Transcribed from the 1896 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by
David Price, email [email protected]

THE ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS

WHEREIN IS TOLD SOMEWHAT OF

THE LIVES OF THE MEN OF BURG-

DALE THEIR FRIENDS THEIR

NEIGHBOURS THEIR FOEMEN AND

THEIR FELLOWS IN ARMS

BY WILLIAM MORRIS

Whiles carried o’er the iron road,

We hurry by some fair abode;

The garden bright amidst the hay,

The yellow wain upon the way,

The dining men, the wind that sweeps

Light locks from off the sun-sweet heaps—

The gable grey, the hoary roof,

Here now—and now so far aloof.

How sorely then we long to stay

And midst its sweetness wear the day,

And ’neath its changing shadows sit,

And feel ourselves a part of it.

Such rest, such stay, I strove to win

With these same leaves that lie herein.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY

MDCCCXCVI

First Edition printed
November, 1889.

250 copies were printed on Large
Paper.

Second Edition,
February, 1893.

CONTENTS.

p. 1CHAPTER
I.  OF BURGSTEAD AND ITS FOLK AND ITS NEIGHBOURS.

Once upon a time amidst the
mountains and hills and falling streams of a fair land there was
a town or thorp in a certain valley.  This was well-nigh
encompassed by a wall of sheer cliffs; toward the East and the
great mountains they drew together till they went near to meet,
and left but a narrow path on either side of a stony stream that
came rattling down into the Dale: toward the river at that end
the hills lowered somewhat, though they still ended in sheer
rocks; but up from it, and more especially on the north side,
they swelled into great shoulders of land, then dipped a little,
and rose again into the sides of huge fells clad with pine-woods,
and cleft here and there by deep ghylls: thence again they rose
higher and steeper, and ever higher till they drew dark and naked
out of the woods to meet the snow-fields and ice-rivers of the
high mountains.  But that was far away from the pass by the
little river into the valley; and the said river was no drain
from the snow-fields white and thick with the grinding of the
ice, but clear and bright were its waters that came from wells
amidst the bare rocky heaths.

The upper end of the valley, where it first began to open out
from the pass, was rugged and broken by rocks and ridges of
water-borne stones, but presently it smoothed itself into mere
grassy swellings and knolls, and at last into a fair and fertile
plain swelling up into a green wave, as it were, against the
rock-wall which encompassed it on all sides save where the river
came gushing out of the strait pass at the east end, and where at
the west end it poured itself out of the Dale toward the lowlands
and the plain of the great river.

Now the valley was some ten miles of our measure from that
place of the rocks and the stone-ridges, to where the faces of
the hills drew somewhat anigh to the river again at the west, and
p. 2then fell
aback along the edge of the great plain; like as when ye fare
a-sailing past two nesses of a river-mouth, and the main-sea
lieth open before you.

Besides the river afore-mentioned, which men called the
Weltering Water, there were other waters in the Dale.  Near
the eastern pass, entangled in the rocky ground was a deep tarn
full of cold springs and about two acres in measure, and
therefrom ran a stream which fell into the Weltering Water amidst
the grassy knolls.  Black seemed the waters of that tarn
which on one side washed the rocks-wall of the Dale; ugly and
aweful it seemed to men, and none knew what lay beneath its
waters save black mis-shapen trouts that few cared to bring to
net or angle: and it was called the Death-Tarn.

Other waters yet there were: here and there from the hills on
both sides, but especially from the south side, came trickles of
water that ran in pretty brooks down to the river; and some of
these sprang bubbling up amidst the foot-mounds of the
sheer-rocks; some had cleft a rugged and strait way through them,
and came tumbling down into the Dale at diverse heights from
their faces.  But on the north side about halfway down the
Dale, one stream somewhat bigger than the others, and dealing
with softer ground, had cleft for itself a wider way; and the
folk had laboured this way wider yet, till they had made them a
road running north along the west side of the stream.  Sooth
to say, except for the strait pass along the river at the eastern
end, and the wider pass at the western, they had no other way
(save one of which a word anon) out of the Dale but such as
mountain goats and bold cragsmen might take; and even of these
but few.

This midway stream was called the Wildlake, and the way along
it Wildlake’s Way, because it came to them out of the wood,
which on that north side stretched away from nigh to the lip of
the valley-wall up to the pine woods and the high fells on the
east and north, and down to the plain country on the west and
south.

p. 3Now when
the Weltering Water came out of the rocky tangle near the pass,
it was turned aside by the ground till it swung right up to the
feet of the Southern crags; then it turned and slowly bent round
again northward, and at last fairly doubled back on itself before
it turned again to run westward; so that when, after its second
double, it had come to flowing softly westward under the northern
crags, it had cast two thirds of a girdle round about a space of
land a little below the grassy knolls and tofts aforesaid; and
there in that fair space between the folds of the Weltering Water
stood the Thorp whereof the tale hath told.

The men thereof had widened and deepened the Weltering Water
about them, and had bridged it over to the plain meads; and
athwart the throat of the space left clear by the water they had
built them a strong wall though not very high, with a gate amidst
and a tower on either side thereof.  Moreover, on the face
of the cliff which was but a stone’s throw from the gate
they had made them stairs and ladders to go up by; and on a knoll
nigh the brow had built a watch-tower of stone strong and great,
lest war should come into the land from over the hills. 
That tower was ancient, and therefrom the Thorp had its name and
the whole valley also; and it was called Burgstead in
Burgdale.

So long as the Weltering Water ran straight along by the
northern cliffs after it had left Burgstead, betwixt the water
and the cliffs was a wide flat way fashioned by man’s
hand.  Thus was the water again a good defence to the Thorp,
for it ran slow and deep there, and there was no other ground
betwixt it and the cliffs save that road, which was easy to bar
across so that no foemen might pass without battle, and this road
was called the Portway.  For a long mile the river ran under
the northern cliffs, and then turned into the midst of the Dale,
and went its way westward a broad stream winding in gentle laps
and folds here and there down to the out-gate of the Dale. 
But the Portway held on still underneath the rock-wall, till the
sheer-rocks grew somewhat broken, and were cumbered with certain
screes, and at last p.
4the wayfarer came upon the break in them, and the ghyll
through which ran the Wildlake with Wildlake’s Way beside
it, but the Portway still went on all down the Dale and away to
the Plain-country.

That road in the ghyll, which was neither wide nor smooth, the
wayfarer into the wood must follow, till it lifted itself out of
the ghyll, and left the Wildlake coming rattling down by many
steps from the east; and now the way went straight north through
the woodland, ever mounting higher, (because the whole set of the
land was toward the high fells,) but not in any cleft or
ghyll.  The wood itself thereabout was thick, a blended
growth of diverse kinds of trees, but most of oak and ash; light
and air enough came through their boughs to suffer the holly and
bramble and eglantine and other small wood to grow together into
thickets, which no man could pass without hewing a way.  But
before it is told whereto Wildlake’s Way led, it must be
said that on the east side of the ghyll, where it first began
just over the Portway, the hill’s brow was clear of wood
for a certain space, and there, overlooking all the Dale, was the
Mote-stead of the Dalesmen, marked out by a great ring of stones,
amidst of which was the mound for the Judges and the Altar of the
Gods before it.  And this was the holy place of the men of
the Dale and of other folk whereof the tale shall now tell.

For when Wildlake’s Way had gone some three miles from
the Mote-stead, the trees began to thin, and presently afterwards
was a clearing and the dwellings of men, built of timber as may
well be thought.  These houses were neither rich nor great,
nor was the folk a mighty folk, because they were but a few,
albeit body by body they were stout carles enough.  They had
not affinity with the Dalesmen, and did not wed with them, yet it
is to be deemed that they were somewhat akin to them.  To be
short, though they were freemen, yet as regards the Dalesmen were
they well-nigh their servants; for they were but poor in goods,
and had to lean upon them somewhat.  No tillage they p. 5had among those
high trees; and of beasts nought save some flocks of goats and a
few asses.  Hunters they were, and charcoal-burners, and
therein the deftest of men, and they could shoot well in the bow
withal: so they trucked their charcoal and their smoked venison
and their peltries with the Dalesmen for wheat and wine and
weapons and weed; and the Dalesmen gave them main good
pennyworths, as men who had abundance wherewith to uphold their
kinsmen, though they were but far-away kin.  Stout hands had
these Woodlanders and true hearts as any; but they were
few-spoken and to those that needed them not somewhat surly of
speech and grim of visage: brown-skinned they were, but
light-haired; well-eyed, with but little red in their cheeks:
their women were not very fair, for they toiled like the men, or
more.  They were thought to be wiser than most men in
foreseeing things to come.  They were much given to spells,
and songs of wizardry, and were very mindful of the old
story-lays, wherein they were far more wordy than in their daily
speech.  Much skill had they in runes, and were exceeding
deft in scoring them on treen bowls, and on staves, and
door-posts and roof-beams and standing-beds and such like
things.  Many a day when the snow was drifting over their
roofs, and hanging heavy on the tree-boughs, and the wind was
roaring through the trees aloft and rattling about the close
thicket, when the boughs were clattering in the wind, and
crashing down beneath the weight of the gathering freezing snow,
when all beasts and men lay close in their lairs, would they sit
long hours about the house-fire with the knife or the gouge in
hand, with the timber twixt their knees and the whetstone beside
them, hearkening to some tale of old times and the days when
their banner was abroad in the world; and they the while
wheedling into growth out of the tough wood knots and blossoms
and leaves and the images of beasts and warriors and women.

They were called nought save the Woodland-Carles in that day,
though time had been when they had borne a nobler name: and their
abode was called Carlstead.  Shortly, for all they had p. 6and all they
had not, for all they were and all they were not, they were
well-beloved by their friends and feared by their foes.

Now when Wildlake’s Way was gotten to Carlstead, there
was an end of it toward the north; though beyond it in a right
line the wood was thinner, because of the hewing of the
Carles.  But the road itself turned west at once and went on
through the wood, till some four miles further it first thinned
and then ceased altogether, the ground going down-hill all the
way: for this was the lower flank of the first great upheaval
toward the high mountains.  But presently, after the wood
was ended, the land broke into swelling downs and winding dales
of no great height or depth, with a few scattered trees about the
hillsides, mostly thorns or scrubby oaks, gnarled and bent and
kept down by the western wind: here and there also were
yew-trees, and whiles the hillsides would be grown over with
box-wood, but none very great; and often juniper grew
abundantly.  This then was the country of the Shepherds, who
were friends both of the Dalesmen and the Woodlanders.  They
dwelt not in any fenced town or thorp, but their homesteads were
scattered about as was handy for water and shelter. 
Nevertheless they had their own stronghold; for amidmost of their
country, on the highest of a certain down above a bottom where a
willowy stream winded, was a great earthwork: the walls thereof
were high and clean and overlapping at the entering in, and
amidst of it was a deep well of water, so that it was a very
defensible place: and thereto would they drive their flocks and
herds when war was in the land, for nought but a very great host
might win it; and this stronghold they called Greenbury.

