those sleek malcontentsheard too--the Spirit of man in that small voice of his--perplexed, perhaps, and perverted, and out of tether; but none the lessunconquerable and sublime. 

What less, thought I, than power unearthly could long maintain thatstern, impassable barrier of green vacancy between their hoofs andhim? And I suppose for the very reason that these were beasts of along-sharpened sagacity, wild-hearted, rebellious, yet not the slavesof impulse, he yet kept himself their king who was, in fact, theircaptive. 

"Houyhnhnms?" I heard him cry; "pah--Yahoos!" His voice fell; he stoodconfronting in silence that vast circumference of restless beauty. Andagain broke out inhuman, inarticulate, immeasurable revolt. Far acrossover the tossing host, rearing, leaping, craning dishevelled heads, went pealing and eddying that hostile, brutal voice. 

Gulliver lifted his hand, and a tempestuous silence fell once more. "Yahoos! Yahoos!" he bawled again. Then he turned, and passed backinto his hideous garden. The gate was barred and bolted behind him. 

Thus loosed and unrestrained, surged as if the wind drove them, thatconcourse upon the stockade. Heavy though its timbers were, theyseemed to stoop at the impact. A kind of fury rose in me. I lusted togo down and face the mutiny of the brutes; bit, and saddle, andscourge into obedience man's serfs of the centuries. I watched, onfire, the flame of the declining sun upon those sleek, vehementcreatures of the dust. And then, I know not by what subtle irony, myzeal turned back--turned back and faded away into simple longing formy lost friend, my peaceful beast-of-evening, Rosinante. I sat downagain in the litter of my bed and earnestly wished myself home;wished, indeed, if I must confess it, for the familiar face of my AuntSophia, my books, my bed. If these were this land's horses, I thought, what men might here be met! The unsavouriness, the solitude, theneighing and tumult and prancing induced in me nothing but dulness atlast and disgust. 

But at length, dismissing all such folly, at least from my face, Ilifted the trap-door and descended the steep ladder into the roombeneath. 

Mr. Gulliver sat where I had left him. Defeat stared from his eyes. Lines of insane thought disfigured his face. Yet he sat, stubborn andupright, heedless of the uproar, heedless even that the late beams ofthe sun had found him out in his last desolation. So I too sat downwithout speech, and waited till he should come up out of his gloom, and find a friend in a stranger. 

But day waned; the sunlight went out of the great wooden room; thetumult diminished; and finally silence and evening shadow descended onthe beleaguered house. And I was looking out of the darkened window ata star that had risen and stood shining in the sky, when I wasstartled by a voice so low and so different from any I had yet heardthat I turned to convince myself it was indeed Mr. Gulliver's. 

"And the people of the Yahoos, Traveller, " he said, "do they stilllie, and flatter, and bribe, and spill blood, and lust, and covet? Arethere yet in the country whence you come the breadless bellies, thesores and rags and lamentations of the poor? Ay, Yahoo, and do viciousmen rule, and attain riches; and impious women pomp andflattery?--hypocrites, pandars, envious, treacherous, proud?" Hestared with desolate sorrow and wrath into my eyes. 

Words in disorder flocked to my tongue. I grew hot and eager, yet bysome instinct held my peace. The fluttering of the dying flames, thestarry darkness, silence itself; what were we who sat together?Transient shadows both, phantom, unfathomable, mysterious as these. 

I fancied he might speak again. Once he started, raised his arm, andcried out as if acting again in dream some frenzy of the past. Andonce he wheeled on me extraordinary eyes, as if he half-recognisedsome idol of the irrevocable in my face. These were momentary, however. Gloom returned to his forehead, vacancy to his eyes. 

I heard the outer gate flung open, and a light, strange footfall. Sowe seated ourselves, all three, for a while round the smoulderingfire. Mr. Gulliver's servant scarcely took his eyes from my face. And, a little to my confusion, his first astonishment of me had now passedaway, and in its stead had fallen such a gentleness and humour as Ishould not have supposed possible in his wild countenance. He busiedhimself over his strips of skin, but if he caught my eye upon his ownhe would smile out broadly, and nod his great, hairy head at me, tillI fancied myself a child again and he some vast sweetheart of mynurse. 

When we had supped (sitting together in the great room), I climbed theladder into the loft and was soon fast asleep. But from dreamsdistracted with confusion I awoke at the first shafts of dawn. I stoodbeside the narrow window in the wall of the loft and watched thedistant river change to silver, the bright green of the grass appear. 

This seemed a place of few and timorous birds, and of fewer trees. Butall across the dews of the grasses lay a tinge of powdered gold, asif yellow flowers were blooming in abundance there. I saw no horses, no sign of life; heard no sound but the cadent wail of the ash-greybirds in their flights. And when I turned my eyes nearer home, andcompared the distant beauty of the forests and their radiant cloudswith the nakedness and desolation here, I gave up looking from thewindow with a determination to be gone as soon as possible from acountry so uncongenial. 

Moreover, Mr. Gulliver, it appeared, had returned during the night tohis first mistrust of my company. He made no sign he saw me, and lefthis uncouth servant to attend on me. For him, indeed, I began to feela kind of affection springing up; he seemed so eager to befriend me. And whose is the heart quite hardened against a simple admiration? Irose very gladly when, after having stuffed a wallet with food, hesigned to me to follow him. I turned to Mr. Gulliver and held out myhand. 

"I wish, sir, I might induce you to accompany me, " I said. "Some daywe would win our way back to the country we have abandoned. I haveknown and loved your name, sir, since first I browsed onpictures--Being measured for your first coat in Lilliput by the littletailors:--Straddling the pinnacled city. Ay, sir, and when the farmerspicked you up 'twixt finger and thumb from among their cornstalks.... "

I had talked on in hope to see his face relax; but he made no sign hesaw or heard me. I very speedily dropped my hand and went out. Butwhen my guide and I had advanced about thirty yards from the stockade, I cast a glance over my shoulder towards the house that had given meshelter. It rose, sad-coloured and solitary, between the green andblue. But, if it was not fancy, Mr. Gulliver stood looking down on mefrom the very window whence I had looked down on him. And there I donot doubt he stayed till his fellow-yahoo had passed across hisinhospitable lands out of his sight for ever. 

I was glad to be gone, and did not, at first, realise that the leastdanger lay before us. But soon, observing the extraordinary vigilanceand caution my companion showed, I began to watch and hearken, too. Evidently our departure had not passed unseen. Far away to left and toright of us I descried at whiles now a few, now many, swift-movingshapes. But whether they were advancing with us, or gathering behindus, in hope to catch their tyrant alone and unaware, I could notproperly distinguish. 

Once, for a cause not apparent to me, my guide raised himself to hisfull height, and, thrusting back his head, uttered a most piercingcry. After that, however, we saw no more for a while of the beaststhat haunted our journey. 

All morning, till the sun was high, and the air athrob with heat andstretched like a great fiddlestring to a continuous, shrill vibration, we went steadily forward. And when at last I was faint with heat andthirst, my companion lifted me up like a child on to his back and setoff again at his great, easy stride. It was useless to protest. Imerely buried my hands in his yellow hair to keep my balance in such acamel-like motion. 

A little after noon we stayed to rest by a shallow brook, beneath acluster of trees scented, though not in blossom, like an Englishhawthorn. There we ate our meal, or rather I ate and my companionwatched, running out ever and again for a wider survey, and returningto me like a faithful dog, to shout snatches of his inconceivablelanguage at me. 

Sometimes I seemed to catch his meaning, bidding me take courage, haveno fear, he would protect me. And once he shaded his eyes and pointedafar with extreme perturbation, whining or murmuring while he stared. 

Again we set off from beneath the sweet-scented shade, and now nodoubt remained that I was the object of very hostile evolutions. Sometimes these smooth-hooved battalions would advance, cloudlike, towithin fifty yards of us, and, snorting, ruffle their manes and wheelswiftly away; only once more in turn to advance, and stand, with headsexalted, gazing wildly on us till we were passed on a little. But myguide gave them very little heed. Did they pause a moment too long inour path, or gallop down on us but a stretch or two beyond the limithis instinct had set for my safety, he whirled his thong above hishead, and his yell resounded, and like a shadow upon wheat the furiouscompanies melted away. 

Evidently these were not the foes he looked for, but a subtler, a moreindomitable. It was at last, I conjectured, at scent, or sight, orrumour of these that he suddenly swept me on to his shoulders again, and with a great sneeze or bellow leapt off at a speed he had, as yet, given me no hint of. 

Looking back as best I could, I began to discern somewhat to the leftof us a numerous herd in pursuit, sorrel in colour, and of a moremagnificent aspect than those forming the other bands. It was obvious, too, despite their plunging and rearing, that they were gaining onus--drew, indeed, so near at last that I could count the foremost ofthem, and mark (not quite callously) their power and fleetness andsymmetry, even the sun's gold upon their reddish skins. 

Then in a flash my captor set me down, toppled me over (in plainwords) into the thick herbage, and, turning, rushed bellowing, undeviating towards their leaders, till it seemed he must inevitablybe borne down beneath their brute weight, and so--farewell to summer. But almost at the impact, the baffled creatures reared, neighingfearfully in consort, and at the gibberish hurled back on them bytheir flamed-eyed master, broke in rout, and fled. 

Whereupon, unpausing, he ran back to me, only just in time to rescueme from the nearer thunder yet of those who had seized the very acmeof their opportunity to beat out my brains. 

It was a long and arduous and unequal contest. I wished very heartilyI could bear a rather less passive part. But this fearless creaturescarcely heeded me; used me like a helpless child, half tenderly, halfroughly, displaying ever and again over his shoulder only a fleetingglance of the shallow glories of his eyes, as if to reassure me of hispower and my safety. 

But the latter, those distant savannahs will bear witness, seemedforlorn enough. My eyes swam with weariness of these crested, earth-disdaining battalions. I sickened of the heat of the sun, theincessant sidelong jolting, the amazing green. But on we went, fleetand stubborn, into ever-thickening danger. How feeble a quarry amid somany hunters!

Two things grew clearer to me each instant. First, that every movementand feint of our pursuers was of design. Not a beast that wheeled butwheeled to purpose; while the main body never swerved, thunderedsuperbly on toward the inevitable end. And next I perceived with evenkeener assurance that my guide knew his country and his enemy and hisown power and aim as perfectly and consummately; knew, too--this wasthe end. 

Far distant in front of us there appeared to be a break in the levelgreen, a fringe of bushes, rougher ground. For this refuge he wasmaking, and from this our mutinous Houyhnhnms meant to keep us. 

There was no pausing now, not a glance behind. His every effort wasbent on speed. Speed indeed it was. The wind roared in my ears. Yetabove its surge I heard the neighing and squealing, theever-approaching shudder of hoofs. My eyes distorted all they lookedon. I seemed now floating twenty feet in air; now skimming withintouch of ground. Now that sorrel squadron behind me swelled andnodded; now dwindled to an extreme minuteness of motion. 

Then, of a sudden, a last, shrill paean rose high; the hosts of ourpursuers paused, billow-like, reared, and scattered--my poor Yahooleapt clear. 

For an instant once again in this wild journey I was poised, as itwere, in space, then fell with a crash, still clutched, sure andwhole, to the broad shoulders of my rescuer. 

When my first confusion had passed away, I found that I was lying in adense green glen at the foot of a cliff. For some moments I couldthink of nothing but my extraordinary escape from destruction. Withinreach of my hand lay the creature who had carried me, huddled andmotionless; and to left and to right of me, and one a little nearerthe base of the cliff, five of those sorrel horses that had beenchief of our pursuers. One only of them was alive, and he, also, broken and unable to rise--unable to do else than watch with fierce, untamed, glazing eyes (a bloody froth at his muzzle, ) every movementand sign of life I made. 

I myself, though bruised and bleeding, had received no serious injury. But my Yahoo would rise no more. His master was left alone amidst hispeople. I stooped over him and bathed his brow and cheeks with thewater that trickled from the cliffs close at hand. I pushed back thethick strands of matted yellow hair from his eyes. He made no sign. Even while I watched him the life of the poor beast near at handwelled away: he whinnied softly, and dropped his head upon thebracken. I was alone in the unbroken silence. 

It seemed a graceless thing to leave the carcasses of these bravecreatures uncovered there. So I stripped off branches of the trees, and gathered bundles of fern and bracken, with which to conceal awhiletheir bones from wolf and fowl. And him whom I had begun to love Icovered last, desiring he might but return, if only for a moment, tobid me his strange farewell. 

This done, I pushed through the undergrowth from the foot of the sunnycliffs, and after wandering in the woods, came late in the afternoon, tired out, to a ruinous hut. Here I rested, refreshing myself with theunripe berries that grew near by. 

I remained quite still in this mouldering hut looking out on the glenswhere fell the sunlight. Some homely bird warbled endlessly on in herretreat, lifted her small voice till every hollow resounded with hercontent. Silvery butterflies wavered across the sun's pale beams, sipped, and flew in wreaths away. The infinite hordes of the dustraised their universal voice till, listening, it seemed to me theirtiny Babel was after all my own old, far-off English, sweet of thehusk. 

Fate leads a man through danger to his delight. Me she had led amongwoods. Nameless though many of the cups and stars and odours of theflowers were to me, unfamiliar the little shapes that gamboled in furand feather before my face, here dwelt, mummy of all earth's summers, some old ghost of me, sipper of sap, coucher in moss, quieter thandust. 

So sitting, so rhapsodising, I began to hear presently anothersound--the rich, juicy munch-munch of jaws, a little blunted maybe, which yet, it seemed, could never cry Enough! to these sweet, succulent grasses. I made no sign, waited with eyes towards the sound, and pulses beating as if for a sweetheart. And soon, placid, unsurprised, at her extreme ease, loomed into sight who but myox-headed Rosinante in these dells, cropping her delightful way alongin search of her drowned master. 

I could but whistle and receive the slow, soft scrutiny of herfamiliar eyes. I fancied even her bland face smiled, as mightelderliness on youth. She climbed near with bridle broken andtrailing, thrust out her nose to me, and so was mine again. 

Sunlight left the woods. Wind passed through the upper branches. So, with rain in the air, I went forward once more; not quite so headily, perhaps, yet, I hope, with undiminished courage, like all earth'stravellers before me, who have deemed truth potent as modesty, andthemselves worth scanning print after. 

IX

 _A ... Shop of rarities. _

 --GEORGE HERBERT. 

A little before darkness fell we struck into a narrow road traversingthe wood. This, though apparently not much frequented, would at leastlead me into lands inhabited, so turning my face to the West, that Imight have light to survey as long as any gleamed in the sky, Itrudged on. But I went slow enough: Rosinante was lame; I like astranger to my body, it was so bruised and tumbled. 

The night was black, and a thin rain falling when at last I emergedfrom the interminable maze of lanes into which the wood-road had ledme. And glad I was to descry what seemed by the many lights shiningfrom its windows to be a populous village. A gay village also, forsong came wafted on the night air, rustic and convivial. 

Hereabouts I overtook a figure on foot, who, when I addressed him, turned on me as sharply as if he supposed the elms above him werethick with robbers, or that mine was a voice out of the unearthlyhailing him. 

I asked him the name of the village we were approaching. With smalldark eyes searching my face in the black shadow of night, he answeredin a voice so strange and guttural that I failed to understand a word. He shook his fingers in the air; pointed with the cudgel he carriedunder his arm now to the gloom behind us, now to the homely galaxybefore us, and gabbled on so fast and so earnestly that I began tosuppose he was a little crazed. 

One word, however, I caught at last from all this jargon, and thatoften repeated with a little bow to me, and an uneasy smile on hiswhite face--"Mishrush, Mishrush!" But whether by this he meant toconvey to me his habitual mood, or his own name, I did not learn tillafterwards. I stopped in the heavy road and raised my hand. 

"An inn, " I cried in his ear, "I want lodging, supper--a tavern, aninn!" as if addressing a child or a natural. 

He began gesticulating again, evidently vain of having fullyunderstood me. Indeed, he twisted his little head upon his shouldersto observe Rosinante gauntly labouring on. "'Ame!--'ame!" he criedwith a great effort. 

I nodded. 

"Ah!" he cried piteously. 

He led me, after a few minutes' journey, into the cobbled yard of abright-painted inn, on whose signboard a rising sun glimmered faintlygold, and these letters standing close above it--"The World's End. "

Mr. "Mishrush" seemed not a little relieved at nearing company afterhis lonely walk; triumphant, too, at having guided me hither socunningly. He lifted his nimble cudgel in the air and waved itconceitedly to and fro in time to the song that rose beyond thewindow. "Fau'ow er Wur'!--Fau'ow er Wur'!" he cried delightedly againand again in my ear, eager apparently for my approval. So we stood, then, beneath the starless sky, listening to the rich _choragium_ ofthe "World's End. " They sang in unison, sang with a kind of forlornheat and enthusiasm. And when the song was ended, and the roar ofapplause over, Night, like a darkened water whelmed silently in, engulfed it to the echo:

 Follow the World-- She bursts the grape, And dandles man In her green lap; She moulds her Creature From the clay, And crumbles him To dust away: Follow the World!

 One Draught, one Feast, One Wench, one Tomb; And thou must straight To ashes come: Drink, eat, and sleep; Why fret and pine? Death can but snatch What ne'er was thine: Follow the World!

It died away, I say, and an ostler softly appeared out of the shadow. Into his charge, then, I surrendered Rosinante, and followed myinarticulate acquaintance into the noise and heat and lustre of theInn. 

It was a numerous company there assembled. But their voices fell to aman on the entry of a stranger. They scrutinised me, not uncivilly, but closely, seeking my badge, as it were by which to recognise andjudge me ever after. 

Mr. Mistrust, as I presently discovered my guide's name indeed to be, was volubly explaining how I came into his company. They listenedintently to what, so far as I could gather, might be Houyhnhnmish orDouble-Dutch. And then, as if to show me to my place forthwith, agreat fleshy fellow that sat close beside the hearth this summerevening continued in a loud voice the conversation I had interrupted. 

Whereupon Mr. Mistrust with no little confidence commended me in dumbshow to the landlady of the Inn, a Mrs. Nature, if I understood himaright. This person was still comely, though of uncertain age, worecherry ribbons, smiled rather vacantly from vague, wonderful, indescribable eyes that seemed to change colour, like the chameleon, according to that they dwelt on. 

I am afraid, as much to my amusement as wonder, I discovered that thislandlady of so much apparent _bonhomie_ was a deaf-mute. If victuals, or drink, or bed were required, one must chalk it down on a littleslate she carried at her girdle for the purpose. Indeed, the absenceof two of her three chief senses had marvellously sharpened theremaining one. Her eyes were on all, vaguely dwelling, lightly gone, inscrutable, strangely fascinating. She moved easily and soundlessly(as fat women may), and I doubt if ever mug or pot of any of thattalkative throng remained long empty, except at the tippler'sreiterated request. 

She laid before me an excellent supper on a little table somewhatremoved beside a curtained window. And while I ate I watched, andlistened, not at all displeased with my entertainment. 

The room in which we sat was low-ceiled and cheerful, but ratherclose after the rainy night-air. Gay pictures beautified the walls. Here a bottle, a cheese, grapes, a hare, a goblet--in a clear brownlight that made the guest's mouth water to admire. Here a finegentleman toasting a simpering chambermaid. Above the chimney-piece abloated old man in vineleaves that might be Silenus. And over againstthe door of the parlour what I took to be a picture of Potiphar's wife, she looked out of the paint so bold and beauteous and craftily. Birdsand fishes in cases stared glassily, --owl and kestrel, jack and eeland gudgeon. All was clean and comfortable as a hospitable inn can be. 

But they who frequented it interested me much more--as various andanimated a gathering as any I have seen. Yet in some peculiar mannerthey seemed one and all not to the last tittle quite of this world. They were, so to speak, more earthy, too definite, too true to themould, like figures in a bleak, bright light viewed out of darkness. Certainly not one of them was at first blush prepossessing. Yet whofinds much amiss with the fox at last, though all he seems to have becunning?

Near beside me, however, sat retired a man a little younger and moreat his ease than most of the many there, and as busy with his eyes andears as I. His name, I learned presently, was Reverie; and from him Igathered not a little information regarding the persons who talked andsipped around us. 

He told me at whiles that his house was not in the village, but in avalley some few miles distant across the meadows; that he sat outthese bouts of argument and slander for the sheer delight he had ingathering the myriad strands of that strange rope Opinion; that helived (heart, soul, and hope) well-nigh alone; that he deeplymistrusted this place, and the company we were in, yet not for itsmistress's sake, who was at least faithful to her instincts, candid tothe candid, made no favourites, and, eventually, compelled order. Hetold me also that if friends he had, he deemed it wiser not to namethem, since the least sibilant of the sound of the voice incites totreachery; and in conclusion, that of all men he was acquainted with, one at least never failed to right his humour; and that one was yonderflabby, pallid fellow with the velvet collar to his coat, and therings on his fingers, and the gold hair, named Pliable, who sat besideMr. Stubborn on the settle by the fire. 

When, then, I had finished my supper, I drew in my chair a littlecloser to Mr. Reverie's and, having scribbled my wants on theLandlady's slate, turned my attention to the talk. 

At the moment when I first began to listen attentively they seemed tobe in heated dispute concerning the personal property of a certain Mr. Christian, who was either dead or had inexplicably disappeared. Mr. Obstinate, I gathered, had taken as his right this Christian's"easy-chair"; a gentleman named Smoothman most of his other goods fora debt; while a Parson Decorum had appropriated as heretical hisbooks and various peculiar MSS. 

But there now remained in question a trifling sum of money which a Mr. Liar loudly demanded in payment of an "affair of honour. " This, however, he seemed little likely to obtain, seeing that an elderlyuncle by marriage of Christian's, whose name was Office, was as eagerand affable and frank about the sum as he was bent on keeping it; andrattled the contents of his breeches' pocket in sheer bravado of hismeans to go to law for it. 

"He left a bare pittance, the merest pittance, " he said. "What couldthere be of any account? Christian despised money, professed todespise it. That alone would prove my wretched nephew queer in thehead--despised _money_!

"Tush, friend!" cried Obstinate from his corner. "Whether the money isyours, or neighbour Liar's--and it is as likely as not neither's--thattalk about despising money's what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sourgrapes--sour grapes. He had cunning enough for envy, and pride enoughfor shame; and at last there was naught but cunning left wherewith topatch up a clout for him and his shame to be gone in. I watched himset out on his pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and not agroat to call his own. "

"Yet I have heard say he came of a moneyed stock, " said Pliable. "TheSects of Privy Opinion were rare wealthy people, and they, so 'tissaid, were his kinsmen. Truth is, for aught I know, Christian musthave been in some degree a very liberal rascal, with all his faults. "He tittered. 

"Oh! he was liberal enough, " said Mr. Malice suavely: "why, even onsetting out, he emptied his wife's purse into a blind beggar'shat!--his that used to bleat, 'Cast thy bread--cast thy bread upon thewaters!' whensoever he spied Christian stepping along the street. Theysay, " he added, burying his clever face in his mug, "the HeavenlyJerusalem lieth down by the weir. "

"But we must not contemn a man for his poverty, neighbours, " saidLiar, gravely composing his hairless face. "Christian's was acharacter of beautiful simplicity--beautiful! _How_ many ricketychildren did he leave behind him?"

A shrill voice called somewhat I could not quite distinguish, for atthat moment a youth rose abruptly near by, and went hastily out. 

Obstinate stared roundly. "Thou hast a piercing voice, friend Liar!"

"I did but seek the truth, " said Liar. 

"But whether or no, Christian believed in it--verily he seemed tobelieve in it. Was it not so, neighbour Obstinate?" enquired Pliable, stroking his leg. 

"Believed in what, my friend?" said Obstinate, in a dull voice. 

"About Mount Zion, and the Crowns of Glory, and the Harps of Gold, andsuch like, " said Pliable uneasily--"at least, it is said so; so 'tis said. "

"Believed!" retorted a smooth young man who seemed to feel the heat, and sat by the staircase door. "That's an easy task--to believe, sir. Ask any pretty minikin!"

"And I'd make bold to enquire of yonder Liveloose, " said a thick, monotonous voice (a Mr. Dull's, so Reverie informed me), "if mebbe hebe referring to one of his own, or that fellow Sloth's devilish fairytales? I know one yet he'll eat again some day. "

At which remark all laughed consumedly, save Dull. 

"Well, one thing Christian had, and none can deny it, " said Pliable, alittle hotly, "and that was Imagination? _I_ shan't forget the taleshe was wont to tell: what say you, Superstition?"