These Shepherd-Folk were strong and tall like the Woodlanders,
for they were partly of the same blood, but burnt they were both
ruddy and brown: they were of more words than the Woodlanders but
yet not many-worded.  They knew well all those old
story-lays, (and this partly by the minstrelsy of the
Woodlanders,) but they had scant skill in wizardry, and would
send for the Woodlanders, both men and women, to do whatso they
needed therein.  They p. 7were very hale and long-lived, whereas
they dwelt in clear bright air, and they mostly went light-clad
even in the winter, so strong and merry were they.  They
wedded with the Woodlanders and the Dalesmen both; at least
certain houses of them did so.  They grew no corn; nought
but a few pot-herbs, but had their meal of the Dalesmen; and in
the summer they drave some of their milch-kine into the Dale for
the abundance of grass there; whereas their own hills and bents
and winding valleys were not plenteously watered, except here and
there as in the bottom under Greenbury.  No swine they had,
and but few horses, but of sheep very many, and of the best both
for their flesh and their wool.  Yet were they nought so
deft craftsmen at the loom as were the Dalesmen, and their women
were not very eager at the weaving, though they loathed not the
spindle and rock.  Shortly, they were merry folk
well-beloved of the Dalesmen, quick to wrath, though it abode not
long with them; not very curious in their houses and halls, which
were but little, and were decked mostly with the handiwork of the
Woodland-Carles their guests; who when they were abiding with
them, would oft stand long hours nose to beam, scoring and
nicking and hammering, answering no word spoken to them but with
aye or no, desiring nought save the endurance of the
daylight.  Moreover, this shepherd-folk heeded not gay
raiment over-much, but commonly went clad in white woollen or
sheep-brown weed.

But beyond this shepherd-folk were more downs and more,
scantily peopled, and that after a while by folk with whom they
had no kinship or affinity, and who were at whiles their
foes.  Yet was there no enduring enmity between them; and
ever after war and battle came peace; and all blood-wites were
duly paid and no long feud followed: nor were the Dalesmen and
the Woodlanders always in these wars, though at whiles they
were.  Thus then it fared with these people.

But now that we have told of the folks with whom the Dalesmen
had kinship, affinity, and friendship, tell we of their chief p. 8abode,
Burgstead to wit, and of its fashion.  As hath been told, it
lay upon the land made nigh into an isle by the folds of the
Weltering Water towards the uppermost end of the Dale; and it was
warded by the deep water, and by the wall aforesaid with its
towers.  Now the Dale at its widest, to wit where Wildlake
fell into it, was but nine furlongs over, but at Burgstead it was
far narrower; so that betwixt the wall and the wandering stream
there was but a space of fifty acres, and therein lay Burgstead
in a space of the shape of a sword-pommel: and the houses of the
kinships lay about it, amidst of gardens and orchards, but little
ordered into streets and lanes, save that a way went clean
through everything from the tower-warded gate to the bridge over
the Water, which was warded by two other towers on its hither
side.

As to the houses, they were some bigger, some smaller, as the
housemates needed.  Some were old, but not very old, save
two only, and some quite new, but of these there were not many:
they were all built fairly of stone and lime, with much fair and
curious carved work of knots and beasts and men round about the
doors; or whiles a wale of such-like work all along the
house-front.  For as deft as were the Woodlanders with knife
and gouge on the oaken beams, even so deft were the Dalesmen with
mallet and chisel on the face of the hewn stone; and this was a
great pastime about the Thorp.  Within these houses had but
a hall and solar, with shut-beds out from the hall on one side or
two, with whatso of kitchen and buttery and out-bower men deemed
handy.  Many men dwelt in each house, either kinsfolk, or
such as were joined to the kindred.

Near to the gate of Burgstead in that street aforesaid and
facing east was the biggest house of the Thorp; it was one of the
two abovesaid which were older than any other.  Its
door-posts and the lintel of the door were carved with knots and
twining stems fairer than other houses of that stead; and on the
wall beside the door carved over many stones was an image p. 9wrought in the
likeness of a man with a wide face, which was terrible to behold,
although it smiled: he bore a bent bow in his hand with an arrow
fitted to its string, and about the head of him was a ring of
rays like the beams of the sun, and at his feet was a dragon,
which had crept, as it were, from amidst of the blossomed knots
of the door-post wherewith the tail of him was yet
entwined.  And this head with the ring of rays about it was
wrought into the adornment of that house, both within and
without, in many other places, but on never another house of the
Dale; and it was called the House of the Face.  Thereof hath
the tale much to tell hereafter, but as now it goeth on to tell
of the ways of life of the Dalesmen.

In Burgstead was no Mote-hall or Town-house or Church, such as
we wot of in these days; and their market-place was wheresoever
any might choose to pitch a booth: but for the most part this was
done in the wide street betwixt the gate and the bridge.  As
to a meeting-place, were there any small matters between man and
man, these would the Alderman or one of the Wardens deal with,
sitting in Court with the neighbours on the wide space just
outside the Gate: but if it were to do with greater matters, such
as great manslayings and blood-wites, or the making of war or
ending of it, or the choosing of the Alderman and the Wardens,
such matters must be put off to the Folk-mote, which could but be
held in the place aforesaid where was the Doom-ring and the Altar
of the Gods; and at that Folk-mote both the Shepherd-Folk and the
Woodland-Carles foregathered with the Dalesmen, and duly said
their say.  There also they held their great casts and made
offerings to the Gods for the Fruitfulness of the Year, the
ingathering of the increase, and in Memory of their
Forefathers.  Natheless at Yule-tide also they feasted from
house to house to be glad with the rest of Midwinter, and many a
cup drank at those feasts to the memory of the fathers, and the
days when the world was wider to them, and their banners fared
far afield.

p. 10But
besides these dwellings of men in the field between the wall and
the water, there were homesteads up and down the Dale whereso men
found it easy and pleasant to dwell: their halls were built of
much the same fashion as those within the Thorp; but many had a
high garth-wall cast about them, so that they might make a stout
defence in their own houses if war came into the Dale.

As to their work afield; in many places the Dale was fair with
growth of trees, and especially were there long groves of sweet
chestnut standing on the grass, of the fruit whereof the folk had
much gain.  Also on the south side nigh to the western end
was a wood or two of yew-trees very great and old, whence they
gat them bow-staves, for the Dalesmen also shot well in the
bow.  Much wheat and rye they raised in the Dale, and
especially at the nether end thereof.  Apples and pears and
cherries and plums they had in plenty; of which trees, some grew
about the borders of the acres, some in the gardens of the Thorp
and the homesteads.  On the slopes that had grown from the
breaking down here and there of the Northern cliffs, and which
faced the South and the Sun’s burning, were rows of goodly
vines, whereof the folk made them enough and to spare of strong
wine both white and red.

As to their beasts; swine they had a many, but not many sheep,
since herein they trusted to their trucking with their friends
the Shepherds; they had horses, and yet but a few, for they were
stout in going afoot; and, had they a journey to make with women
big with babes, or with children or outworn elders, they would
yoke their oxen to their wains, and go fair and softly whither
they would.  But the said oxen and all their neat were
exceeding big and fair, far other than the little beasts of the
Shepherd-Folk; they were either dun of colour, or white with
black horns (and those very great) and black tail-tufts and
ear-tips.  Asses they had, and mules for the paths of the
mountains to the east; geese and hens enough, and dogs not a few,
great p.
11hounds stronger than wolves, sharp-nosed, long-jawed,
dun of colour, shag-haired.

As to their wares; they were very deft weavers of wool and
flax, and made a shift to dye the thrums in fair colours; since
both woad and madder came to them good cheap by means of the
merchants of the plain country, and of greening weeds was
abundance at hand.  Good smiths they were in all the metals:
they washed somewhat of gold out of the sands of the Weltering
Water, and copper and tin they fetched from the rocks of the
eastern mountains; but of silver they saw little, and iron they
must buy of the merchants of the plain, who came to them twice in
the year, to wit in the spring and the late autumn just before
the snows.  Their wares they bought with wool spun and in
the fleece, and fine cloth, and skins of wine and young neat both
steers and heifers, and wrought copper bowls, and gold and copper
by weight, for they had no stamped money.  And they guested
these merchants well, for they loved them, because of the tales
they told them of the Plain and its cities, and the manslayings
therein, and the fall of Kings and Dukes, and the uprising of
Captains.

Thus then lived this folk in much plenty and ease of life,
though not delicately nor desiring things out of measure. 
They wrought with their hands and wearied themselves; and they
rested from their toil and feasted and were merry: to-morrow was
not a burden to them, nor yesterday a thing which they would fain
forget: life shamed them not, nor did death make them afraid.

As for the Dale wherein they dwelt, it was indeed most fair
and lovely, and they deemed it the Blessing of the Earth, and
they trod its flowery grass beside its rippled streams amidst its
green tree-boughs proudly and joyfully with goodly bodies and
merry hearts.

p.
12CHAPTER II.  OF FACE-OF-GOD AND HIS KINDRED.

Tells the tale, that on an evening
of late autumn when the weather was fair, calm, and sunny, there
came a man out of the wood hard by the Mote-stead aforesaid, who
sat him down at the roots of the Speech-mound, casting down
before him a roe-buck which he had just slain in the wood. 
He was a young man of three and twenty summers; he was so clad
that he had on him a sheep-brown kirtle and leggings of like
stuff bound about with white leather thongs; he bore a
short-sword in his girdle and a little axe withal; the sword with
fair wrought gilded hilts and a dew-shoe of like fashion to its
sheath.  He had his quiver at his back and bare in his hand
his bow unstrung.  He was tall and strong, very fair of
fashion both of limbs and face, white-skinned, but for the
sun’s tanning, and ruddy-cheeked: his beard was little and
fine, his hair yellow and curling, cut somewhat close, but for
its length so plenteous, and so thick, that none could fail to
note it.  He had no hat nor hood upon his head, nought but a
fillet of golden beads.

As he sat down he glanced at the dale below him with a
well-pleased look, and then cast his eyes down to the grass at
his feet, as though to hold a little longer all unchanged the
image of the fair place he had just seen.  The sun was low
in the heavens, and his slant beams fell yellow all up the dale,
gilding the chestnut groves grown dusk and grey with autumn, and
the black masses of the elm-boughs, and gleaming back here and
there from the pools of the Weltering Water.  Down in the
midmost meadows the long-horned dun kine were moving slowly as
they fed along the edges of the stream, and a dog was bounding
about with exceeding swiftness here and there among them. 
At a sharply curved bight of the river the man could see a little
vermilion flame flickering about, and above it a thin blue veil
of smoke hanging in the air, and clinging to the boughs of the
willows anear; about it were a dozen menfolk clear to see, some
sitting, some standing, p. 13some walking to and fro, but all in
company together: four of were brown-clad and short-skirted like
himself, and from above the hand of one came a flash of light as
the sun smote upon the steel of his spear.  The others were
long-skirted and clad gayer, and amongst them were red and blue
and green and white garments, and they were clear to be seen for
women.  Just as the young man looked up again, those of them
who were sitting down rose up, and those that were strolling drew
nigh, and they joined hands together, and fell to dancing on the
grass, and the dog and another one with him came up to the
dancers and raced about and betwixt them; and so clear to see
were they all and so little, being far away, that they looked
like dainty well-wrought puppets.

The young man sat smiling at it for a little, and then rose up
and shouldered his venison, and went down into Wildlake’s
Way, and presently was fairly in the Dale and striding along the
Portway beside the northern cliffs, whose greyness was gilded yet
by the last rays of the sun, though in a minute or two it would
go under the western rim.  He went fast and cheerily,
murmuring to himself snatches of old songs; none overtook him on
the road, but he overtook divers folk going alone or in company
toward Burgstead; swains and old men, mothers and maidens coming
from the field and the acre, or going from house to house; and
one or two he met but not many.  All these greeted him
kindly, and he them again; but he stayed not to speak with any,
but went as one in haste.

It was dusk by then he passed under the gate of Burgstead; he
went straight thence to the door of the House of the Face, and
entered as one who is at home, and need go no further, nor abide
a bidding.

The hall he came into straight out of the open air was long
and somewhat narrow and not right high; it was well-nigh dark now
within, but since he knew where to look, he could see by the
flicker that leapt up now and then from the smouldering brands of
the hearth amidmost the hall under the luffer, that there were p. 14but three men
therein, and belike they were even they whom he looked to find
there, and for their part they looked for his coming, and knew
his step.

He set down his venison on the floor, and cried out in a
cheery voice: ‘Ho, Kettel!  Are all men gone without
doors to sleep so near the winter-tide, that the Hall is as dark
as a cave?  Hither to me!  Or art thou also
sleeping?’

A voice came from the further side of the hearth: ‘Yea,
lord, asleep I am, and have been, and dreaming; and in my dream I
dealt with the flesh-pots and the cake-board, and thou shalt see
my dream come true presently to thy gain.’

Quoth another voice: ‘Kettel hath had out that share of
his dream already belike, if the saw sayeth sooth about
cooks.  All ye have been away, so belike he hath done as
Rafe’s dog when Rafe ran away from the slain
buck.’

He laughed therewith, and Kettel with him, and a third voice
joined the laughter.  The young man also laughed and said:
‘Here I bring the venison which my kinsman desired; but as
ye see I have brought it over-late: but take it, Kettel. 
When cometh my father from the stithy?’

Quoth Kettel: ‘My lord hath been hard at it shaping the
Yule-tide sword, and doth not lightly leave such work, as ye wot,
but he will be here presently, for he has sent to bid us dight
for supper straightway.’

Said the young man: ‘Where are there lords in the dale,
Kettel, or hast thou made some thyself, that thou must be always
throwing them in my teeth?’

‘Son of the Alderman,’ said Kettel, ‘ye call
me Kettel, which is no name of mine, so why should I not call
thee lord, which is no dignity of thine, since it goes well over
my tongue from old use and wont?  But here comes my mate of
the kettle, and the women and lads.  Sit down by the hearth
away from their hurry, and I will fetch thee the
hand-water.’

The young man sat down, and Kettel took up the venison p. 15and went his
ways toward the door at the lower end of the hall; but ere he
reached it it opened, and a noisy crowd entered of men, women,
boys, and dogs, some bearing great wax candles, some bowls and
cups and dishes and trenchers, and some the boards for the
meal.

The young man sat quiet smiling and winking his eyes at the
sudden flood of light let into the dark place; he took in without
looking at this or the other thing the aspect of his
Fathers’ House, so long familiar to him; yet to-night he
had a pleasure in it above his wont, and in all the stir of the
household; for the thought of the wood wherein he had wandered
all day yet hung heavy upon him.  Came one of the girls and
cast fresh brands on the smouldering fire and stirred it into a
blaze, and the wax candles were set up on the daïs, so that
between them and the mew-quickened fire every corner of the hall
was bright.  As aforesaid it was long and narrow,
over-arched with stone and not right high, the windows high up
under the springing of the roof-arch and all on the side toward
the street; over against them were the arches of the shut-beds of
the housemates.  The walls were bare that evening, but folk
were wont to hang up hallings of woven pictures thereon when
feasts and high-days were toward; and all along the walls were
the tenter-hooks for that purpose, and divers weapons and tools
were hanging from them here and there.  About the daïs
behind the thwart-table were now stuck for adornment leavy boughs
of oak now just beginning to turn with the first frosts. 
High up on the gable wall above the tenter-hooks for the hangings
were carven fair imagery and knots and twining stems; for there
in the hewn atone was set forth that same image with the rayed
head that was on the outside wall, and he was smiting the dragon
and slaying him; but here inside the house all this was stained
in fair and lively colours, and the sun-like rays round the head
of the image were of beaten gold.  At the lower end of the
hall were two doors going into the butteries, and kitchen, and
other p.
16out-bowers; and above these doors was a loft upborne by
stone pillars, which loft was the sleeping chamber of the goodman
of the house; but the outward door was halfway between the said
loft and the hearth of the hall.

So the young man took the shoes from his feet and then sat
watching the women and lads arraying the boards, till Kettel came
again to him with an old woman bearing the ewer and basin, who
washed his feet and poured the water over his hands, and gave him
the towel with fair-broidered ends to dry them withal.

Scarce had he made an end of this ere through the outer door
came in three men and a young woman with them; the foremost of
these was a man younger by some two years than the first-comer,
but so like him that none might misdoubt that he was his brother;
the next was an old man with a long white beard, but hale and
upright; and lastly came a man of middle-age, who led the young
woman by the hand.  He was taller than the first of the
young men, though the other who entered with him outwent him in
height; a stark carle he was, broad across the shoulders, thin in
the flank, long-armed and big-handed; very noble and
well-fashioned of countenance, with a straight nose and grey eyes
underneath a broad brow: his hair grown somewhat scanty was done
about with a fillet of golden beads like the young men his
sons.  For indeed this was their father, and the master of
the House.

His name was Iron-face, for he was the deftest of
weapon-smiths, and he was the Alderman of the Dalesmen, and
well-beloved of them; his kindred was deemed the noblest of the
Dale, and long had they dwelt in the House of the Face.  But
of his sons the youngest, the new-comer, was named Hall-face, and
his brother the elder Face-of-god; which name was of old use
amongst the kindred, and many great men and stout warriors had
borne it aforetime: and this young man, in great love had he been
gotten, and in much hope had he been reared, and therefore had he
been named after the best of the kindred.  But p. 17his mother,
who was hight the Jewel, and had been a very fair woman, was dead
now, and Iron-face lacked a wife.

Face-of-god was well-beloved of his kindred and of all the
Folk of the Dale, and he had gotten a to-name, and was called
Gold-mane because of the abundance and fairness of his hair.

As for the young woman that was led in by Iron-face, she was
the betrothed of Face-of-god, and her name was the Bride. 
She looked with such eyes of love on him when she saw him in the
hall, as though she had never seen him before but once, nor loved
him but since yesterday; though in truth they had grown up
together and had seen each other most days of the year for many
years.  She was of the kindred with whom the chiefs and
great men of the Face mostly wedded, which was indeed far away
kindred of them.  She was a fair woman and strong: not
easily daunted amidst perils she was hardy and handy and
light-foot: she could swim as well as any, and could shoot well
in the bow, and wield sword and spear: yet was she kind and
compassionate, and of great courtesy, and the very dogs and kine
trusted in her and loved her.  Her hair was dark red of hue,
long and fine and plenteous, her eyes great and brown, her brow
broad and very fair, her lips fine and red: her cheek not ruddy,
yet nowise sallow, but clear and bright: tall she was and of
excellent fashion, but well-knit and well-measured rather than
slender and wavering as the willow-bough.  Her voice was
sweet and soft, her words few, but exceeding dear to the
listener.  In short, she was a woman born to be the ransom
of her Folk.

Now as to the names which the menfolk of the Face bore, and
they an ancient kindred, a kindred of chieftains, it has been
said that in times past their image of the God of the Earth had
over his treen face a mask of beaten gold fashioned to the shape
of the image; and that when the Alderman of the Folk died, he to
wit who served the God and bore on his arm the gold-ring between
the people and the altar, this visor or face of God was laid over
the face of him who had been in a manner his priest, p. 18and therewith
he was borne to mound; and the new Alderman and priest had it in
charge to fashion a new visor for the God; and whereas for long
this great kindred had been chieftains of the people, they had
been, and were all so named, that the word Face was ever a part
of their names.

CHAPTER III.  THEY TALK OF DIVERS MATTERS IN THE
HALL.

Now Face-of-god, who is also called
Gold-mane, rose up to meet the new-comers, and each of them
greeted him kindly, and the Bride kissed him on the cheek, and he
her in likewise; and he looked kindly on her, and took her hand,
and went on up the hall to the daïs, following his father
and the old man; as for him, he was of the kindred of the House,
and was foster-father of Iron-face and of his sons both; and his
name was Stone-face: a stark warrior had he been when he was
young, and even now he could do a man’s work in the
battlefield, and his understanding was as good as that of a man
in his prime.  So went these and four others up on to the
daïs and sat down before the thwart-table looking down the
hall, for the meat was now on the board; and of the others there
were some fifty men and women who were deemed to be of the
kindred and sat at the endlong tables.

So then the Alderman stood up and made the sign of the Hammer
over the meat, the token of his craft and of his God.  Then
they fell to with good hearts, for there was enough and to spare
of meat and drink.  There was bread and flesh (though not
Gold-mane’s venison), and leeks and roasted chestnuts of
the grove, and red-cheeked apples of the garth, and honey enough
of that year’s gathering, and medlars sharp and mellow:
moreover, good wine of the western bents went up and down the
hall in great gilded copper bowls and in mazers girt and lipped
with gold.

p. 19But
when they were full of meat, and had drunken somewhat, they fell
to speech, and Iron-face spake aloud to his son, who had but been
speaking softly to the Bride as one playmate to the other: but
the Alderman said: ‘Scarce are the wood-deer grown,
kinsman, when I must needs eat sheep’s flesh on a Thursday,
though my son has lain abroad in the woods all night to hunt for
me.’

And therewith he smiled in the young man’s face; but
Gold-mane reddened and said: ‘So is it, kinsman, I can hit
what I can see; but not what is hidden.’

Iron-face laughed and said: ‘Hast thou been to the
Woodland-Carles? are their women fairer than our
cousins?’

Face-of-god took up the Bride’s hand in his and kissed
it and laid it to his cheek; and then turned to his father and
said: ‘Nay, father, I saw not the Wood-carles, nor went to
their abode; and on no day do I lust after their women. 
Moreover, I brought home a roebuck of the fattest; but I was
over-late for Kettel, and the flesh was ready for the board by
then I came.’

‘Well, son,’ quoth Iron-face, for he was merry,
‘a roebuck is but a little deer for such big men as are
thou and I.  But I rede thee take the Bride along with thee
the next time; and she shall seek whilest thou sleepest, and hit
when thou missest.’

Then Face-of-god smiled, but he frowned somewhat also, and he
said: ‘Well were that, indeed!  But if ye must needs
drag a true tale out of me: that roebuck I shot at the very edge
of the wood nigh to the Mote-stead as I was coming home: harts
had I seen in the wood and its lawns, and boars, and bucks, and
loosed not at them: for indeed when I awoke in the morning in
that wood-lawn ye wot of, I wandered up and down with my bow
unbent.  So it was that I fared as if I were seeking
something, I know not what, that should fill up something lacking
to me, I know not what.  Thus I felt in myself even so long
as I was underneath the black boughs, and there was none beside
me and before me, and none to turn aback to: but when I came out
again into the p.
20sunshine, and I saw the fair dale, and the happy abode
lying before me, and folk abroad in the meads merry in the
eventide; then was I full fain of it, and loathed the wood as an
empty thing that had nought to give me; and lo you! all that I
had been longing for in the wood, was it not in this House and
ready to my hand?—and that is good meseemeth.’