Mr. Superstition lifted dark, rather vacant eyes on Pliable. "Yes, yes, " he said: "Flame, and sigh, and lamentation. My God, my God, gentlemen!"

"Oo-ay, Oo-ay, " yelped the voice of Mistrust, startled out of silence. 

"Oo-ay, " whistled Malice, under his breath. 

"Tush, tush!" broke in Obstinate again, and snapped his fingers in theair. "And what is this precious Imagination? Whither doth it conduct aman, but to beggary, infamy, and the mad-house? Look ye to it, friendPliable! 'Tis a devouring flame; give it but wind and leisure, thefairest house is ashes. "

"Ashes; ashes!" mocked one called Cruelty, who had more than oncetaken my attention with his peculiar contortions--"talking of ashes, what of Love-the-log Faithful, Master Tongue-stump? What ofLove-the-log Faithful?"

At which Liveloose was so extremely amused, the tears stood in hiseyes for laughing. 

I looked round for Mistrust, and easily recognised my friend by hishare-like face, and the rage in his little active eyes. Butunfortunately, as I turned to enquire somewhat of Reverie, Liveloosesuddenly paused in his merriment with open mouth; and the wholecompany heard my question, "But who was Love-the-log Faithful?"

I was at once again the centre of attention, and Mr. Obstinate rosevery laboriously from his settle and held out a great hand to me. 

"I'm pleased to meet thee, " he said, with a heavy bow. "There's a dearheart with my good neighbour Superstition yonder who will present avery fair account of that misguided young man. Madam Wanton, here's ayoung gentleman that never heard tell of our old friend Love-the-log. "

A shrill peal of laughter greeted this sally. 

"Why, Faithful was a young gentleman, sir, " explained the womancivilly enough, "who preferred his supper hot. "

"Oh, Madam Wanton, my dear, my dear!" cried a long-nosed woman nearlyhelpless with amusement. 

I saw Superstition gazing darkly at me. He shook his head as I wasabout to reply, so I changed my retort. "Who, then, was Mr. Christian?" I enquired simply. 

At that the house shook with the roar of laughter that went up. 

X

 ... _Large draughts of intellectual day. _

 --RICHARD CRASHAW. 

"Believe me, neighbours, " said Malice softly, when this uproar was alittle abated, "there is nought so strange in the question. It meanethonly that this young gentleman hath not enjoyed the pleasure of yourcompany before. Will it amaze you to learn, my friends, that Christianis like to be immortal only because you _talk_ him out of the grave?One brief epitaph, gentlemen, would let him rot. "

"Nay, but I'll tell the gentleman who Christian was, and withpleasure, " cried a lucid, rather sallow little man that had satquietly smiling and listening. "My name, let me tell you, is Atheist, sir; and Christian was formerly a very near neighbour of an old friendof my family's--Mr. Sceptic. They lived, sir--at least in thosedays--opposite to one another. "

"He is a great talker, " whispered Reverie in my ear. But the companyevidently found his talk to their taste. They sat as still andattentive around him, as though before an extemporary preacher. 

"Well, sir, " continued Atheist, "being, in a sense, neighbours, Christian in his youth would often confide in my friend; though, assuredly, Sceptic never sought his confidences. And it seemeth hebegan to be perturbed and troubled over the discovery that it isimpossible--at least in this plain world--to eat your cake, yet haveit. And by some ill chance he happened at this time on a mouldy oldfolio in my friend's house that had been the property of his maternalgrandmother--the subtlest old tome you ever set eyes on, thoughsomewhat too dark and extravagant and heady for a sober man of theworld like me. 'Twas called the Bible, sir--a collection of legendsand fables of all times, tongues, and countries threaded together, mighty ingeniously I grant, and in as plausible a style as any Iknow, if a little lax and flowery in parts. 

"Well, Christian borroweth the book of my friend--never to return it. And being feeble and credulous, partly by reason of his simple wits, and partly by reason of the sad condition a froward youth had reducedhim to, he accepts the whole book--from Apple to Vials--for truth. Infact, 'he ate the little book, ' as one of the legendary kings itcelebrates had done before him. "

"Ay, " broke in Cruelty wildly, "and has ever since gotten the gripes. "

Atheist inclined his head. "Putting it coarsely, gentlemen, such wasthe case, " he said. "And away at his wit's end he hasteneth, waningand shivering, to a great bog or quagmire--that my friend Pliable willanswer to--and plungeth in. 'Tis the same story repeated. He could betemperate in nought. _I_ knew the bog well; but I knew thestepping-stones better. Believe me, I have traversed the narrow waythis same Christian took, seeking the harps and pearls and the _elixirvitæ_, these many years past. The book inciteth ye to it. It sets aman's heart on fire--that's weak enough to read it--with its pomp, andrhetoric, and far-away promises, and lofty counsels. Oh, fine words, who is not their puppet! I climbed 'Difficulty. ' I snapped my fingersat the grinning Lions. I passed cautiously through the 'Valley of theShadow'--wild scenery, sir! I visited that prince of bubbles also, Giant Despair, in his draughty castle. And--though boasting be farfrom me!--fetched Liveloose's half-brother out of a certaincharnel-house near by. 

"_Thus far_, sir, I went. But I have not yet found the world so barrenof literature as to write a book about it. I have not yet found theworld so barren of ingratitude as to seek happiness by stabbing in theback every friend I ever had. I have not yet forsaken wife andchildren; neighbours and kinsmen; home, ease, and tenderness, for awhim, a dream, a passing qualm. No, sir; 'tis this Christian'signorant hardness-of-heart that is his bane. Knowing little, heprateth much. He would pinch and contract the Universe to his ownfantastical pattern. He is tedious, he is pragmatical, and--I affirmit in all sympathy and sorrow--he is crazed. Malice, haply, is alittle sharp at times. And neighbour Obstinate dealeth full weightwith his opinions. But this Christian Flown-to-Glory, as the urchinssay, pinks with a bludgeon. He cannot endure an honest doubt. Hedistorteth a mere difference of opinion into a roaring Tophet. Andbecause he is helpless, solitary, despised in the world; because he isimpotent to refute, and too stubborn to hear and suffer people alittle higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he--why, beyond thegrave he must set his hope in vengeance. Beyond the grave--bliss forhis own shade; fire and brimstone, eternal woe for theirs. Ay, and'tis not but for a season will he vex us, but for ever, and for ever, and for ever--if he knoweth in the least what he meaneth by thephrase. And this he calls 'Charity. '

"Yes, sirs, beyond the grave he would condemn us, beyond the grave--aplace of peace whereto I deem there are not many here but will becontent at length to come; and I not least content, when my duty isdone, my children provided for, and my last suspicion of fear andfolly suppressed. 

"To conclude, sir--and beshrew me, gentlemen, how time doth fly intalk!--this Christian goeth his way. We, each in accord with hiscaprice and conscience, go ours. We envy him not his vapours, histerrors, or his shameless greed of reward. Why, then, doth he envy usour wealth, our success, our gaiety, our content? He raves. He ishaunted. What is man but as grass, and the flower of grass? Come thesickle, he is clean gone. I can but repeat it, sir, our poor neighbourwas crazed: 'tis Christian in a word. "

A sigh, a murmur of satisfaction and relief, rose from the company, asif one and all had escaped by Mr. Atheist's lucidity out of a veryreal peril. 

I thanked him for his courtesy, and in some confusion turned toReverie with the remark that I thought I now recollected to have heardChristian's name, but understood he had indeed arrived, at last, atthe Celestial City for which he had set out. 

"Celestial twaddle, sir!" cried Mr. Obstinate hoarsely. "He wentstark, staring mad, and now is dust, as we shall soon all be, that'scertain. "

Then Cruelty rose out of his chair and elbowed his way to the door. Heopened it and looked out. 

"I would, " he said, "I had known of this Christian before he started. Step you down to Vanity Fair, Sir Stranger, if the mood take you; andwe'll show you as pretty a persuasion against pilgrimage as ever yousaw. " He opened his mouth where he stood between me and the stars. "... There's many more!" he added with difficulty, as if his rage wastoo much for him. He spat into the air and went out. 

Presently after Liveloose rose up, smiling softly, and groped afterhim. 

A little silence followed their departure. 

"You must tell your friend, Mr. Reverie, " said Atheistgood-humouredly, "that Mr. Cruelty says more than he means. To my mindhe is mistaken--too energetic; but his intentions are good. "

"He's a staunch, dependable fellow, " said Obstinate, patting down thewide cuffs he wore. 

But even at that moment a stranger softly entered the inn out of thenight. His face was of the grey of ashes, and he looked once round onus all with a still, appalling glance that silenced the words on mylips. 

We sat without speech--Obstinate yawning, Atheist smiling lightly, Superstition nibbling his nails, Reverie with chin drawn a littleback, Pliable bolt upright, like a green and white wand, Mistrustblinking his little thin lids; but all with eyes fixed on thisstranger, who deemed himself, it seemed, among friends. 

He turned his back on us and sipped his drink under the heedless, deep, untroubled gaze of Mrs. Nature, and passed out softly andharmlessly as he had come in. 

Reverie stood up like a man surprised and ill at ease. He turned tome. "I know him only by repute, by hearsay, " he said with an effort. "He is a stranger to us all, indeed, sir--to all. "

Obstinate, with a very flushed face, thrust his hand into hisbreeches' pocket. "Nay, sir, " he said, "my purse is yet here. Whatmore would you have?"

At which Pliable laughed, turning to the women. 

I put on my hat and followed Reverie to the door. 

"Excuse me, sir, " I said, "but I have no desire to stay in this houseover-night. And if you would kindly direct me to the nearest way outof the village, I will have my horse saddled now and be off. "

And then I noticed that Superstition stood in the light of the doorwaylooking down on us. 

"There's Christian's way, " he said, as if involuntarily.... 

"Lodge with me to-night, " Reverie answered, "and in the morning youshall choose which way to go you will. "

I thanked him heartily and turned in to find Rosinante. 

The night was now fine, but moist and sultry, and misty in thedistance. It was late, too, for few candles gleamed beneath themoonlight from the windows round about the smooth village-green. Evenas we set out, I leading Rosinante by her bridle, and Superstition onmy left hand, out of heavenly Leo a bright star wheeled, fading as itfell. And soon high hedges hid utterly the "World's End" behind us, out of sight and sound. 

I observed when the trees had laid their burdened branches overhead, and the thick-flowered bushes begun to straiten our way, that this Mr. Superstition who had desired to accompany us was of a very differentcourage from that his manner at the inn seemed to profess. 

He walked with almost as much caution and ungainliness as Mistrust, his deep and shining eyes busily searching the gloom to left and rightof him. Indeed, those same dark eyes of his reminded me not a littleof Mrs. Nature's, they were so full of what they could not tell. 

He was on foot; my new friend Reverie, like myself, led his horse, apale, lovely creature with delicate nostrils and deep-smoulderingeyes. 

"You must think me very bold to force my company on you, " saidSuperstition awkwardly, turning to Reverie, "but my house is never somute with horror as in these moody summer nights when thunder is inthe air. See there!" he cried. 

As if the distant sky had opened, the large, bright, harmlesslightning quivered and was gone, revealing on the opposing hillsforest above forest unutterably dark and still. 

"Surely, " I said, "that is not the way Christian took?"

"They say, " Reverie answered, "the Valley of the Shadow of Death liesbetween those hills. "

"But Atheist, " I said, "_that_ acid little man, did he indeed walkthere alone?"

"I have heard, " muttered Superstition, putting out his hand, "'tisfear only that maketh afraid. Atheist has no fear. "

"But what of Cruelty, " I said, "and Liveloose?"

"Why, " answered Superstition, "Cruelty works cunningest when he isafraid; and Liveloose never talks about himself. None the less there'snot a tree but casts a shadow. I met once an earnest yet very popularyoung gentleman of the name of Science, who explained almosteverything on earth to me so clearly, and patiently, and fatherly, Ithought I should evermore sleep in peace. But we met at noon. Believeme, sir, I would have followed Christian and his friend Hopeful verywillingly long since; for as for Cruelty and Obstinate and all thatclumsy rabble, I heed them not. Indeed my cousin Mistrust _did_ go, and as you see returned with a caution; and a poor young school-fellowof mine, Jack Ignorance, came to an awful end. But it is because I owepartly to Christian and not all to myself this horrible solitude inwhich I walk that I dare not risk a deeper. It would be, I feel sure. And so I very willingly beheld Faithful burned; it restored myconfidence. And here, sir, " he added, almost with gaiety, "lives myfriend Mrs. Simple, a widow. She enjoys my company and my old fables, and we keep the blinds down against these mountains, and candlesburning against the brighter lightnings. "

So saying, Superstition bade us good-night and passed down a littleby-lane on our left towards a country cottage, like a dreaming bowerof roses beneath the moon. 