Therewith he drank of the cup which the Bride put into his
hand after she had kissed the rim, but when he had set it down
again he spake once more:

‘And yet now I am sitting honoured and well-beloved in
the House of my Fathers, with the holy hearth sparkling and
gleaming down there before me; and she that shall bear my
children sitting soft and kind by my side, and the bold lads I
shall one day lead in battle drinking out of my very cup: now it
seems to me that amidst all this, the dark cold wood, wherein
abide but the beasts and the Foes of the Gods, is bidding me to
it and drawing me thither.  Narrow is the Dale and the World
is wide; I would it were dawn and daylight, that I might be afoot
again.’

And he half rose up from his place.  But his father bent
his brow on him and said: ‘Kinsman, thou hast a long tongue
for a half-trained whelp: nor see I whitherward thy mind is
wandering, but if it be on the road of a lad’s desire to go
further and fare worse.  Hearken then, I will offer thee
somewhat!  Soon shall the West-country merchants be here
with their winter truck.  How sayest thou? hast thou a mind
to fare back with them, and look on the Plain and its Cities, and
take and give with the strangers?  To whom indeed thou shalt
be nothing save a purse with a few lumps of gold in it, or maybe
a spear in the stranger’s band on the stricken field, or a
bow on the wall of an alien city.  This is a craft which
thou mayst well learn, since thou shalt be a chieftain; a craft
good to learn, however grievous it be in the learning.  And
I myself have been there; for in my youth I desired sore to look
on the world beyond the mountains; so I went, and I filled my
belly with the fruit of my own desires, and a bitter p. 21meat was
that; but now that it has passed through me, and I yet alive,
belike I am more of a grown man for having endured its
gripe.  Even so may it well be with thee, son; so go if thou
wilt; and thou shalt go with my blessing, and with gold and wares
and wain and spearmen.’

‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘I thank thee, for
it is well offered; but I will not go, for I have no lust for the
Plain and its Cities; I love the Dale well, and all that is round
about it; therein will I live and die.’

Therewith he fell a-musing; and the Bride looked at him
anxiously, but spake not.  Sooth to say her heart was
sinking, as though she foreboded some new thing, which should
thrust itself into their merry life.

But the old man Stone-face took up the word and said:

‘Son Gold-mane, it behoveth me to speak, since belike I
know the wild-wood better than most, and have done for these
three-score and ten years; to my cost.  Now I perceive that
thou longest for the wood and the innermost of it; and wot ye
what?  This longing will at whiles entangle the sons of our
chieftains, though this Alderman that now is hath been free
therefrom, which is well for him.  For, time was this
longing came over me, and I went whither it led me: overlong it
were to tell of all that befell me because of it, and how my
heart bled thereby.  So sorry were the tidings that came of
it, that now meseemeth my heart should be of stone and not my
face, had it not been for the love wherewith I have loved the
sons of the kindred.  Therefore, son, it were not ill if ye
went west away with the merchants this winter, and learned the
dealings of the cities, and brought us back tales
thereof.’

But Gold-mane cried out somewhat angrily, ‘I tell thee,
foster-father, that I have no mind for the cities and their men
and their fools and their whores and their runagates.  But
as for the wood and its wonders, I have done with it, save for
hunting there along with others of the Folk.  So let thy
mind be at ease; and for p. 22the rest, I will do what the Alderman
commandeth, and whatso my father craveth of me.’

‘And that is well, son,’ said Stone-face,
‘if what ye say come to pass, as sore I misdoubt me it will
not.  But well it were, well it were!  For such things
are in the wood, yea and before ye come to its innermost, as may
well try the stoutest heart.  Therein are Kobbolds, and
Wights that love not men, things unto whom the grief of men is as
the sound of the fiddle-bow unto us.  And there abide the
ghosts of those that may not rest; and there wander the dwarfs
and the mountain-dwellers, the dealers in marvels, the givers of
gifts that destroy Houses; the forgers of the curse that clingeth
and the murder that flitteth to and fro.  There moreover are
the lairs of Wights in the shapes of women, that draw a young
man’s heart out of his body, and fill up the empty place
with desire never to be satisfied, that they may mock him
therewith and waste his manhood and destroy him.  Nor say I
much of the strong-thieves that dwell there, since thou art a
valiant sword; or of them who have been made Wolves of the Holy
Places; or of the Murder-Carles, the remnants and off-scourings
of wicked and wretched Folks—men who think as much of the
life of a man as of the life of a fly.  Yet happiest is the
man whom they shall tear in pieces, than he who shall live
burdened by the curse of the Foes of the Gods.’

The housemaster looked on his son as the old carle spake, and
a cloud gathered on his face a while; and when Stone-face had
made an end he spake:

‘This is long and evil talk for the end of a merry day,
O fosterer!  Wilt thou not drink a draught, O Redesman, and
then stand up and set thy fiddle-bow a-dancing, and cause it draw
some fair words after it?  For my cousin’s face hath
grown sadder than a young maid’s should be, and my
son’s eyes gleam with thoughts that are far away from us
and abroad in the wild-wood seeking marvels.’

Then arose a man of middle-age from the top of the endlong p. 23bench on the
east side of the hall: a man tall, thin and scant-haired, with a
nose like an eagle’s neb: he reached out his hand for the
bowl, and when they had given to him he handled it, and raised it
aloft and cried:

‘Here I drink a double health to Face-of-god and the
Bride, and the love that lieth between them, and the love betwixt
them twain and us.’

He drank therewith, and the wine went up and down the hall,
and all men drank, both carles and queens, with shouting and
great joy.  Then Redesman put down the cup (for it had come
into his hands again), and reached his hand to the wall behind
him, and took down his fiddle hanging there in its case, and drew
it out and fell to tuning it, while the hall grew silent to
hearken: then he handled the bow and laid it on the strings till
they wailed and chuckled sweetly, and when the song was well
awake and stirring briskly, then he lifted up his voice and
sang:

The Minstrel saith:

‘O why on this morning, ye maids, are ye
tripping

   Aloof from the meadows yet fresh with the dew,

Where under the west wind the river is lipping

   The fragrance of mint, the white blooms and the
blue?

For rough is the Portway where panting ye
wander;

   On your feet and your gown-hems the dust lieth
dun;

Come trip through the grass and the meadow-sweet yonder,

   And forget neath the willows the sword of the
sun.

The Maidens answer:

Though fair are the moon-daisies down by the
river,

   And soft is the grass and the white clover sweet;

Though twixt us and the rock-wall the hot glare doth quiver,

   And the dust of the wheel-way is dun on our
feet;

Yet here on the way shall we walk on this
morning

   Though the sun burneth here, and sweet, cool is the
mead;

p. 24For here
when in old days the Burg gave its warning,

   Stood stark under weapons the doughty of deed.

Here came on the aliens their proud words
a-crying,

   And here on our threshold they stumbled and fell;

Here silent at even the steel-clad were lying,

   And here were our mothers the story to tell.

Here then on the morn of the eve of the
wedding

   We pray to the Mighty that we too may bear

Such war-walls for warding of orchard and steading,

   That the new days be merry as old days were
dear.’

Therewith he made an end, and shouts and glad cries arose all
about the hall; and an old man arose and cried: ‘A cup to
the memory of the Mighty of the Day of the Warding of the
Ways.’  For you must know this song told of a custom
of the Folk, held in memory of a time of bygone battle, wherein
they had overthrown a great host of aliens on the Portway betwixt
the river and the cliffs, two furlongs from the gate of
Burgstead.  So now two weeks before Midsummer those maidens
who were presently to be wedded went early in the morning to that
place clad in very fair raiment, swords girt to their sides and
spears in their hands, and abode there on the highway from morn
till even as though they were a guard to it.  And they made
merry there, singing songs and telling tales of times past: and
at the sunsetting their grooms came to fetch them away to the
Feast of the Eve of the Wedding.

While the song was a-singing Face-of-god took the
Bride’s hand in his and caressed it, and was soft and
blithe with her; and she reddened and trembled for pleasure, and
called to mind wedding feasts that had been, and fair brides that
she had seen thereat, and she forgot her fears and her heart was
at peace again.

And Iron-face looked well-pleased on the two from time to
time, and smiled, but forbore words to them.

But up and down the hall men talked with one another about p. 25things long
ago betid: for their hearts were high and they desired deeds; but
in that fair Dale so happy were the years from day to day that
there was but little to tell of.  So deepened the night and
waned, and Gold-mane and the Bride still talked sweetly together,
and at whiles kindly to the others; and by seeming he had clean
forgotten the wood and its wonders.

Then at last the Alderman called for the cup of good-night,
and men drank thereof and went their ways to bed.

CHAPTER IV.  FACE-OF-GOD FARETH TO THE WOOD AGAIN.

When it was the earliest morning
and dawn was but just beginning, Face-of-god awoke and rose up
from his bed, and came forth into the hall naked in his shirt,
and stood by the hearth, wherein the piled-up embers were yet
red, and looked about and could see nothing stirring in the
dimness: then he fetched water and washed the night-tide off him,
and clad himself in haste, and was even as he was yesterday, save
that he left his bow and quiver in their place and took instead a
short casting-spear; moreover he took a leathern scrip and went
therewith to the buttery, and set therein bread and flesh and a
little gilded beaker; and all this he did with but little noise;
for he would not be questioned, lest he should have to answer
himself as well as others.

Thus he went quietly out of doors, for the door was but
latched, since no bolts or bars or locks were used in Burgstead,
and through the town-gate, which stood open, save when rumours of
war were about.  He turned his face straight towards
Wildlake’s Way, walking briskly, but at whiles looking back
over his shoulder toward the East to note what way was made by
the dawning, and how the sky lightened above the mountain
passes.

p. 26By then
he was come to the place where the Maiden Ward was held in the
summer the dawn was so far forward that all things had their due
colours, and were clear to see in the shadowless day.  It
was a bright morning, with an easterly air stirring that drave
away the haze and dried the meadows, which had otherwise been
rimy; for it was cold.  Gold-mane lingered on the place a
little, and his eyes fell on the road, as dusty yet as in
Redesman’s song; for the autumn had been very dry, and the
strip of green that edged the outside of the way was worn and
dusty also.  On the edge of it, half in the dusty road, half
on the worn grass, was a long twine of briony red-berried and
black-leaved; and right in the midst of the road were two twigs
of great-leaved sturdy pollard oak, as though they had been
thrown aside there yesterday by women or children a-sporting; and
the deep white dust yet held the marks of feet, some bare, some
shod, crossing each other here and there.  Face-of-god
smiled as he passed on, as a man with a happy thought; for his
mind showed him a picture of the Bride as she would be leading
the Maiden Ward next summer, and singing first among the singers,
and he saw her as clearly as he had often seen her verily, and
before him was the fashion of her hands and all her body, and the
little mark on her right wrist, and the place where her arm
whitened, because the sleeve guarded it against the sun, which
had long been pleasant unto him, and the little hollow in her
chin, and the lock of red-brown hair waving in the wind above her
brow, and shining in the sun as brightly as the Alderman’s
cunningest work of golden wire.  Soft and sweet seemed that
picture, till he almost seemed to hear her sweet voice calling to
him, and desire of her so took hold of the youth, that it stirred
him up to go swiftlier as he strode on, the day brightening
behind him.