But Reverie and I continued on as if the moon herself as patientlypursued us. And by-and-by we came to a house called Gloom, whosegardens slope down with plashing fountains and glimmering banks offlowers into the shadow and stillness of a broad valley, named beneaththe hills of Silence, Peace. 

XI

 _His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung. _

 --JOHN KEATS. 

Even as we entered the gates of Mr. Reverie's house beneath emboweringchestnuts, there advanced across the moonlit spaces to meet us afigure on foot like ourselves, leading his horse. He was in armour, yet unarmed. His steel glittered cold and blue; his fingers hungungauntleted; and on his pale face dwelt a look never happy warriorwore yet. He seemed a man Mars lends to Venus out of war to unhappyidleness. The disillusionment of age was in his face: yet he wasyouthful, I suppose; scarce older than Mercutio, and once, perhaps, aslight of wit. 

He took my hand in a grasp cold and listless, and smiled frommirthless eyes. 

Yet there was something strangely taking in this solitaryknight-at-arms. She for whom he does not fight, I thought, must havesomewhat of the immortals to grace her warrior with. And if it wereonly shadows that beset him and obscured his finer heart, shadows theywere of myrtle and rhododendron, with voices shrill and small as thesparrows', and eyes of the next-to-morning stars. 

Indeed, these gardens whispered, and the wind at play in the airseemed to bear far-away music, dying and falling. 

We entered the house and sat down to supper in a low room open to thenight. Reverie recounted our evening's talk. "I wish, " he said, turning to his friend, "you would accompany Mr. Brocken and me onenight to the 'World's End' to hear these fellows talk. Such arrogance, such assurance, such bigotry and blindness and foxiness!--yet, on myword, a kind of gravity with it all, as if the scarecrows had somereal interest in the devil's tares they guard. Come now, let it be abargain between us, and leave this endless search awhile. "

But the solitary knight shook his head. "They would jeer me out ofknowledge, " he said. "Why, Reverie, the children cease their playwhen I pass, and draw their tops and marbles out of the dust, and gazetill I am hid from sight. "

"It is fancy, only fancy, " replied Reverie; "children stare at allthings new to them in the world. How else could they recognise andlearn again--how else forget? But as for this rabble's mockery, thereis a she-bear left called Oblivion which is their mistress, and willsome day silence every jeer. "

The solitary knight shook his head again, eyeing me solemnly as if inhope to discern in my face the sorcery that held himself in thrall. 

The few wax tapers gave but light enough to find the way from gobletto mouth. As for Reverie's wine, I ask no other, for it had thepoppy's scarlet, and overcame weariness so subtly I almost forgotthese were the hours of sleep we spent in waking; forgot, too, as ifof the lotus, all thought of effort and hope. 

After all, thought I as I sipped, effort is the flaw that proves menmortal; while as for hope, who would seek a seed that floats on everywind and smothers the world with weeds that bear no fruit? It was, infact, fare very different from the ale and cheese of the "World's End. "

"But you yourself, " I said to Mr. Reverie presently; "in all the talkat the inn you kept a very scrupulous silence--discreet enough, I own. But now, what truly _was_ this Christian of whom we heard so much? andwhy, may I ask, do his neighbours slander the dead? You yourselves, did you ever meet with him?" I turned from one to the other of mycompanions as they glanced uneasily each at each. 

"Well, sir, " said Reverie rather deliberately, "I have met him andtalked with him. I often think of him, in spite of myself. Yet he wasa man of little charm. He certainly had a remarkable gift forestranging his friends. He was a foe to the most innocent compromise. For myself, I found not much humour in him, no eye for grace or art, and a limited imagination that was yet his absolute master. Nevertheless, as you hint, these fellows, no more than I, can forgethim. Nor you?" He turned to the other. 

"Christian, " he replied, "I remember him. We were friends a littlewhile. Faithful I knew also. Faithful was to the last my friend. Ah!Reverie, then--how many years ago!--there was a child we loved, allthree: do you remember? I see the low, green wall, cool from how manya summer's shadows, the clusters of green apples on the bough. And inthe early morning we would go, carrying torn-off branches, andshouting our songs through the fields, till we came to the shadow andthe hush of the woods. Ay, Reverie, and we would burst in on silence, each his heart beating, and play there. And perhaps it was Hopeful whowould steal away from us, and the others play on; or perhaps you intothe sunlight that maddened the sheltered bird to flit and sing in theorchard where the little child we loved played--not yet sad, but howmuch beloved; not yet weary of passing shadows, and simple creatures, and boy's rough gifts and cold hands. But I--with me it was everevening, when the blackbird bursts harshly away. Then it was so stillin the orchard, and in the curved bough so solitary, that thenightingale, cowering, would almost for fear begin to sing, and stoopto the bending of the bough, her sidelong eyes in shade; while thestars began to stand in the stations above us, ever bright, and allthe night was peace. Then would I dream on--dream of the face I loved, Innocence, O Innocence!"

It was a strange outburst. His voice rose almost to a chant, full of aforlorn music. But even as he ceased, we heard in the followingsilence, above the plashing of the restless fountains, beyond, far andfaint, a wild and stranger music welling. And I saw from the porchthat looks out from the house called Gloom, "La belle Dame sans Merci"pass riding with her train, who rides in beauty beneath the huntress, heedless of disguise. Across from far away, like leaves of autumn, skirred the dappled deer. The music grew, timbrel and pipe and tabor, as beneath the glances of the moon the little company sped, transientas a rainbow, elusive as a dream. I saw her maidens bound andsandalled, with all their everlasting flowers; and advancingsoundless, unreal, the silver wheels of that unearthly chariot amidthe Fauns. On, on they gamboled, hoof in yielding turf, blowing reedmelodies, mocking water, their lips laid sidelong, their eyes aleeralong the smoothness of their flutes. 

And when I turned again to my companions, with I know not what oldfolly in my eyes, I know not what unanswerable cry in my heart, Reverie alone was at my side. I seemed to see the long fringes of thelake, the sedge withered, the grey waters restless in the bonds of thewind, tuneless and chill; all these happy gardens swept bare andflowerless; and the far hills silent in the unattainable dawn. 

"She pipes, he follows, " said Reverie; "she sets the tune, he dances. Yet, sir, on my soul, I believe it is the childish face of that sameInnocence we kept tryst with long ago he pursues on and on, throughwhat sad labyrinths we, who dream not so wildly, cannot by takingthought come to guess. "

 * * * * *

The next two days passed serenely and quietly at Reverie's. We readtogether, rode, walked, and talked together, and listened in theevening to music. For a sister of Reverie's lived not far distant, whovisited him while I was there, and took supper with us, delighting uswith her wit and spirit and her youthful voice. 

But though Reverie more than once suggested it, I could not bringmyself to return to the "World's End" and its garrulous company. Whether it was the moist, grey face of Mr. Cruelty I most abhorred, orStubborn's slug-like eye, or the tongue-stump of my afflicted guide, Icannot say. 

Moreover, I had begun to feel a very keen curiosity to see the waythat had lured Christian on with such graceless obstinacy. They hadspoken of remorse, poverty, pride, world-failure, even insanity, evenvice: but these appeared to me only such things as might fret a man toset violently out on, not to persist in such a course; or likelieryet, to abandon hope, to turn back from heights that trouble orconfusion set so far, and made seem dreams. 

How could I help, too, being amused to think how vastly strange thesefellows considered a man's venturing whither his star beckoned; thoughthat star were only power, only fame, only beauty, only peace? Whatwonder they were many?

Not far from this place, Reverie informed me, were pitched the boothsof Vanity Fair. This, by his account, was a place one ought to visit, if only for the satisfaction of leaving it behind. But I have heardmore animated accounts of it elsewhere. 

As for Reverie himself, he seemed only desirous to contemplate; neverto taste, to win, or to handle. He needed but refuse reality to whatshocked or teased him, to find it harmless and entertaining. He was adreamer whom the heat and shout of battle could not offend. 

Perhaps he perceived my restlessness to be gone, for he himselfsuggested that I should stay till the next morning, and then, if I sopleased, he would see me a mile or two on my way. 

"For the Pitiless Lady, " he said, smiling, "takes many disguises, sometimes of the sun, sometimes of evening, sometimes of night; and Iwould at least save you from the fate that has made my poor friend aphantom before he is a shade. "

XII

 _The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie. _

 --S. T. Coleridge. 

So Reverie, as he had promised, rode out with me a few miles to see meon my way. Above the gloom and stillness of the valley the scene beganto change again. I was glad as I could be to view once more thetossing cornfields and the wind at play with shadow. Near and far, woods and pastures smoked beneath the sun. I know not through how manyarches of the elms and green folds of the meadows I kept watch on thechimneys of a farmhouse above its trees. 

But Reverie, the further we journeyed, the less he said. I almostchafed to see his heedless eyes turned upon some inward dream, whilehere, like life itself, stood cloud and oak, warbled bird and brookbeneath the burning sun. I saw again in memory the silver twilight ofthe moon, and the crazy face of Love's Warrior, haunter of shade. Lethim but venture into the open, I thought, hear again the distantlowing of the oxen, the rooks cawing in the elms, see again the flocksupon the hillside!

I suppose this was her home my heart had turned to. This was my dust;night's was his. For me the wild rose and the fields of harvest; forhim closed petals, the chantry of the night wind, phantom lutes andvoices. And, as if he had overheard my thoughts, Reverie turned at thecross-ways. 

"You will come back again, " he said. "They tell me in distant landsmen worship Time, set up a shrine to him in every street, and treasurehis emblem next their hearts. There, they say, even the lover babblesof hours, and the dreamer measures sleep with a pendulum. Well, myhouse is secluded, and the world is far; and to me Time is naught. Return, sir, then, when it pleases you. Besides, " he added, smilingfaintly, "there is always company at the World's End. "

The crisp sunbeams rained upon his pale and delicate horse, itsequal-plaited mane, on the darkness of his cloak, that dream-delightedface. Here smouldered gold, here flushed crimson, and here the curveddamaskening of his bridle glistened and gleamed. He was a strangevisitant to the open day, between the green hedges, beneath theenormous branching of the elms. And there I bade him farewell. 

Some day, perhaps, I shall return as he has foretold, for it is evereasy to find again the house of Reverie--to them who have learned theway. 

On I journeyed, then, following as I had been directed the main roadto Vanity Fair. But whether it is that the Fair is more difficult toarrive at than to depart from, or is really a hard day's journey evenfrom the gay parlour of the World's End, it already began to beevening, and yet no sign of bunting or booth or clamour or smoke. 

And it was at length to a noiseless Fair, far from all vanity, that Icame at sunset--the cypresses of a solitary graveyard. I was tired outand desired only rest; so dismounting and leading Rosinante, I turnedaside willingly into its peace. 

It seemed I had entered a new earth. The lane above had wandered on inthe gloaming of its hedges and over-arching trees. Here, all theclouds of sunset stood, caught up in burning gold. Even as I paused, dazzled a moment by the sudden radiance, from height to height thewild bright rose of evening ran. Not a tottering stone, black, well-nigh shapeless with age, not a green bush, but seemed to dwellunconsumed in its own fire above this desolate ground. The trees thatgrew around me--willow and yew, thorn and poplar--were but flamingcages for the wild birds that perched in their branches. 

Above these sound-dulled mansions trod lightly, as if of thought, Rosinante's gilded shoes. I wandered on in a strange elation of mind, filled with a desperate desire ever to remember how flamed this rosebetween earth and sky, how throbbed this jargon of delight. Andturning as if in hope to share my enthusiasm, a childish peal oflaughter showed me I was not alone. 

Beneath a canopy of holly branches and yew two children sat playing. The nearer child's hair was golden, glistening round his face ofroses, and he it was who had laughed, tumbling on the sward. But theface of the further child was white almost as crystal, and the darkhair that encircled his head with its curved lines seemed as it werethe shadow of the gold it showed beside. These children, it was plain, had been running and playing across the tombs; but now they werestooping together at some earnest sport. To me, even if they had seenme, they as yet paid no heed. 

I passed slowly towards them, deeming them at first of solitude'screation, my eyes dazzled so with the sun. But as I approached, so thebranches beneath which they played gradually disparted, and I saw notfar distant from them one sitting who evidently had these jocund boysin charge. 

I could not but hesitate awhile as I surveyed them. These were nomortal children playing naked amid the rose of evening: nor she whosat veiled and beautiful beneath the ruinous tombs. I turned withsudden dismay to depart from their presence unobserved as I hadentered; but the children had now espied me, and came running, filledwith wonder of Rosinante and the stranger beside her. 

They stayed at a little distance from us with dwelling eyes and partedlips. Then the fairer and, as it seemed to me, elder of the brothersstooped and plucked a few blades of grass and proffered them, halffearfully, to the beast that amazed him. But the other gave less heedto Rosinante, fixed the filmy lustre of his eyes on me, his wonderfulyoung face veiled with that wisdom which is in all children, and of animmutable gravity. 

But by this time, she who it seemed had the charge of these childrenhad followed them with her eyes. To her then, leaving Rosinante in anecstasy of timidity before such god-like boys, I addressed myself. 

So might a traveller lost beneath strange stars address unansweringNight. She, however, raised a compassionate face to me and listenedwith happy seriousness as to a child returned in safety at eveningfrom some foolhardy venture. Yet there seemed only a deeperyouthfulness in her face for all its eternity of brooding on herbeauteous children. Narrow leaves of olive formed her chaplet. Thedarker wine-colours of the sea changed in her eyes. There was no senseof gloom or sorrowfulness in her company. I began to see how the samestill breast might bear celestial children so diverse as these, whosenames, she told me presently, were Sleep and Death. 

I looked at the two children at play, "Ah! now, " I said, almostinvoluntarily "the golden boy who has caught my horse's bridle in hishand, is not he Sleep? and he who considers his brother'sboldness--that one is Death?"

She smiled with lovely vanity, and told me how strange of heart youngchildren are. How they will alter and vary, never the same for longtogether, but led by indiscoverable caprices and obedient to somefurther will. She smiled and said how that sometimes, when the birdshush suddenly from song, Sleep would creep tenderly and sadly to herknees, and Death clasp her roguishly, as if in some secret with thebeams of morning. So would they change, one to the likeness of theother. But Sleep was, perhaps, of the gentler disposition; a littleobstinate and headstrong; at times, indeed, beyond all cajolery; yetvery sweet of impulse and ardent to make amends. But Death's capricesbaffled even her. He seemed now so pitiless and unlovely of heart; andnow, as if possessed, passionate and swift; and now would break awayburning from her arms in an infinite tenderness. 

But best she loved them when there came a transient peace to both; andlooking upon them laid embraced in the shadow-casting moonbeam, noteven she could undoubtingly touch the brow of each beneath theirlikened hair, and say this is the elder, and this the dreamlessyounger of the boys. 

Seeing, too, my eyes cast upon the undecipherable letters of the tombby which we sat, she told me how that once, near before dawn, she hadawoke in the twilight to find their places empty where the childrenhad lain at her side, and had sought on, at last to find them evenhere, weeping and quarrelling, and red with anger. Little by little, and with many tears, she had gleaned the cause of their quarrel--howthat, like very children, they had run a race at cockcrow, and allthese stones and the slender bones and ashes beneath to be the prize;and how that, running, both had come together to the goal set, andboth had claimed the victory. 

"Yet both seem happy now to share it, " I said, "or how else were theycomforted?" Nor did I consider before she told me that they will runagain when they be grown men, Sleep and Death, in just such a thickdarkness before dawn; and one called Love will then run with them, whois very vehement and fleet of foot, and never turns aside, norfalters. He who then shall win may ask a different prize. For truth totell, she said, only children can find delight for long in dust andruin. 

At that moment Death himself came hastening to his mother, and, takingher hand, turned to the enormous picture of the skies as if in somefaint apprehension. But Sleep saw nothing amiss, lay at full lengthamong the "cool-rooted flowers, " while Rosinante grazed beside him. 

I told her also, in turn, of my journey; and that although transient, or everlasting, solace of all restlessness and sorrow and too-wildhappiness may be found in them, yet men think not often on thesedivine children. 

"As for this one, " I said, looking down into the pathless beauty ofDeath's grey eyes, "some fear, some mock, some despise him; someviolently, some without complaint pursue; most men would altogetherdismiss, and forget him. He is but a child, no older than the sea, nostranger than the mountains, pure and cold as the water-springs. Yetto the bolster of fever his vision flits; and pain drags a heavy netto snare him; and silence is his echoing gallery; and the gold ofSleep his final veil. They shall play on; and see, lady, flame hasleft the clouds; the birds are at rest. The earth breathes in, and itis day; and exhales her breath, and it is night. Let them then playsecret and innocent between her breasts, comfort her with silenceabove the tempest of her heart.... But I!--what am I?--a traveller, footsore and far. "

And then it was that I became conscious of a warm, sly, youthful handin mine, and turned, half in dread, to see only happy Sleep laughingunder his glistening hair into my eyes. I strove in vain against hissorcery; rolled foolish orbs on that pure, starry face; and then Ismelled as it were rain, and heard as it were tempestuousforest-trees--fell asleep among the tombs. 

XIII

 _I warmed both hands before the fire of life. _

 --WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 

Surely some hueless poppy blossomed in the darkness of those ruins, orthe soulless ashes of the dead breathe out a drowsy influence. Neverhave I slept so heavily, yet never perhaps beneath so cold a tester. Sunbeams streaming between the crests of the cypresses awoke me. Ileapt up as if a hundred sentinels had shouted--where none keptvisible watch. 

An odour of a languid sweetness pervaded the air. There was no wind tostir the dew-besprinkled trees. The old, scarred gravestones stood ina thick sunshine, afloat with bees. But Rosinante had preferred tosurvey sunshine out of shade. In lush grass I found her, the pictureof age, foot crook'd, and head dejected. 

Yet she followed me uncomplaining along these narrow avenues ofsilence, and without more ado turned her trivial tail on Death and hisdim flocks, and well-nigh scampered me off into the vivid morning. Soon afterwards, with Hunger in the saddle, we began to climb a roadalmost precipitous, and stony in the extreme. Often enough we breathedourselves as best we could in the still, sultry air, and rested on thesun-dappled slopes. But at length we came out upon the crest, andsurveyed in the first splendour of day a region of extraordinarygrandeur. 

Beneath a clear sky to the east stood a range of mountains, cold andchangeless beneath their snows. At my feet a great river flowed, broken here and there with isles in the bright flood. The darkchampaign that flanked its shores was of an unusual verdure. Mysteryand peril brooded on those distant ravines, the vapours of theirfar-descending cataracts. In such abysmal fastnesses as these theHyrcan tiger might hide his surly generations. This was an air for thesun-disdaining eagle, a country of transcendent brightness, itsflowers strangely pure and perfect, its waters more limpid, itsgrazing herds, its birds, its cedar trees, the masters of their kind. 

Yet not on these nearer glories my eyes found rest. But, with a kindof heartache, I gazed, as it were towards home, upon the distantwaters of the sea. Here, on the crest of this green hill, was silence. There, too, was profounder silence on the sea's untrampled floor. Whence comes that angel out of nought whispering into the ear strangesyllables? I know not; but so seemed I to stand--a shatteredinstrument in the world, past all true music, o'er which none the lessthe invisible lute-master stooped. Could I but catch, could I but inwords express the music his bent fingers intended, the mystery, thepeace--well; then I should indeed journey solitary on the face of theearth, a changeling in its cities. 

I half feared to descend into a country so diverse from any I had yetseen. Hitherto at least I had encountered little else thanfriendliness. But here--doves in eyries! I stood, twisting my fingersin Rosinante's mane, debating and debating. And she turned her face tome, and looked with age into my eyes: and I know not how woke couragein me again. 

"On then?" I said, on the height. And the gentle beast leaned forwardand coughed into the valley what might indeed be "Yea!"

So we began to descend. Down we went, alone, yet not unhappy, until ina while I discovered, about a hundred yards in advance of me, anothertraveller on the road, ambling easily along at an equal pace withmine. I know not how far I followed in his track debating whether toovertake and to accost him, or to follow on till a more favourablechance offered. 

But Chance--avenger of all shilly-shally--settled the matter offhand. For my traveller, after casting one comprehensive glance towards theskies, suddenly whisked off at a canter that quickly carried him outof sight. 

A chill wind had begun to blow, lifting in gusts dust into the air andwhitening the tree-tops. As suddenly, calm succeeded. A cloud offlies droned fretfully about my ears. And I watched advancing, league-high, transfigured with sunbeams, the enormous gloom of storm. The sun smote from a silvery haze upon its peaks and gorges. Wind, farabove the earth, moaned, and fell; only to sound once more in thedistance in a mournful trumpeting. Lightnings played along thedesolate hills. The sun was darkened. A vast flight of snowy, arrow-winged birds streamed voiceless beneath his place. And daywithdrew its boundaries, spread to the nearer forests a brightamphitheatre, fitful with light, whereof it seemed to me Rosinantewith her poor burden was the centre and the butt. I confess I began todread lest even my mere surmise of danger should engage the piercinglightnings; as if in the mystery of life storm and a timorous thoughtmight yet be of a kin. 

We hastened on at the most pathetic of gallops. Nor seemed indeed thebeauteous lightning to regard at all that restless mote upon thecirque of its entranced fairness. In an instantaneous silence I hearda tiny beat of hoofs; in instantaneous gloom recognised almost withastonishment my own shape bowed upon the saddle. It was a majesticentry into a kingdom so far-famed. 

The storm showed no abatement when at last I found shelter. From faraway I had espied in the immeasurable glare a country barn beneathtrees. Arrived there, I almost fell off my horse into as incongruousand lighthearted a company as ever was seen. 

In the midst of the floor of the barn, upon a heap of hay, sat a foolin motley blowing with all his wind into a pipe. It was a cunning tunehe played too, rich and heady. And so seemed the company to find it, dancers--some thirty or more--capering round him with all the abandonheart can feel and heel can answer to. As for pose, he whose horse nowstood smoking beside my own first drew my attention--a smooth, small-bearded, solemn man, a little beyond his prime. He lifted histoes with such inimitable agility, postured his fingers so daintily, conducted his melon-belly with so much elegance, and exhaled such awarm joy in the sport that I could look at nothing else at first fordelight in him. 

But there were slim maids too among the plumper and ruddier, likecrocuses, like lilac, like whey, with all their fragrance andfreshness and lightness. Such eyes adazzle dancing with mine, suchnimble and discreet ankles, such gimp English middles, and such a gaydelight in the mere grace of the lilting and tripping beneath raftersringing loud with thunder, that Pan himself might skip across ahundred furrows for sheer envy to witness. 

As for the jolly rustics that were jogging their wits away with suchdelightful gravity, but little time was given me to admire them ere Ialso was snatched into the ring, and found brown eyes dwelling withmine, and a hand like lettuces in the dog-days. Round and about weskipped in the golden straw, amidst treasuries of hay, puffing andspinning. And the quiet lightnings quivered between the beams, andthe monstrous "Ah!" of the thunder submerged the pipe's sweetness. Till at last all began to gasp and blow indeed, and the nodding Foolto sip, and sip, as if _in extremis_ over his mouthpiece. Then werested awhile, with a medley of shrill laughter and guffaws, while therain streamed lightning-lit upon the trees and tore the clouds totatters. 

With some little circumstance my traveller picked his way to me, andwith a grave civility bowed me a sort of general welcome. Whereuponensued such wit and banter as made me thankful when the openingimpudence of a kind of jig set the heels and the petticoats of thecompany tossing once more. We danced the lightning out, and piped thethunder from the skies. And by then I was so faint with fasting, andso deep in love with at least five young country faces, that Iscarcely knew head from heels; still less, when a long draught of akind of thin, sweet ale had mounted to its sphere. 

Away we all trooped over the flashing fields, noisy as jays in thefresh, sweet air, some to their mowing, some to their milking, butmore, indeed, I truly suspect, to that exquisite _Nirvana_ from whichthe tempest's travail had aroused them. I waved my hand, striving invain to keep my eyes on one blest, beguiling face of all that glancedbehind them. But, she gone, I turned into the rainy lane once morewith my new acquaintance, discreeter, but not less giddy, it seemed, than I. 