Now was it nigh sunrise, and he began to meet folk on the way,
though not many; since for most their way lay afield, and not
towards the Burg.  The first was a Woodlander, tall and
gaunt, striding beside his ass, whose panniers were laden with p.
27charcoal.  The carle’s daughter, a little
maiden of seven winters, riding on the ass’s back betwixt
the panniers, and prattling to herself in the cold morning; for
she was pleased with the clear light in the east, and the smooth
wide turf of the meadows, as one who had not often been far from
the shadow of the heavy trees of the wood, and their dark wall
round about the clearing where they dwelt.  Face-of-god gave
the twain the sele of the day in merry fashion as he passed them
by, and the sober dark-faced man nodded to him but spake no word,
and the child stayed her prattle to watch him as he went by.

Then came the sound of the rattle of wheels, and, as he
doubled an angle of the rock-wall, he came upon a wain drawn by
four dun kine, wherein lay a young woman all muffled up against
the cold with furs and cloths; beside the yoke-beasts went her
man, a well-knit trim-faced Dalesman clad bravely in holiday
raiment, girt with a goodly sword, bearing a bright steel helm on
his head, in his hand a long spear with a gay red and white shaft
done about with copper bands.  He looked merry and proud of
his wain-load, and the woman was smiling kindly on him from out
of her scarlet and fur; but now she turned a weary happy face on
Gold-mane, for they knew him, as did all men of the Dale.

So he stopped when they met, for the goodman had already
stayed his slow beasts, and the goodwife had risen a little on
her cushions to greet him, yet slowly and but a little, for she
was great with child, and not far from her time.  That knew
Gold-mane well, and what was toward, and why the goodman wore his
fine clothes, and why the wain was decked with oak-boughs and the
yoke-beasts with their best gilded bells and copper-adorned
harness.  For it was a custom with many of the kindreds that
the goodwife should fare to her father’s house to lie in
with her first babe, and the day of her coming home was made a
great feast in the house.  So then Face-of-god cried out:
‘Hail to thee, O Warcliff!  Shrewd is the wind this
morning, and thou dost well to heed it carefully, this thine
orchard, this thy garden, this thy p. 28fair apple-tree!  To a good hall
thou wendest, and the Wine of Increase shall be sweet there this
even.’

Then smiled Warcliff all across his face, and the goodwife
hung her head and reddened.  Said the goodman: ‘Wilt
thou not be with us, son of the Alderman, as surely thy father
shall be?’

‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘though I were fain
of it: my own matters carry me away.’

‘What matters?’ said Warcliff; ‘perchance
thou art for the cities this autumn?’

Face-of-god answered somewhat stiffly: ‘Nay, I am
not;’ and then more kindly, and smiling, ‘All roads
lead not down to the Plain, friend.’

‘What road then farest thou away from us?’ said
the goodwife.

‘The way of my will,’ he answered.

‘And what way is that?’ said she; ‘take
heed, lest I get a longing to know.  For then must thou
needs tell me, or deal with the carle there beside
thee.’

‘Nay, goodwife,’ said Face-of-god, ‘let not
that longing take thee; for on that matter I am even as wise as
thou.  Now good speed to thee and to the
new-comer!’

Therewith he went close up to the wain, and reached out his
hand to her, and she gave him hers and he kissed it, and so went
his ways smiling kindly on them.  Then the carle cried to
his kine, and they bent down their heads to the yoke; and
presently, as he walked on, he heard the rumble of the wain
mingling with the tinkling of their bells, which in a little
while became measured and musical, and sounded above the creaking
of the axles and the rattle of the gear and the roll of the great
wheels over the road: and so it grew thinner and thinner till it
all died away behind him.

He was now come to where the river turned away from the sheer
rock-wall, which was not so high there as in most other places,
as there had been in old time long screes from the cliff, which
had now grown together, with the waxing of herbs and the p. 29washing down
of the earth on to them, and made a steady slope or low hill
going down riverward.  Over this the road lifted itself
above the level of the meadows, keeping a little way from the
cliffs, while on the other side its bank was somewhat broken and
steep here and there.  As Face-of-god came up to one of
these broken places, the sun rose over the eastern pass, and the
meadows grew golden with its long beams.  He lingered, and
looked back under his hand, and as he did so heard the voices and
laughter of women coming up from the slope below him, and
presently a young woman came struggling up the broken bank with
hand and knee, and cast herself down on the roadside turf
laughing and panting.  She was a long-limbed light-made
woman, dark-faced and black-haired: amidst her laughter she
looked up and saw Gold-mane, who had stopped at once when he saw
her; she held out her hands to him, and said lightly, though her
face flushed withal:

‘Come hither, thou, and help the others to climb the
bank; for they are beaten in the race, and now must they do after
my will; that was the forfeit.’

He went up to her, and took her hands and kissed them, as was
the custom of the Dale, and said:

‘Hail to thee, Long-coat! who be they, and whither away
this morning early?’

She looked hard at him, and fondly belike, as she answered
slowly: ‘They be the two maidens of my father’s
house, whom thou knowest; and our errand, all three of us, is to
Burgstead, the Feast of the Wine of Increase which shall be drunk
this even.’

As she spake came another woman half up the bank, to whom went
Face-of-god, and, taking her hands, drew her up while she laughed
merrily in his face: he saluted her as he had Long-coat, and then
with a laugh turned about to wait for the third; who came indeed,
but after a little while, for she had abided, hearing their
voices.  Her also Gold-mane drew up, and kissed p. 30her hands,
and she lay on the grass by Long-coat, but the second maiden
stood up beside the young man.  She was white-skinned and
golden-haired, a very fair damsel, whereas the last-comer was but
comely, as were well-nigh all the women of the Dale.

Said Face-of-god, looking on the three: ‘How comes it,
maidens, that ye are but in your kirtles this sharp autumn
morning? or where have ye left your gowns or your
cloaks?’

For indeed they were clad but in close-fitting blue kirtles of
fine wool, embroidered about the hems with gold and coloured
threads.

The last-comer laughed and said: ‘What ails thee,
Gold-mane, to be so careful of us, as if thou wert our mother or
our nurse?  Yet if thou must needs know, there hang our
gowns on the thorn-bush down yonder; for we have been running a
match and a forfeit; to wit, that she who was last on the highway
should go down again and bring them up all three; and now that is
my day’s work: but since thou art here, Alderman’s
son, thou shalt go down instead of me and fetch them
up.’

But he laughed merrily and outright, and said: ‘That
will I not, for there be but twenty-four hours in the day, and
what between eating and drinking and talking to fair maidens, I
have enough to do in every one of them.  Wasteful are ye
women, and simple is your forfeit.  Now will I, who am the
Alderman’s son, give forth a doom, and will ordain that one
of you fetch up the gowns yourselves, and that Long-coat be the
one; for she is the fleetest-footed and ablest thereto. 
Will ye take my doom? for later on I shall not be
wiser.’

‘Yea,’ said the fair woman, ‘not because
thou art the Alderman’s son, but because thou art the
fairest man of the Dale, and mayst bid us poor souls what thou
wilt.’

Face-of-god reddened at her words, and the speaker and the
last-comer laughed; but Long-coat held her peace: she cast one
very sober look on him, and then ran lightly down the bent; he
drew near the edge of it, and watched her going; for her
light-foot p.
31slimness was fair to look on: and he noted that when she
was nigh the thorn-bush whereon hung the bright-broidered gowns,
and deemed belike that she was not seen, she kissed both her
hands where he had kissed them erst.

Thereat he drew aback and turned away shyly, scarce looking at
the other twain, who smiled on him with somewhat jeering looks;
but he bade them farewell and departed speedily; and if they
spoke, it was but softly, for he heard their voices no more.

He went on under the sunlight which was now gilding the
outstanding stones of the cliffs, and still his mind was set upon
the Bride; and his meeting with the mother of the yet unborn
baby, and with the three women with their freshness and fairness,
did somehow turn his thought the more upon her, since she was the
woman who was to be his amongst all women, for she was far fairer
than any one of them; and through all manner of life and through
all kinds of deeds would he be with her, and know more of her
fairness and kindness than any other could: and him-seemed he
could see pictures of her and of him amidst all these deeds and
ways.

Now he went very swiftly; for he was eager, though he knew not
for what, and he thought but little of the things on which his
eyes fell.  He met none else on the road till he was come to
Wildlake’s Way, though he saw folk enough down in the
meadows; he was soon amidst the first of the trees, and without
making any stay set his face east and somewhat north, that is,
toward the slopes that led to the great mountains.  He said
to himself aloud, as he wended the wood: ‘Strange!
yestereven I thought much of the wood, and I set my mind on not
going thither, and this morning I thought nothing of it, and here
am I amidst its trees, and wending towards its
innermost.’

His way was easy at first, because the wood for a little space
was all of beech, so that there was no undergrowth, and he went
lightly betwixt the tall grey and smooth boles; albeit his heart
was nought so gay as it was in the dale amidst the
sunshine.  After a while the beech-wood grew thinner, and at
last gave out p.
32altogether, and he came into a space of rough broken
ground with nought but a few scrubby oaks and thorn-bushes
growing thereon here and there.  The sun was high in the
heavens now, and shone brightly down on the waste, though there
were a few white clouds high up above him.  The rabbits
scuttled out of the grass before him; here and there he turned
aside from a stone on which lay coiled an adder sunning itself;
now and again both hart and hind bounded away from before him, or
a sounder of wild swine ran grunting away toward closer
covert.  But nought did he see but the common sights and
sounds of the woodland; nor did he look for aught else, for he
knew this part of the woodland indifferent well.

He held on over this treeless waste for an hour or more, when
the ground began to be less rugged, and he came upon trees again,
but thinly scattered, oak and ash and hornbeam not right great,
with thickets of holly and blackthorn between them.  The set
of the ground was still steadily up to the east and north-east,
and he followed it as one who wendeth an assured way.  At
last before him seemed to rise a wall of trees and thicket; but
when he drew near to it, lo! an opening in a certain place, and a
little path as if men were wont to thread the tangle of the wood
thereby; though hitherto he had noted no slot of men, nor any
sign of them, since he had plunged into the deep of the
beech-wood.  He took the path as one who needs must, and
went his ways as it led.  In sooth it was well-nigh blind,
but he was a deft woodsman, and by means of it skirted many a
close thicket that had otherwise stayed him.  So on he went,
and though the boughs were close enough overhead, and the sun
came through but in flecks, he judged that it was growing towards
noon, and he wotted well that he was growing aweary.  For he
had been long afoot, and the more part of the time on a rough
way, or breasting a slope which was at whiles steep enough.

At last the track led him skirting about an exceeding close
thicket into a small clearing, through which ran a little
woodland p.
33rill amidst rushes and dead leaves: there was a low
mound near the eastern side of this wood-lawn, as though there
had been once a dwelling of man there, but no other sign or slot
of man was there.

So Face-of-god made stay in that place, casting himself down
beside the rill to rest him and eat and drink somewhat. 
Whatever thoughts had been with him through the wood (and they
been many) concerning his House and his name, and his father, and
the journey he might make to the cities of the Westland, and what
was to befall him when he was wedded, and what war or trouble
should be on his hands—all this was now mingled together
and confused by this rest amidst his weariness.  He laid
down his scrip, and drew his meat from it and ate what he would,
and dipping his gilded beaker into the brook, drank water
smacking of the damp musty savour of the woodland; and then his
head sank back on a little mound in the short turf, and he fell
asleep at once.  A long dream he had in short space; and
therein were blent his thoughts of the morning with the deeds of
yesterday; and other matters long forgotten in his waking hours
came back to his slumber in unordered confusion: all which made
up for him pictures clear, but of little meaning, save that, as
oft befalls in dreams, whatever he was a-doing he felt himself
belated.