We had not far to go--past a meadow or two, a low green wall, a blackfish-pool--and soon the tumbledown gables of a house came into view. My companion waved his open fingers at the crooked casements andpeered into my face. 

"Ah!" he said, "we will talk, we will talk, you and I: I view it inyour eye, sir--clear and full and profound--such ever goes witheloquence. 'Tis my delight. What are we else than beasts?--beasts thatperish? I never tire; I never weary;--give me to dance and to sing, but ever to talk: then am I at ease. Heaven is just. Enter, sir--enter!"

He led me by a shady alley into his orchard, and thence to a stable, where we left Rosinante at hob-a-nob with his mare over a friendlybottle of hay. And we ourselves passed into the house, and ascended astaircase into an upper chamber. This chamber was raftered, its wallshung with an obscure tapestry, its floor strewn with sand, and itslozenged casement partly shuttered against the blaze of sunshine thatflowed across the forests far away to the west. 

My friend eyed me brightly and busily as a starling. "You danced fine, sir, " he said. "Oh! it is a _pleasure_ to me. Ay, and now I come toconsider it, methought I did hear hoofs behind me that might yet beecho. No, but I did _not_ think: 'twas but my ear cried to hisdreaming master. Ever dreaming; God help at last the awakening! Butwell met, well met, I say again. I am cheered. And you but just intime! Nay, I would not have missed him for a ransom. So--so--this leg, that leg; up now--hands over down we go! Lackaday, I am old bones forsuch freaks. Once!... '_Memento mori_!' say I, and smell the showerthe sweeter for it. Be seated, sir, bench or stool, wheresoever you'dbe. You're looking peaked. That burden rings in my skull like abagpipe. Toot-a-tootie, toot-a-toot! Och, sad days!"

We devoured our meal of cold meats and pickled fish, fruit and junketand a kind of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. And copiouswas the thin spicy wine with which we swam it home. Ever and again myhost would desist, to whistle, or croon (with a packed mouth) in thedismallest of tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had danced to, bobbing head and foot in sternest time. Then a great vacancy wouldoverspread his face turned to the window, as suddenly to gather to acheerful smile, and light, irradiated, once more on me. Then downwould drop his chin over his plate, and away go finger and spoon amonghis victuals in a dance as brisk and whole-hearted as the other. 

He took me out again into his garden after supper, and we walkedbeneath the trees. 

"'Tis bliss to be a bachelor, sir, " he said, gazing on the resinoustrunk of an old damson tree. "I gorge, I guzzle; I am merry, ammelancholy; studious, harmonical, drowsy, --and none to scoldor deny me. For the rest, why, youth is vain: yet youth hadpleasure--innocence and delight. I chew the cud of many a peacefulacre. Ay, I have nibbled roses in my time. But now, what now? I havelived so long far from courts and courtesy, grace and fashion, and amso much my own close and indifferent friend--Why! he is happy who hassolitude for housemate, company for guest. I say it, I say it; I marrydaily wives of memory's fashioning, and dream at peace. "

It seemed an old bone he picked with Destiny. 

"There's much to be said, " I replied as profoundly as I could. 

The air he now lulled youth asleep with was a very cheerlessthrenody, but he brightened once more at praise of his delightfulorchard. 

"You like it, sir? You speak kindly, sir. It is my all; root andbranch: how many a summer's moons have I seen shine hereon! I knowit--there is bliss to come;--miraculous Paradise for men even dull asI. Yet 'twill be strange to me--without my house and orchard. Agetends to earth, sir, till even an odour may awake the dead--a branchin the air call with its fluttering a face beyond Time to vanquishdear. 'Soul, soul, ' I cry, 'forget thy dust, forget thy vauntingashes!'--and speak in vain. So's life!"

And when we had gone in again, and candles had been lit in his freshand narrow chamber, seeing a viol upon a chest, I begged a littlemusic. 

He quite eagerly, with a boyish peal of laughter, complied; and satdown with a very solemn face, his brows uplifted, and sang between thecandles to a pathetic air this doggerel:--

 There's a dark tree and a sad tree, Where sweet Alice waits, unheeded, For her lover long-time absent, Plucking rushes by the river. 

 Let the bird sing, let the buck sport, Let the sun sink to his setting; Not one star that stands in darkness Shines upon her absent lover. 

 But his stone lies 'neath the dark tree, Cold to bosom, deaf to weeping; And 'tis gathering moss she touches, Where the locks lay of her lover. 

"A dolesome thing, " he said; "but my mother was wont to sing it to thevirginals. 'Cold to bosom, '" he reiterated with a plangent cadence; "Iremember them all, sir; from the cradle I had a gift for music. " Andthen, with an ample flirt of his bow, he broke, all beams and smiles, into this ingenuous ditty:

 The goodman said, "'Tis time for bed, Come, mistress, get us quick to pray; Call in the maids From out the glades Where they with lovers stray, With love, and love do stray. "

 "Nay, master mine, The night is fine, And time's enough all dark to pray; 'Tis April buds Bedeck the woods Where simple maids away With love, and love do stray. 

 "Now we are old, And nigh the mould, 'Tis meet on feeble knees to pray; When once we'd roam, 'Twas else cried, 'Come, And sigh the dusk away, With love, and love to stray. '"

 So they gat in To pray till nine; Then called, "Come maids, true maids, away! Kiss and begone, Ha' done, ha' done, Until another day With love, and love to stray!"

 Oh, it were best If so to rest Went man and maid in peace away! The throes a heart May make to smart Unless love have his way, In April woods to stray!--

 In April woods to stray!

And that finished with another burst of laughter, he set very adroitlyto the mimicry of beasts and birds upon his frets. Never have I seena face so consummately the action's. His every fibre answered to thecall; his eyebrows twitched like an orator's; his very nose wasplastic. 

"Hst!" he cried softly; "hither struts chanticleer!""Cock-a-diddle-doo!" crowed the wire. "Now, prithee, Dame Partlett!"and down bustled a hen from an egg like cinnamon. A cat with kittensmewed along the string, anxious and tender. 

"A woodpecker, " he cried, directing momentarily a sedulous, clear eyeon me. And lo, "inviolable quietness" and the smooth beech-boughs!"And thus, " he said, sitting closer, "the martlets were wont towhimper about the walls of the castle of Inverness, the castle ofMacbeth. "

"Macbeth!" I repeated--"Macbeth!"

"Ay, " he said, "it was his seat while yet a simple soldier--flocks andflocks of them, wheeling hither, thither, in the evening air, cryingand calling. "

I listened in a kind of confusion. "... And Duncan, " I said.... 

He eyed me with immense pleasure, and nodded with brilliant eyes onmine. 

"What looking man was he?" I said at last as carelessly as I dared. "... The King, you mean, --of Scotland. "

He magnanimously ignored my confusion, and paused to build hissentence. 

"'Duncan'?" he said. "The question calls him straight to mind. Alean-locked, womanish countenance; sickly, yet never sick; timid, yetmost obdurate; more sly than politic. An _ignis fatuus_, sir, in aworld of soldiers. " His eye wandered.... "'Twas a marvellous sanativeair, crisp and pure; but for him, one draught and outer darkness. Imyself viewed his royal entry from the gallery--pacing urbane toslaughter; and I uttered a sigh to see him. 'Why, sir, do you sigh tosee the king?' cried one softly that stood by. 'I sigh, my lord, ' Ianswered to the instant, 'at sight of a monarch even Duncan's match!'"

He looked his wildest astonishment at me. 

"Not, I'd have you remember--not that 'twas blood I did foresee.... Tokill in blood a man, and he a king, so near to natural death ... Foul, foul!"

"And Macbeth?" I said presently--"Macbeth... ?"

He laid down his viol with prolonged care. 

"His was a soul, sir, nobler than his fate. I followed him not withoutlove from boyhood--a youth almost too fine of spirit; shrinkingfrom all violence, over-nicely; eloquent, yet chary of speech, and of a dark profundity of thought. The questions he wouldpatter!--unanswerable, searching earth and heaven through.... And whonow was it told me the traitor Judas's hair was red?--yet not red his, but of a reddish chestnut, fine and bushy. Children have played theirharmless hands at hide-and-seek therein. O sea of many winds!

"For come gloom on the hills, floods, discolouring mist; breathe butsome grandam's tale of darkness and blood and doubleness in hishearing: all changed. Flame kindled; a fevered unrest drove him out;and Ambition, that spotted hound of hell, strained at the leashtowards the Pit. 

"So runs the world--the ardent and the lofty. We are beyond earth'sstory as 'tis told, sir. All's shallower than the heart of man.... Indeed, 'twas one more shattered altar to Hymen. "

"'Hymen!'" I said. 

He brooded long and silently, clipping his small beard. And while hewas so brooding, a mouse, a moth, dust--I know not what, stirred thelistening strings of his viol to sound, and woke him with a start. 

"I vowed, sir, then, to dismiss all memory of such unhappy deeds frommind--never to speak again that broken lady's name. Oh! I have seensad ends--pride abased, splendour dismantled, courage to terror come, guilt to a crying guilelessness. "

"'Guilelessness?'" I said. "Lady Macbeth at least was past allchanging. "

The doctor stood up and cast a deep scrutiny on me, which yet, perhaps, was partly on himself. 

"Perceive, sir, " he said, "this table--broader, longer, splendidlyburdened; and all adown both sides the board, thanes and theirladies, lords, and gentlemen, guests bidden to a royal banquet. 'Twasthen in that bleak and dismal country--the Palace of Forres. Torchesflared in the hall; to every man a servant or two: we sat in pomp. "

He paused again, and gravely withdrew behind the tapestry. 

"And presently, " he cried therefrom, suiting his action to the word, "to the blast of hautboys enters the king in state thus, with hisattendant lords. And with all that rich and familiar courtesy of whichhe was master in his easier moods he passed from one to another, greeting with supple dignity on his way, till he came at last softlyto the place prepared for him at table. And suddenly--shall I everforget, it, sir?--it seemed silence ran like a flame from mouth tomouth as there he stood, thus, marble-still, his eyes fixed in aleaden glare. And he raised his face and looked once round on us allwith a forlorn astonishment and wrath, like one with a death-wound--Inever saw the like of such a face. 

"Whereat, beseeching us to be calm, and pay no heed, the queen laidher hand on his and called him. And his orbs rolled down once moreupon the empty place, and stuck as if at grapple with some horror seenwithin. He muttered aloud in peevish altercation--once more to heaveup his frame, to sigh and shake himself, and lo!--"

The viol-strings rang to his "lo!"

"Lo, sir, the Unseen had conquered. His lip sagged into his beard, hebabbled with open mouth, and leaned on his lady with such an impotentand slavish regard as I hope never to see again man pay to woman.... We thought no more of supper after that.... 

"But what do I--?" The doctor laid a cautioning finger on his mouth. 

"The company was dispersed, the palace gloomy with night (and theywere black nights at Forres!), and on the walls I heard the sentinel'sreplying.... In the wood's last glow I entered and stood in hisself-same station before the empty stool. And even as I stood thus, myhair creeping, my will concentred, gazing with every cord at stretch, fell a light, light footfall behind me. " He glanced whitely over hisshoulder. 

"Sir, it was the queen come softly out of slumber on my own unquieterrand. "

The doctor strode to the door, and peered out like a man suspicious orguilty of treachery. It was indeed a house of broken silences. Andthere, in the doorway, he seemed to be addressing his own saddenedconscience. 

"With all my skill, and all a leal man's gentleness, I solaced andpersuaded, and made an oath, and conducted her back to her own chamberunperceived. How weak is sleep!... It was a habit, sir, contracted inchildhood, long dormant, that Evil had woke again. The Past awaits usall. So run Time's sands, till mercy's globe is empty and ... "

He stooped and whispered it across to me: "... A child, a comparativechild, shrunk to an anatomy, her beauty changed, ghostly of youth andall its sadness, baffled by a word, slave to a doctor's nod! Noneknew but I, and, at the last, one of her ladies--a gentle, faithful, and fearful creature. Nor she till far beyond all mischief.... 

"Wild deeds are done. But to have blood on the hands, a cry in theears, and one same glassy face eye to eye, that nothing can dim, noreven slumber pacify--dreams, dreams, intangible, enorm! Forefend them, God, from me!"