When he awoke, smiling at something strange in his gone-by
dream, he looked up to the heavens, thinking to see signs of the
even at hand, for he seemed to have been dreaming so long. 
The sky was thinly overcast by now, but by his wonted woodcraft
he knew the whereabouts of the sun, and that it was scant an hour
after noon.  He sat there till he was wholly awake, and then
drank once more of the woodland water; and he said to himself,
but out loud, for he was fain of the sound of a man’s
voice, though it were but his own:

‘What is mine errand hither?  Whither wend I? 
What shall I have done to-morrow that I have hitherto left
undone?  p.
34Or what manner of man shall I be then other than I am
now?’

Yet though he said the words he failed to think the thought,
or it left him in a moment of time, and he thought but of the
Bride and her kindness.  Yet that abode with him but a
moment, and again he saw himself and those two women on the
highway edge, and Long-coat lingering on the slope below, kissing
his kisses on her hands; and he was sorry that she desired him
over-much, for she was a fair woman and a friendly.  But all
that also flowed from him at once, and he had no thought in him
but that he also desired something that he lacked: and this was a
burden to him, and he rose up frowning, and said to himself,
‘Am I become a mere sport of dreams, whether I sleep or
wake?  I will go backward—or forward, but will think
no more.’

Then he ordered his gear again, and took the path onward and
upward toward the Great Mountains; and the track was even fainter
than before for a while, so that he had to seek his way
diligently.

CHAPTER V.  FACE-OF-GOD FALLS IN WITH MENFOLK ON THE
MOUNTAIN.

Now he plodded on steadily, and for
a long time the forest changed but little, and of wild things he
saw only a few of those that love the closest covert.  The
ground still went up and up, though at whiles were hollows, and
steeper bents out of them again, and the half-blind path or slot
still led past the close thickets and fallen trees, and he made
way without let or hindrance.  At last once more the wood
began to thin, and the trees themselves to be smaller and gnarled
and ill-grown: therewithal the day was waning, and the sky was
quite clear again as the afternoon grew into a fair autumn
evening.

Now the trees failed altogether, and the slope grown steeper
p. 35was
covered with heather and ling; and looking up, he saw before him
quite near by seeming in the clear even (though indeed they were
yet far away) the snowy peaks flushed with the sinking sun
against the frosty dark-grey eastern sky; and below them the dark
rock-mountains, and below these again, and nigh to him indeed,
the fells covered with pine-woods and looking like a wall to the
heaths he trod.

He stayed a little while and turned his head to look at the
way whereby he had come; but that way a swell of the oak-forest
hid everything but the wood itself, making a wall behind him as
the pine-wood made a wall before.  There came across him
then a sharp memory of the boding words which Stone-face had
spoken last night, and he felt as if he were now indeed within
the trap.  But presently he laughed and said: ‘I am a
fool: this comes of being alone in the dark wood and the dismal
waste, after the merry faces of the Dale had swept away my
foolish musings of yesterday and the day before.  Lo! here I
stand, a man of the Face, sword and axe by my side; if death
come, it can but come once; and if I fear not death, what shall
make me afraid?  The Gods hate me not, and will not hurt me;
and they are not ugly, but beauteous.’

Therewith he strode on again, and soon came to a place where
the ground sank into a shallow valley and the ling gave place to
grass for a while, and there were tall old pines scattered about,
and betwixt them grey rocks; this he passed through, climbing a
steep bent out of it, and the pines were all about him now,
though growing wide apart, till at last he came to where they
thickened into a wood, not very close, wherethrough he went
merrily, singing to himself and swinging his spear.  He was
soon through this wood, and came on to a wide well-grassed
wood-lawn, hedged by the wood aforesaid on three sides, but
sloping up slowly toward the black wall of the thicker pine-wood
on the fourth side, and about half a furlong overthwart and
endlong.  The sun had set while he was in the last wood, but
it was p.
36still broad daylight on the wood-lawn, and as he stood
there he was ware of a house under the pine-wood on the other
side, built long and low, much like the houses of the
Woodland-Carles, but rougher fashioned and of unhewn trees. 
He gazed on it, and said aloud to himself as his wont was:

‘Marvellous! here is a dwelling of man, scarce a
day’s journey from Burgstead; yet have I never heard tell
of it: may happen some of the Woodland-Carles have built it, and
are on some errand of hunting peltries up in the mountains, or
maybe are seeking copper and tin among the rocks.  Well, at
least let us go see what manner of men dwell there, and if they
are minded for a guest to-night; for fain were I of a bed beneath
a roof, and of a board with strong meat and drink on
it.’

Therewith he set forward, not heeding much that the wood he
had passed through was hard on his left hand; but he had gone but
twenty paces when he saw a red thing at the edge of the wood, and
then a glitter, and a spear came whistling forth, and smote his
own spear so hard close to the steel that it flew out of his
hand; then came a great shout, and a man clad in a scarlet kirtle
ran forth on him.  Face-of-god had his axe in his hand in a
twinkling, and ran at once to meet his foe; but the man had the
hill on his side as he rushed on with a short-sword in his
hand.  Axe and sword clashed together for a moment of time,
and then both the men rolled over on the grass together, and
Face-of-god as he fell deemed that he heard the shrill cry of a
woman.  Now Face-of-god found that he was the nethermost,
for if he was strong, yet was his foe stronger; the axe had flown
out of his hand also, while the strange man still kept a hold of
his short-sword; and presently, though he still struggled all he
could, he saw the man draw back his hand to smite with the said
sword; and at that nick of time the foeman’s knee was on
his breast, his left hand was doubled back behind him, and his
right wrist was gripped hard in the stranger’s left
hand.  Even therewith his ears, sharpened by the coming
death, heard the sound of footsteps and fluttering raiment
drawing near; p.
37something dark came between him and the sky; there was
the sound of a great stroke, and the big man loosened his grip
and fell off him to one side.

Face-of-god leapt up and ran to his axe and got hold of it;
but turning round found himself face to face with a tall woman
holding in her hand a stout staff like the limb of a tree. 
She was calm and smiling, though forsooth it was she who had
stricken the stroke and stayed the sword from his throat. 
His hand and axe dropped down to his side when he saw what it was
that faced him, and that the woman was young and fair; so he
spake to her and said:

‘What aileth, maiden? is this man thy foe? doth he
oppress thee? shall I slay him?’

She laughed and said: ‘Thou art open-handed in thy
proffers: he might have asked the like concerning thee but a
minute ago.’

‘Yea, yea,’ said Gold-mane, laughing also,
‘but he asked it not of thee.’

‘That is sooth,’ she said, ‘but since thou
hast asked me, I will tell thee that if thou slay him it will be
my harm as well as his; and in my country a man that taketh a
gift is not wont to break the giver’s head with it
straightway.  The man is my brother, O stranger, and
presently, if thou wilt, thou mayst be eating at the same board
with him.  Or if thou wilt, thou mayst go thy ways unhurt
into the wood.  But I had liefer of the twain that thou wert
in our house to-night; for thou hast a wrong against
us.’

Her voice was sweet and clear, and she spake the last words
kindly, and drew somewhat nigher to Gold-mane.  Therewithal
the smitten man sat up, and put his hand to his head, and quoth
he:

‘Angry is my sister! good it is to wear the helm abroad
when she shaketh the nut-trees.’

‘Nay,’ said she, ‘it is thy luck that thou
wert bare-headed, else had I been forced to smite thee on the
face.  Thou churl, since when hath it been our wont to
thrust knives into a guest, who is come of great kin, a man of
gentle heart and fair face?  Come hither and handsel him
self-doom for thy fool’s onset!’

p. 38The man
rose to his feet and said: ‘Well, sister, least said,
soonest mended.  A clout on the head is worse than a
woman’s chiding; but since ye have given me one, ye may
forbear the other.’

Therewith he drew near to them.  He was a very big-made
man, most stalwarth, with dark red hair and a thin pointed beard;
his nose was straight and fine, his eyes grey and well-opened,
but somewhat fierce withal.  Yet was he in nowise
evil-looking; he seemed some thirty summers old.  He was
clad in a short scarlet kirtle, a goodly garment, with a hood of
like web pulled off his head on to his shoulders: he bore a great
gold ring on his left arm, and a collar of gold came down on to
his breast from under his hood.

As for the woman, she was clad in a long white linen smock,
and over it a short gown of dark blue woollen, and she had skin
shoes on her feet.

Now the man came up to Face-of-god, and took his hand and
said: ‘I deemed thee a foe, and I may not have over-many
foes alive: but it seems that thou art to be a friend, and that
is well and better; so herewith I handsel thee self-doom in the
matter of the onslaught.’

Then Face-of-god laughed and said: ‘The doom is soon
given forth; against the tumble on the grass I set the clout on
the head; there is nought left over to pay to any man’s
son.’

Said the scarlet-clad man: ‘Belike by thine eyes thou
art a true man, and wilt not bewray me.  Now is there no
foeman here, but rather maybe a friend both now and in time to
come.’  Therewith he cast his arms about Face-of-god
and kissed him.  But Face-of-god turned about to the woman
and said: ‘Is the peace wholly made?’

She shook her head and said soberly: ‘Nay, thou art too
fair for a woman to kiss.’

He flushed red, as his wont was when a woman praised him; yet
was his heart full of pleasure and well-liking.  But she
laid her hand on his shoulder and said: ‘Now is it for thee
to choose p.
39betwixt the wild-wood and the hall, and whether thou
wilt be a guest or a wayfarer this night.’

As she touched him there took hold of him a sweetness of
pleasure he had never felt erst, and he answered: ‘I will
be thy guest and not thy stranger.’

‘Come then,’ she said, and took his hand in hers,
so that he scarce felt the earth under his feet, as they went all
three together toward the house in the gathering dusk, while
eastward where the peaks of the great mountains dipped was a
light that told of the rising of the moon.

CHAPTER VI.  OF FACE-OF-GOD AND THOSE
MOUNTAIN-DWELLERS.

A yard or two from the threshold
Gold-mane hung back a moment, entangled in some such misgiving as
a man is wont to feel when he is just about to do some new deed,
but is not yet deep in the story; his new friends noted that, for
they smiled each in their own way, and the woman drew her hand
away from his.  Face-of-god held out his still as though to
take hers again, and therewithal he changed countenance and said
as though he had stayed but to ask that question:

‘Tell me thy name, tall man; and thou, fair woman, tell
me thine; for how can we talk together else?’

The man laughed outright and said: ‘The young chieftain
thinks that this house also should be his!  Nay, young man,
I know what is in thy thought, be not ashamed that thou art wary;
and be assured!  We shall hurt thee no more than thou hast
been hurt.  Now as to my name; the name that was born with
me is gone: the name that was given me hath been taken from me:
now I belike must give myself a name, and that shall be
Wild-wearer; but it may be that thou thyself shalt one day give
me another, and call me Guest.’

p. 40His
sister gazed at him solemnly as he spoke, and Face-of-god
beholding her the while, deemed that her beauty grew and grew
till she seemed as aweful as a Goddess; and into his mind it came
that this over-strong man and over-lovely woman were nought
mortal, and they withal dealing with him as father and mother
deal with a wayward child: then for a moment his heart failed
him, and he longed for the peace of Burgdale, and even the lonely
wood.  But therewith she turned to him and let her hand come
into his again, and looked kindly on him and said: ‘And as
for me, call me the Friend; the name is good and will serve for
many things.’

He looked down from her face and his eyes lighted on her hand,
and when he noted even amid the evening dusk how fair and lovely
it was fashioned, and yet as though it were deft in the crafts
that the daughters of menfolk use, his fear departed, and the
pleasure of his longing filled his heart, and he drew her hand to
him to kiss it; but she held it back.  Then he said:
‘It is the custom of the Dale to all women.’

So she let him kiss her hand, heeding the kiss nothing, and
said soberly:

‘Then art thou of Burgdale, and if it were lawful to
guess, I would say that thy name is Face-of-god, of the House of
the Face.’

‘Even so it is,’ said he, ‘but in the Dale
those that love me do mostly call me Gold-mane.’

‘It is well named,’ she said, ‘and seldom
wilt thou be called otherwise, for thou wilt be
well-beloved.  But come in now, Gold-mane, for night is at
hand, and here have we meat and lodging such as an hungry and
weary man may take; though we be broken people, dwellers in the
waste.’

Therewith she led him gently over the threshold into the hall,
and it seemed to him as if she were the fairest and the noblest
of all the Queens of ancient story.

When he was in the house he looked and saw that, rough as p. 41it was
without it lacked not fairness within.  The floor was of
hard-trodden earth strewn with pine-twigs, and with here and
there brown bearskins laid on it: there was a standing table near
the upper end athwart the hall, and a days beyond that, but no
endlong table.  Gold-mane looked to the shut-beds, and saw
that they were large and fair, though there were but a few of
them; and at the lower end was a loft for a sleeping chamber
dight very fairly with broidered cloths.  The hangings on
the walls, though they left some places bare which were hung with
fresh boughs, were fairer than any he had ever seen, so that he
deemed that they must come from far countries and the City of
Cities: therein were images wrought of warriors and fair women of
old time and their dealings with the Gods and the Giants, and
Wondrous wights; and he deemed that this was the story of some
great kindred, and that their token and the sign of their banner
must needs be the Wood-wolf, for everywhere was it wrought in
these pictured webs.  Perforce he looked long and earnestly
at these fair things, for the hall was not dark yet, because the
brands on the hearth were flaming their last, and when
Wild-wearer beheld him so gazing, he stood up and looked too for
a moment, and then smote his right hand on the hilt of his sword,
and turned away and strode up and down the hall as one in angry
thought.

But the woman, even the Friend, bestirred herself for the
service of the guest, and brought water for his hands and feet,
and when she had washed him, bore him the wine of Welcome and
drank to him and bade him drink; and he all the while was
shamefaced; for it was to him as if one of the Ladies of the
Heavenly Burg were doing him service.  Then she went away by
a door at the lower end of the hall, and Wild-wearer came and sat
down by Gold-mane, and fell a-talking with him about the ways of
the Dalesmen, and their garths, and the pastures and growths
thereof; and what temper the carles themselves were of; which
were good men, which were ill, which was loved and which scorned;
no otherwise than if he had been the goodman of some neighbouring
p. 42dale; and
Gold-mane told him whatso he knew, for he saw no harm
therein.

After a while the outer door opened, and there came in a woman
of some five-and-twenty winters, trimly and strongly built;
short-skirted she was and clad as a hunter, with a bow in her
hand and a quiver at her back: she unslung a pouch, which she
emptied at Wild-wearer’s feet of a leash of hares and two
brace of mountain grouse; of Face-of-god she took but little
heed.

Said Wild-wearer: ‘This is good for to-morrow, not for
to-day; the meat is well-nigh on the board.’

Then Gold-mane smiled, for he called to mind his home-coming
of yesterday.  But the woman said:

‘The fault is not mine; she told me of the coming guest
but three hours agone.’

‘Ay?’ said Wild-wearer, ‘she looked for a
guest then?’

‘Yea, certes,’ said the woman, ‘else why
went I forth this afternoon, as wearied as I was with
yesterday?’

‘Well, well,’ said Wild-wearer, ‘get to thy
due work or go play; I meddle not with meat! and for thee all
jests are as bitter earnest.’

‘And with thee, chief,’ she said, ‘it is no
otherwise; surely I am made on thy model.’

‘Thy tongue is longer, friend,’ said he;
‘now tarry if thou wilt, and if the supper’s service
craveth thee not.’

She turned away with one keen look at Face-of-god, and
departed through the door at the lower end of the hall.

By this time the hall was dusk, for there were no candles
there, and the hearth-fire was but smouldering.  Wild-wearer
sat silent and musing now, and Face-of-god spake not, for he was
deep in wild and happy dreams.  At last the lower door
opened and the fair woman came into the hall with a torch in
either hand, after whom came the huntress, now clad in a dark
blue kirtle, and an old woman yet straight and hale; and these
twain bore in the victuals and the table-gear.  Then the
three fell to dighting the p. 43board, and when it was all ready, and
Gold-mane and Wild-wearer were set down to it, and with them the
fair woman and the huntress, the old woman threw good store of
fresh brands on the hearth, so that the light shone into every
corner; and even therewith the outer door opened, and four more
men entered, whereof one was old, but big and stalwarth, the
other three young: they were all clad roughly in sheep-brown
weed, but had helms upon their heads and spears in their hands
and great swords girt to their sides; and they seemed doughty men
and ready for battle.  One of the young men cast down by the
door the carcass of a big-horned mountain sheep, and then they
all trooped off to the out-bower by the lower door, and came back
presently fairly clad and without their weapons. 
Wild-wearer nodded to them kindly, and they sat at table paying
no more heed to Face-of-god than to cast him a nod for
salutation.

Then said the old woman to them: ‘Well, lads, have ye
been doing or sleeping?’

‘Sleeping, mother,’ said one of the young men,
‘as was but due after last night was, and to-morrow shall
be.’

Said the huntress: ‘Hold thy peace, Wood-wise, and let
thy tongue help thy teeth to deal with thy meat; for this is not
the talking hour.’

‘Nay, Bow-may,’ said another of the swains,
‘since here is a new man, now is the time to talk to
him.’

Said the huntress: ‘’Tis thine hands that talk
best, Wood-wont; it is not they that shall bring thee to
shame.’

Spake the third: ‘What have we to do with shame here,
far away from dooms and doomers, and elders, and wardens, and
guarded castles?  If the new man listeth to speak, let him
speak; or to fight, then let him; it shall ever be man to
man.’

Then spake the old woman: ‘Son Wood-wicked, hold thy
peace, and forget the steel that ever eggeth thee on to
draw.’

Therewith she set the last matters on the board, while the
three swains sat and eyed Gold-mane somewhat fiercely, now that
p. 44words had
stirred them, and he had sat there saying nothing, as one who was
better than they, and contemned them; but now spake
Wild-wearer:

‘Whoso hungreth let him eat!  Whoso would slumber,
let him to bed.  But he who would bicker, it must needs be
with me.  Here is a man of the Dale, who hath sought the
wood in peace, and hath found us.  His hand is ready and his
heart is guileless: if ye fear him, run away to the wood, and
come back when he is gone; but none shall mock him while I sit
by: now, lads, be merry and blithe with the guest.’

Then the young men greeted Gold-mane, and the old man said:
‘Art thou of Burgstead? then wilt thou be of the House of
the Face, and thy name will be Face-of-god; for that man is
called the fairest of the Dale, and there shall be none fairer
than thou.’

Face-of-god laughed and said: ‘There be but few mirrors
in Burgdale, and I have no mind to journey west to the cities to
see what manner of man I be: that were ill husbandry.  But
now I have heard the names of the three swains, tell me thy name,
father!’

Spake the huntress: ‘This is my father’s brother,
and his name is Wood-father; or ye shall call him so: and I am
called Bow-may because I shoot well in the bow: and this old
carline is my eme’s wife, and now belike my mother, if I
need one.  But thou, fair-faced Dalesman, little dost thou
need a mirror in the Dale so long as women abide there; for their
faces shall be instead of mirrors to tell thee whether thou be
fair and lovely.’

Thereat they all laughed and fell to their victual, which was
abundant, of wood-venison and mountain-fowl, but of bread was no
great plenty; wine lacked not, and that of the best; and
Gold-mane noted that the cups and the apparel of the horns and
mazers were not of gold nor gilded copper, but of silver; and he
marvelled thereat, for in the Dale silver was rare.

So they ate and drank, and Gold-mane looked ever on the
Friend, and spake much with her, and he deemed her friendly p. 45indeed, and
she seemed most pleased when he spoke best, and led him on to do
so.  Wild-wearer was but of few words, and those somewhat
harsh; yet was he as a man striving to be courteous and blithe;
but of the others Bow-may was the greatest speaker.

Wild-wearer called healths to the Sun, and the Moon, and the
Hosts of Heaven; to the Gods of the Earth; to the Woodwights; and
to the Guest.  Other healths also he called, the meaning of
which was dark to Gold-mane; to wit, the Jaws of the Wolf; the
Silver Arm; the Red Hand; the Golden Bushel; and the Ragged
Sword.  But when he asked the Friend concerning these names
what they might signify, she shook her head and answered not.

At last Wild-wearer cried out: ‘Now, lads, the night
weareth and the guest is weary: therefore whoso of you hath in
him any minstrelsy, now let him make it, for later on it shall be
over-late.’

Then arose Wood-wont and went to his shut-bed and groped
therein, and took from out of it a fiddle in its case; and he
opened the case and drew from it a very goodly fiddle, and he
stood on the floor amidst of the hall and Bow-may his cousin with
him; and he laid his bow on the fiddle and woke up song in it,
and when it was well awake she fell a-singing, and he to
answering her song, and at the last all they of the house sang
together; and this is the meaning of the words which they
sang:

She singeth.

Now is the rain upon the day,

   And every water’s wide;

Why busk ye then to wear the way,

   And whither will ye ride?

He singeth.

Our kine are on the eyot still,

   The eddies lap them round;

p. 46All dykes
the wind-worn waters fill,

   And waneth grass and ground.

She singeth.

O ride ye to the river’s brim

   In war-weed fair to see?

Or winter waters will ye swim

   In hauberks to the knee?

He singeth.

Wild is the day, and dim with rain,

   Our sheep are warded ill;

The wood-wolves gather for the plain,

   Their ravening maws to fill.

She singeth.

Nay, what is this, and what have ye,

   A hunter’s band, to bear

The Banner of our Battle-glee

   The skulking wolves to scare?

He singeth.

O women, when we wend our ways

   To deal with death and dread,

The Banner of our Fathers’ Days

   Must flap the wind o’erhead.

She singeth.

Ah, for the maidens that ye leave!

   Who now shall save the hay?

What grooms shall kiss our lips at eve,

   When June hath mastered May?

He singeth.

The wheat is won, the seed is sown,

   Here toileth many a maid,

p. 47And ere
the hay knee-deep hath grown

   Your grooms the grass shall wade.

They sing all together.

Then fair befall the mountain-side

   Whereon the play shall be!

And fair befall the summer-tide

   That whoso lives shall see.