He stood a moment as if he were listening; then turned, smilingirresolutely, and eyed me aimlessly. He seemed afraid of his ownhouse, askance at his own furniture. Yet, though I scarce know why, Ifelt he had not told me the whole truth. Something fidelity had yetwithheld from vanity. I longed to enquire further. I put aside howmany burning questions awhile!

XIV

 _And if we gang to sea, master, I fear we'll come to harm. _

 --OLD BALLAD. 

By and by less anxious talk soothed him. Indeed it was he whosuggested one last bright draught of air beneath his trees beforeretiring. Down we went again with some unnecessary clatter. And herewere stars between the fruited boughs, silvery Capella and the Twins, and low on the sky's moonlit border Venus excellently bright. 

He asked me whither I proposed going, if I needs must go; besoughtthere and then in the ambrosial night-air the history of mywanderings--a mere nine days' wonder; and told me how he himself muchfeared and hated the sea. 

He questioned me also with not a little subtilty (and double-dealingtoo, I fancied, ) regarding my own country, and of things present, andthings real. In fact nothing, I think, so much flattered hisvanity--unless it was my wonder at Dame Partlett's clucking on hisviol-strings--as to learn himself was famous even so far as to agesyet unborn. He gazed on the simple moon with limpid, amiable eyes, andcaught my fingers in his. 

How, then, could I even so much as hint to enquire which centuryindeed was his, who had no need of any? How could I abash that kindlyvanity of his by adding also that, however famous, he must needs be toall eternity--nameless?

We conversed long and earnestly in the coolness. He very franklycounselled me not to venture unconducted further into this country. The land of Tragedy was broad. And though on this side it lay adjacentto the naïve and civil people of Comedy; on the further, in the shadowof those bleak, unfooted mountains, lurked unnatural horror anddesolation, and cruelty beyond all telling. 

He very kindly offered me too, if I was indeed bent on seeking thesea, an old boat, still seaworthy, that lay in a creek in the rivernear by, from which he was wont to fish. As for Rosinante, he supposeda rest would be by no means unwelcome to so faithful a friend. Hehimself rode little, being indolent, and a happier host than guest;and when I returned here, she should be stuffed with dainties awaitingme. 

To this I cordially and gratefully agreed; and also even morecordially to remain with him the next day; and the next night afterthat to take my watery departure. 

So it was. And a courteous, versatile, and vivacious companion I foundhim. Rare tales he told me, too, of better days than these, and rarestof his own never-more-returning youth. He loved his childhood, talkedon of it with an artless zeal, his eyes a nest of singing-birds. Howcontrite he was for spirit lost, and daring withheld, and hopediscomfited! How simple and urbane concerning his present lowlydemands on life, on love, and on futurity! All this, too, with suchpacked winks and mirth and mourning, that I truly said good-night forthe second time to him with a rather melancholy warmth, sinceto-morrow ... Who can face unmoved that viewless sphinx? Moreover, thesea is wide, has fishes in plenty, but never too many coraled grottoesonce poor mariners. 

XV

 _'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day. _

 --JOHN WEBSTER. 

On the stroke of two next morning the doctor conducted me down to thecreek in the river-bank where he kept his boat. There was little lightbut of the stars in the sky; nothing stirring. She floated dim andmonstrous on the softly-running water, a navy in germ, and could havesat without danger thirty men like me. We stood on the bank, side byside, eyeing her vacancy. And (I can answer for myself) night-thoughtsrose up in us at sight of her. Was it indeed only wind in the reedsthat sighed around us? only the restless water insistently whisperingand calling? only of darkness were these forbidding shadows?

I looked up sharply at the doctor from such pensive embroidery, andfound him as far away as I. He nodded and smiled, and we shook handson the bank in the thick mist. 

"There's biscuits and a little meat, wine, and fruit, " he said in anundertone. "God be with you, sir! I sadly mistrust the future. ... 'Tis ever my way, at parting. "

We said good-bye again, to the dream-cry of some little flutteringcreature of the rushes. And well before dawn I was floating midstream, my friend a memory, Rosinante in clover, and my travels, so far asthis brief narrative will tell, nearly ended. 

I saw nothing but a few long-haired, grazing cattle on my voyage, thateyed me but cursorily. I passed unmolested among the waterfowl, between the never-silent rushes, beneath a sky refreshed and sweetenedwith storm. The boat was enormously heavy and made slow progress. Whentoo the tide began to flow I must needs push close in to the bank andawait the ebb. But towards evening of the third day I began toapproach the sea. 

I listened to the wailing of its long-winged gulls; snuffed with howbroad-nostrilled a gusto that savour not even pinewoods can match, nor any wild flower disguise; and heard at last the sound that stirsbeneath all music--the deep's loud-falling billow. 

I pushed ashore, climbed the sandy bank, and moored my boat to an ashtree at the waterside. And after scrambling some little distance overdunes yet warm with the sun, I came out at length, and stood like aGreek before the sea. 

Here my bright river disembogued in noise and foam. Far to either sideof me stretched the faint gold horns of a bay; and beyond me, almostviolet in the shadow of its waves, the shipless sea. 

I looked on the breaking water with a divided heart. Its light, saltairs, its solitary beauty, its illimitable reaches seemed tidings of aregion I could remember only as one who, remembering that he hasdreamed, remembers nothing more. Larks rose, singing, behind me. In acalm, golden light my eager river quarrelled with its peace. Hereindeed was solitude!

It was in searching sea and cliff for the least sign of life that Ithought I descried on the furthest extremity of the nearer of thehorns of the bay the spires and smouldering domes of a little city. IfI gazed intently, they seemed to vanish away, yet still to shine abovethe azure if, raising my eyes, I looked again. 

So, caring not how far I must go so long as my path lay beside thesebreaking waters, I set out on the firm, white sands to prove this citythe mirage I deemed it. 

What wonder, then, my senses fell asleep in that vast lullaby! And outof a daydream almost as deep as that in which I first set out, I wassuddenly aroused by a light tapping sound, distinct and regularbetween the roaring breakers. 

I lifted my eyes to find the city I was seeking evanished away indeed. But nearer at hand a child was playing upon the beach, whose spadeamong the pebbles had caused the birdlike noise I had heard. 

So engrossed was she with her building in the sand that she had notheard me approaching. She laboured on at the margin of the cliff'sshadow where the sea-birds cried, answering Echo in the rocks. Sosolitary and yet so intent, so sedate and yet so eager a little figureshe seemed in the long motionlessness of the shore, by the darkheedlessness of the sea, I hesitated to disturb her. 

Who of all Time's children could this be playing uncompanioned by thesea? And at a little distance betwixt me and her in the softly-moundedsand her spade had already scrawled in large, ungainly capitals, theanswer--"Annabel Lee. " The little flounced black frock, the tresses ofblack hair, the small, beautiful dark face--this then was Annabel Lee;and that bright, phantom city I had seen--that was the vanishingmockery of her kingdom. 

I called her from where I stood--"Annabel Lee!" She lifted her headand shook back her hair, and gazed at me startled and intent. I wentnearer. 

"You are a very lonely little girl, " I said. 

"I am building in the sand, " she answered. 

"A castle?"

She shook her head. 

"It was in dreams, " she said, flushing darkly. 

"What kind of dream was it in then?"

"Oh! I often dream it; and I build it in the sand. But there's nevertime: the sea comes back. "

"Was the tide quite high when you began?" I asked; for now it was low. 

"Just that much from the stones, " she said; "I waited for it ever solong. "

"It has a long way to come yet, " I said; "you will finish it _this_time, I dare say. "

She shook her head and lifted her spade. 

"Oh no; it is much bigger, more than twice. And I haven't the seaweed, or the shells, and it comes back very, very quickly. "

"But where is the little boy you play with down here by the sea?"

She glanced at me swiftly and surely; and shook her head again. 

"He would help you. "

"He didn't in my dream, " she said doubtfully. She raised long, stealthy eyes to mine, and spoke softly and deliberately. "Besides, there isn't any little boy. "

"None, Annabel Lee?" I said. 

"Why, " she answered, "I have played here years and years and years, and there are only the gulls and terns and cormorants, and that!" Shepointed with her spade towards the broken water. 

"You know all their names then?" I said. 

"Some I know, " she answered with a little frown, and looked far out tosea. Then, turning her eyes, she gazed long at me, searchingly, forlornly on a stranger. "I am going home now, " she said. 

I looked at the house of sand and smiled. But she shook her head oncemore. 

"It never _could_ be finished, " she said firmly, "though I tried andtried, unless the sea would keep quite still just once all day, without going to and fro. And then, " she added with a flash ofanger--"then I would not build. "

"Well, " said I, "when it is nearly finished, and the water washes up, and up, and washes it away, here is a flower that came fromFairyland. And that, dear heart, is none so far away. "

She took the purple flower I had plucked in Ennui's garden in herslim, cold hand. 

"It's amaranth, " she said; and I have never seen so old a little lookin a child's eyes. 

"And all the flowers' names too?" I said. 

She frowned again. "It's amaranth, " she said, and ran off lightly andso deftly among the rocks and in the shadow that was advancing noweven upon the foam of the sea, that she had vanished before I had timeto deter, or to pursue her. I sought her awhile, until the dark rackof sunset obscured the light, and the sea's voice changed; then Idesisted. 

It was useless to remain longer beneath the looming caves, among thestones of so inhospitable a shore. I was a stranger to the tides. Andit was clear high-water would submerge the narrow sands whereon Istood. 

Yet I cannot describe how loth I was to leave to night's desolationthe shapeless house of a child. What fate was this that had set herto such profitless labour on the uttermost shores of "Tragedy"? Whathistory lay behind, past, or, as it were, never to come? What gladnesstoo high for earth had nearly once been hers? Her sea-mound tookstrange shapes in the gloom--light foliage of stone, dark heaviness ofgranite, wherein rumour played of all that restless rustling; smallcries, vast murmurings from those green meadows, old as night. 

I turned, even ran away, at last. I found my boat in the gloamingwhere I had left her, safe and sound, except that all the doctor'sgood things had been nosed and tumbled by some hungry beast in myabsence. I stood and thought vacantly of Crusoe, and pig, and guns. But what use to delay? I got in. 

If it were true, as the excellent doctor had informed me, that seamenreported islands not far distant from these shores, chance might bearme blissfully to one of these. And if not true ... I turned a ratherstartled face to the water, and made haste not to think. Fortunepierces deep, and baits her hooks with sceptics. Away I went, bobbingmightily over the waves that leapt and wrestled where sea and rivermet. These safely navigated, I rowed the great creature straightforward across the sea, my face towards dwindling land, my prow toScorpio. 

XVI

 _Art thou pale for weariness. _

 --PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

The constellations of summer wheeled above me; and thus between waterand starry sky I tossed solitary in my boat. The faint lustre of thesultry night hung like a mist from heaven to earth. Far away above thecountries I had left perhaps for ever, the quiet lightnings playedinnocently in the heights. 

I rowed steadily on, guiding myself by some much ruddier star on thehorizon. The pale phosphorescence on the wave, the simple sounds as offish stirring in the water--the beauty and wonder of Night'sdwelling-place seemed beyond content of mortality. 

I leaned on my oars in the midst of the deep sea, and seemed to hear, as it were, the mighty shout of Space. Faint and enormous beams oflight trembled through the sky. And once I surprised a shadow as ofwings sweeping darkly across, star on to glittering star, shaking theair, stilling the sea with the cold dews of night. 

So rowing, so resting, I passed the mark of midnight. Weariness beganto steal over me. Between sleep and wake I heard strange cries acrossthe deep. The thin silver of the old moon ebbed into the east. A chillmist welled out of the water and shrouded me in faintest gloom. Wherefore, battling no more against such influences, I shipped myoars, made my prayer in the midst of this dark womb of Life, andscreening myself as best I could from the airs that soon would bemoving before dawn, I lay down in the bottom of the boat and fellasleep. 

I slept apparently without dream, and woke as it seemed to the soundof voices singing some old music of the sea. A scent of a fragranceunknown to me was eddying in the wind. I raised my head, and saw witheyes half-dazed with light an island of cypress and poplar, green andstill above the pure glass of its encircling waters. Straight beforeme, beyond green-bearded rocks dripping with foam, a little stonehouse, or temple, with columns and balconies of marble, stood hushedupon the cliff by the waterside. 

All now was soundless. They that sang, whether Nereids or Sirens, haddescended to dimmer courts. The seamews floated on the water; thewhite dove strutted on the ledge; only the nightingales sang on in thethick arbours. 

I pushed my boat between the rocks towards the island. Bright andburning though the beams of the sun were, here seemed everlastingshadow. And though at my gradual intrusion, at splash or grating ofkeel, the startled cormorant cried in the air, and with one cry wokemany, yet here too seemed perpetual stillness. 

How could I know what eyes might not be regarding me from bowers asthick and secluded as these? Yet this seemed an isle in some vaguefashion familiar to me. To these same watery steps of stone, to thissame mooring-ring surely I had voyaged before in dream or other life?I glanced into the water and saw my own fantastic image beneath thereflected gloom of cypresses, and knew at least, though I a shadowmight be, this also was an island in a sea of shadows. Far from allland its marbles might be reared, yet they were warm to my touch, andthese were nightingales, and those strutting doves beneath the littlearches. 

So very gradually, and glancing to and fro into these unstirringgroves, I came presently to the entrance court of the solitary villaon the cliff-side. Here a thread-like fountain plashed in its basin, the one thing astir in this cool retreat. Here, too, grew orangetrees, with their unripe fruit upon them. 

But I continued, and venturing out upon the terrace overlooking thesea, saw again with a kind of astonishment the doctor's green, unwieldy boat beneath me and the emerald of the nearer waters tossingabove the yellow sands. 

Here I had sat awhile lost in ease when I heard a footstep approachingand the rhythmical rustling of drapery, and knew eyes were nowregarding me that I feared, yet much desired to meet. 

"Oh me!" said a clear yet almost languid voice. "How comes any man sosoftly?"

Turning, I looked in the face of one how long a shade!

I strove in vain to hide my confusion. This lady only smiled thedeeper out of her baffling eyes. 

"If you could guess, " she said presently, "how my heart leapt in me, as if, poor creature, any oars of earth could bring it ease, you wouldthink me indeed as desolate as I am. To hear the bird scream, Traveller! I hastened from the gardens as if the black ships of theGreeks were come to take me. But such is long ago. Tell me, now, isthe world yet harsh with men and sad with women? Burns yet thatmadness mirth calls Life? or truly does the puny, busy-tongued racesleep at last, nodding no more at me?"

I told as best I could how chance had fetched me; told, too, thatearth was yet pestered with men, and heavenly with women. "And themadness mirth calls Life flickers yet, " I said; "and the little racetosses on in nightmare. "

"Ah!" she replied, "so ever run travellers' tales. I too once trustedto seem indifferent. But you, if shadow deceives me not, may yetreturn: I, only to the shades whence earth draws me. Meanwhile, " shesaid, looking softly at the fountain playing in the clear gloombeyond, "rest and grow weary again, for there flock more questions tomy tongue than spines on the blackthorn. The gardens are green withflowers, Traveller; let us talk where rosemary blows. "

Following her, I thought of the mysterious beauty of her eyes, herpallor, her slimness, and that faint smile which hovered betweenecstasy and indifference, and away went my mind to one whom theshrewdest and tenderest of my own countrymen called once Criseyde. 

She led me into a garden all of faint-hued flowers. There bloomed noscarlet here, nor blue, nor yellow; but white and lavender and purestpurple. Here, also, like torches of the sun, stood poplars each byeach in the windless air, and the impenetrable darkness of cypressesbeneath them. 

Here too was a fountain whose waters leapt no more, mossy andtime-worn. I could not but think of those other gardens of myjourney--Jane's, Ennui's, Dianeme's; and yet none like this for theshingley murmur of the sea, and the calmness of morning. 

"But, surely, " I said, "this must be very far from Troy. "

"Far indeed, " she said. 

"Far also from the hollow ships. "

"Far also from the hollow ships, " she replied. 

"Yet, " said I, "in the country whence I come is a saying: Where thetreasure is--"

"Alack! _there_ gloats the miser!" said Criseyde; "but I, Traveller, have no treasure, only a patchwork memory, and that's a great grief. "

"Well, then, forget! Why try in vain?" I said. 

She smiled and seated herself, leaning a little forward, looking uponthe ground. 

"Soothfastness _must_, "' she said very gravely, raising her long blackeyebrows; "yet truly it must be a forlorn thing to be remembered byone who so lightly forgets. So then I say, to teach myself to betrue--'Look now, Criseyde, yonder fine, many-hearted poplar--that isParis; and all that bank of marriage-ivy--that is marriageable Helen, green and cold; and the waterless fountain--that truly is Diomed; andthe faded flower that nods in shadow, why, that must be me, even me, Criseyde!'"

"And this thick rosemary-bush that smells of exile, who, then, isthat?" I said. 

She looked deep into the shadow of the cypresses. "That, " she said, "Ithink I have forgot again. "

"But, " I said, "Diomed, now, was he quite so silent--not one trickleof persuasion?"

"Why, " she said, "I think 'twas the fountain was Diomed: I know not. And as for persuasion; he was a man forked, vain, and absolute as all. Let the waterless stone be sudden Diomed--you will confuse my wits, Mariner; where, then, were I?" She smiled, stooping lower. "You havevoyaged far?" she said. 

"From childhood to this side regret, " I answered rather sadly. 

"'Tis a sad end to a sweet tale, " she said, "were it but truly told. But yet, and yet, and yet--you may return, and life heals every, everywound. _I_ must look on the ground and make amends. 'Tis this samemaking amends men now call 'Purgatory, ' they tell me. "

"'Amends, '" I said; "to whom? for what?"

"Welaway, " said she, with a narrow fork between her brows; "to mostmen and to all women, for being that Criseyde. " She gazed halfsolemnly at some picture of reverie. 

"But which Criseyde?" I said. "She who was every wind's, or but oneperfect summer's?"

She glanced strangely at me. "Ask of the night that burns so manystars, " she said. "All's done; all passes. Yet my poor busy UnclePandar had no such changes, nor Hector, nor ... Men change not: theylove and love again--one same tune of a myriad verses. "

"All?" I said. 

She tossed lightly a little dust from her hand. 

"Nay--all, " she replied; "but what is that to me? Mine only to seeCharon on the wave pass light over and return. Man of the green world, prithee die not yet awhile! 'Tis dull being a shade. See these coldpalms! Yet my heart beats on. "

"For what?" I said. 

Criseyde folded her hands and leaned her cheek sidelong upon thestone. 

"For what?" I repeated. 

"For what but idle questions?" she said; "for a traveller's vanitythat deems looking love-boys into a woman's eyes her sweeterentertainment than all the heroes of Troy. Oh, for a house of noughtto be at peace in! Oh, gooseish swan! Oh, brittle vows! Tell me, Voyager, is it not so?--that men are merely angry boys with beards;and women--repeat not, ye who know! Never yet set I these steadfasteyes on a man that would not steal the moon for taper--would she butcome down. " She turned an arch face to me: "And what is to befaithful?"

"I?" said I--"'to be faithful?'"

"It is, " she said, "to rise and never set, O sun of utter weariness!It is to kindle and never be quenched, O fretting fire of midsummer!It is to be snared and always sing, O shrilling bird of dulness! It isto come, not go; smile, not sigh; wake, never sleep. Couldst _thou_love so many nots to a silk string?"

"What, then, is to change, ... To be fickle?" I said. 

"Ah! to be fickle, " she said, "is showers after drought, seas aftersand; to cry, unechoed; to be thirsty, the pitcher broken. And--asknow this pitiless darkness of the eyes!--to be remembered thoughLethe flows between. Nay, you shall watch even hope away ere anothercomes like me to mope and sigh, and play at swords with Memory. "

She rose to her feet and drew her hands across her face, and smiling, sighed deeply. And I saw how inscrutable and lovely she must ever seemto eyes scornful of mean men's idolatries. 

"And you will embark again, " she said softly; "and in how small a shipon seas so mighty! And whither next will fate entice you, to what newsorrows?"

"Who knows?" I said. "And to what further peace?"

She laughed lightly. "Speak not of mockeries, " she said, and fellsilent. 

She seemed to be thinking quickly and deeply; for even though I didnot turn to her, I could see in imagination the restless sparkling ofher eyes, the stillness of her ringless hands. Then suddenly sheturned. 

"Stranger, " she said, drawing her finger softly along the cold stoneof the bench, "there yet remain a few bright hours to morning. Whoknows, seeing that felicity is with the bold, did I cast off into thesea--who knows whereto I'd come! 'Tis but a little way to beinghappy--a touch of the hand, a lifting of the brows, a shudderingsilence. Had I but man's courage! Yet this is a solitary place, andthe gods are revengeful. "

I cannot say how artlessly ran that voice in this still garden, bysome strange power persuading me on, turning all doubt aside, calmingall suspicion. 

"There is honeycomb here, and the fruit is plenteous. Yes, " she said, "and all travellers are violent men--catch and kill meat--that I know, however doleful. 'Tis but a little sigh from day to day in these coolgardens; and rest is welcome when the heart pines not. Listen, now; Iwill go down and you shall show me--did one have the wit to learn, andcourage to remember--show me how sails your wonderful little ship;tell me, too, where on the sea's horizon to one in exile earth lies, with all its pleasant things--yet thinks so bitterly of a woman!"

"Tell me, " I said; "tell me but one thing of a thousand. Whom would_you_ seek, did a traveller direct you, and a boat were at your need?"

She looked at me, pondering, weaving her webs about me, lulling doubt, and banishing fear. 

"One could not miss--a hero!" she said, flaming. 

"That, then, shall be our bargain, " I replied with wrath at my ownfolly. "Tell me this precious hero's name, and though all the dogs ofthe underworld come to course me, you shall take my boat, and leave mehere--only this hero's name, a pedlar's bargain!"

She lowered her lids. "It must be Diomed, " she said with the leastsigh. 

"It must be, " I said. 

"Nay, then, Antenor, or truly Thersites, " she said happily, "thesilver-tongued!"

"Good-bye, then, " I said. 

"Good-bye, " she replied very gently. "Why, how could there be a vowbetween us? I go, and return. You await me--me, Criseyde, Traveller, the lonely-hearted. That is the little all, O much-surrenderingStranger! Would that long-ago were now--before all chaffering!"

Again a thousand questions rose to my tongue. She looked sidelong atthe dry fountain, and one and all fell silent. 

"It is harsh, endless labour beneath the burning sun; storms andwhirlwinds go about the sea, and the deep heaves with monsters. "

"Oh, sweet danger!" she said, mocking me. 

I turned from her without a word, like an angry child, and made my wayto the steps into the sea, pulled round my boat into a little havenbeside them, and shewed her oars and tackle and tiller; all the toil, and peril, the wild chances. "

"Why, " she cried, while I was yet full of the theme, "I will go thenat once, and to-morrow Troy will come. "

I looked long at her in silence; her slim beauty, the answerlessriddle of her eyes, the age-long subtilty of her mouth, and gave nomore thought to all life else. 

Day was already waning. I filled the water-keg with fresh water, putfruit and honeycomb and a pillow of leaves into the boat, proffered atrembling hand, and led her down. 

The sun's beams slanted on the foamless sea, glowed in a flame ofcrimson on marble and rock and cypress. The birds sang endlessly on ofevening, endlessly, too, it seemed to me, of dangers my heart had nosurmise of. 

Criseyde turned from the dark green waves. "Truly, it is a solitarycountry; pathless, " she said, "to one unpiloted;" and stood listeningto the hollow voices of the water. And suddenly, as if at theconsummation of her thoughts, she lifted her eyes on me, darkly, withunimaginable entreaty. 

"What do you seek else?" I cried in a voice I scarcely recognised. "Oh, you speak in riddles!"

I sprang into the boat and seized the heavy oars. Something likelaughter, or, as it were, the clapper of a scarer of birds, echoedamong the rocks at the rattling of the rowlocks. As if invisible handswithdrew it from me, the island floated back. 

I turned my prow towards the last splendour of the sun. A chill breezeplayed over the sea: a shadow crossed my eyes. 

Buoyant was my boat; how light her cargo!--an oozing honeycomb, ashyfruits, a few branches of drooping leaves, closing flowers; andsolitary on the thwart the wraith of life's unquiet dream. 

So fell night once more, and made all dim. And only the cold light ofthe firmament lit thoughts in me restless as the sea on which Itossed, whose moon was dark, yet walked in heaven beneath the distantstars. 

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