Face-of-god thought the song goodly, but to the others it was
well known.  Then said Wood-father:

‘O foster-son, thy foster-brother hath sung well for a
wood abider; but we are deeming that his singing shall be but as
a starling to a throstle matched against thy new-come
guest.  Therefore, Dalesman, sing us a song of the Dale, and
if ye will, let it be of gardens and pleasant houses of stone,
and fair damsels therein, and swains with them who toil not
over-much for a scant livelihood, as do they of the waste, whose
heads may not be seen in the Holy Places.’

Said Gold-mane: ‘Father, it is ill to set the words of a
lonely man afar from his kin against the song that cometh from
the heart of a noble house; yet may I not gainsay thee, but will
sing to thee what I may call to mind, and it is called the Song
of the Ford.’

Therewith he sang in a sweet and clear voice: and this is the
meaning of his words:

In hay-tide, through the day new-born,

   Across the meads we come;

Our hauberks brush the blossomed corn

   A furlong short of home.

Ere yet the gables we behold

   Forth flasheth the red sun,

And smites our fallow helms and cold

   Though all the fight be done.

p.
48In this last mend of mowing-grass

   Sweet doth the clover smell,

Crushed neath our feet red with the pass

   Where hell was blent with hell.

And now the willowy stream is nigh,

   Down wend we to the ford;

No shafts across its fishes fly,

   Nor flasheth there a sword.

But lo! what gleameth on the bank

   Across the water wan,

As when our blood the mouse-ear drank

   And red the river ran?

Nay, hasten to the ripple clear,

   Look at the grass beyond!

Lo ye the dainty band and dear

   Of maidens fair and fond!

Lo how they needs must take the stream!

   The water hides their feet;

On fair kind arms the gold doth gleam,

   And midst the ford we meet.

Up through the garden two and two,

   And on the flowers we drip;

Their wet feet kiss the morning dew

   As lip lies close to lip.

Here now we sing; here now we stay:

   By these grey walls we tell

The love that lived from out the fray,

   The love that fought and fell.

When he was done they all said that he had sung well, and p. 49that the song
was sweet.  Yet did Wild-wearer smile somewhat; and Bow-may
said outright: ‘Soft is the song, and hath been made by
lads and minstrels rather than by warriors.’

‘Nay, kinswoman,’ said Wood-father, ‘thou
art hard to please; the guest is kind, and hath given us that I
asked for, and I give him all thanks therefor.’

Face-of-god smiled, but he heeded little what they said, for
as he sang he had noted that the Friend looked kindly on him; and
he thought he saw that once or twice she put out her hand as if
to touch him, but drew it back again each time.  She spake
after a little and said:

‘Here now hath been a stream of song running betwixt the
Mountain and the Dale even as doth a river; and this is good to
come between our dreams of what hath been and what shall
be.’  Then she turned to Gold-mane, and said to him
scarce loud enough for all to hear:

‘Herewith I bid thee good-night, O Dalesman; and this
other word I have to thee: heed not what befalleth in the night,
but sleep thy best, for nought shall be to thy scathe.  And
when thou wakest in the morning, if we are yet here, it is well;
but if we are not, then abide us no long while, but break thy
fast on the victual thou wilt find upon the board, and so depart
and go thy ways home.  And yet thou mayst look to it to see
us again before thou diest.’

Therewith she held out her hand to him, and he took it and
kissed it; and she went to her chamber-aloft at the lower end of
the hall.  And when she was gone, once more he had a deeming
of her that she was of the kindred of the Gods.  At her
departure him-seemed that the hall grew dull and small and smoky,
and the night seemed long to him and doubtful the coming of the
day.

p.
50CHAPTER VII.  FACE-OF-GOD TALKETH WITH THE FRIEND
ON THE MOUNTAIN.

So now went all men to bed; and
Face-to-god’s shut-bed was over against the outer door and
toward the lower end of the hall, and on the panel about it hung
the weapons and shields of men.  Fair was that chamber and
roomy, and the man was weary despite his eagerness, so that he
went to sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow; but within
a while (he deemed about two hours after midnight) he was awaked
by the clattering of the weapons against the panel, and the sound
of men’s hands taking them down; and when he was fully
awake, he heard withal men going up and down the house as if on
errands: but he called to mind what the Friend had said to him,
and he did not so much as turn himself toward the hall; for he
said: ‘Belike these men are outlaws and Wolves of the Holy
Places, yet by seeming they are good fellows and nought churlish,
nor have I to do with taking up the feud against them.  I
will abide the morning.  Yet meseemeth that she drew me
hither: for what cause?’

Therewith he fell asleep again, and dreamed no more.  But
when he awoke the sun was shining broad upon the hall-floor, and
he sat up and listened, but could hear no sound save the moaning
of the wind in the pine-boughs and the chatter of the starlings
about the gables of the house; and the place seemed so exceeding
lonely to him that he was in a manner feared by that
loneliness.

Then he arose and clad himself, and went forth into the hall
and gazed about him, and at first he deemed indeed that there was
no one therein.  But at last he looked and beheld the upper
gable and there underneath a most goodly hanging was the glorious
shape of a woman sitting on a bench covered over with a cloth of
gold and silver; and he looked and looked to see if the woman
might stir, and if she were alive, and she turned her head toward
him, and lo it was the Friend; and his heart rose to his mouth
for wonder and fear and desire.  For now he doubted whether
the p. 51other
folk were aught save shows and shadows, and she the Goddess who
had fashioned them out of nothing for his bewilderment, presently
to return to nothing.

Yet whatever he might fear or doubt, he went up the hall
towards her till he was quite nigh to her, and there he stood
silent, wondering at her beauty and desiring her kindness.

Grey-eyed she was like her brother; but her hair the colour of
red wheat: her lips full and red, her chin round, her nose fine
and straight.  Her hands and all her body fashioned
exceeding sweetly and delicately; yet not as if she were an image
of which the like might be found if the craftsman were but deft
enough to make a perfect thing, but in such a way that there was
none like to her for those that had eyes to behold her as she
was; and none could ever be made like to her, even by such a
master-craftsman as could fashion a body without a blemish.

She was clad in a white smock, whose hems were broidered with
gold wire and precious gems of the Mountains, and over that a
gown woven of gold and silver: scarce hath the world such
another.  On her head was a fillet of gold and gems, and
there were wondrous gold rings on her arms: her feet lay bare on
the dark grey wolf-skin that was stretched before her.

She smiled kindly upon his solemn and troubled face, and her
voice sounded strangely familiar to him coming from all that
loveliness, as she said: ‘Hail, Face-of-god! here am I left
alone, although I deemed last night that I should be gone with
the others.  Therefore am I fain to show myself to thee in
fairer array than yesternight; for though we dwell in the
wild-wood, from the solace of folk, yet are we not of
thralls’ blood.  But come now, I bid thee break thy
fast and talk with me a little while; and then shalt thou depart
in peace.’

Spake Face-of-god, and his voice trembled as he spake:
‘What art thou?  Last night I deemed at whiles once
and again that thou wert of the Gods; and now that I behold thee
thus, and it is broad daylight, and of those others is no more to
be seen p.
52than if they had never lived, I cannot but deem that it
is even so, and that thou comest from the City that shall never
perish.  Now if thou be a goddess, I have nought to pray
thee, save to slay me speedily if thou hast a mind for my
death.  But if thou art a woman—’

She broke in: ‘Gold-mane, stay thy prayer and hold thy
peace for this time, lest thou repent when repentance availeth
not.  And this I say because I am none of the Gods nor akin
to them, save far off through the generations, as art thou also,
and all men of goodly kindred.  Now I bid thee eat thy meat,
since ’tis ill talking betwixt a full man and a fasting;
and I have dight it myself with mine own hands; for Bow-may and
the Wood-mother went away with the rest three hours before
dawn.  Come sit and eat as thou hast a hardy heart; as
forsooth thou shouldest do if I were a very goddess.  Take
heed, friend, lest I take thee for some damsel of the lower Dale
arrayed in Earl’s garments.’

She laughed therewith, and leaned toward him and put forth her
hand to him, and he took it and caressed it; and the exceeding
beauty of her body and of the raiment which was as it were a part
of her and her loveliness, made her laughter and her friendly
words strange to him, as if one did not belong to the other; as
in a dream it might be.  Nevertheless he did as she bade
him, and sat at the board and ate, while she leaned forward on
the arm of her chair and spake to him in friendly wise.  And
he wondered as she spake that she knew so much of him and his:
and he kept saying to himself: ‘She drew me hither;
wherefore did she so?’

But she said: ‘Gold-mane, how fareth thy father the
Alderman? is he as good a wright as ever?’

He told her: Yea, that ever was his hammer on the iron, the
copper, and the gold, and that no wright in the Dale was as deft
as he.

Said she: ‘Would he not have had thee seek to the
Cities, to see the ways of the outer world?’

‘Yea,’ said he.

p. 53She
said: ‘Thou wert wise to naysay that offer; thou shalt have
enough to do in the Dale and round about it in twelve
months’ time.’

‘Art thou foresighted?’ said he.

‘Folk have called me so,’ she said, ‘but I
wot not.  But thy brother Hall-face, how fareth
he?’

‘Well;’ said he, ‘to my deeming he is the
Sword of our House, and the Warrior of the Dale, if the days were
ready for him.’

‘And Stone-face, that stark ancient,’ she said,
‘doth he still love the Folk of the Dale, and hate all
other folks?’

‘Nay,’ he said, ‘I know not that, but I know
that he loveth as, and above all me and my father.’

Again she spake: ‘How fareth the Bride, the fair maid to
whom thou art affianced?’

As she spake, it was to him as if his heart was stricken cold;
but he put a force upon himself, and neither reddened nor
whitened, nor changed countenance in any way; so he answered:

‘She was well the eve of yesterday.’  Then he
remembered what she was, and her beauty and valour, and he
constrained himself to say: ‘Each day she groweth fairer;
there is no man’s son and no daughter of woman that does
not love her; yea, the very beasts of field and fold love
her.’

The Friend looked at him steadily and spake no word, but a red
flush mounted to her cheeks and brow and changed her face; and he
marvelled thereat; for still he misdoubted that she was a
Goddess.  But it passed away in a moment, and she smiled and
said:

‘Guest, thou seemest to wonder that I know concerning
thee and the Dale and thy kindred.  But now shalt thou wot
that I have been in the Dale once and again, and my brother
oftener still; and that I have seen thee before
yesterday.’

‘That is marvellous,’ quoth he, ‘for sure am
I that I have not seen thee.’

p.
54‘Yet thou hast seen me,’ she said;
‘yet not altogether as I am now;’ and therewith she
smiled on him friendly.

‘How is this?’ said he; ‘art thou a
skin-changer?’

‘Yea, in a fashion,’ she said. 
‘Hearken! dost thou perchance remember a day of last summer
when there was a market holden in Burgstead; and there stood in
the way over against the House of the Face a tall old carle who
was trucking deer-skins for diverse gear; and with him was a
queen, tall and dark-skinned, somewhat well-liking, her hair
bound up in a white coif so that none of it could be seen; by the
token that she had a large stone of mountain blue set in silver
stuck in the said coif?’

As she spoke she set her hand to her bosom and drew something
from it, and held forth her hand to Gold-mane, and lo amidst the
palm the great blue stone set in silver.

‘Wondrous as a dream is this,’ said Face-of-god,
‘for these twain I remember well, and what
followed.’

She said: ‘I will tell thee that.  There came a man
of the Shepherd-Folk, drunk or foolish, or both, who began to
chaffer with the big carle; but ever on the queen were his eyes
set, and presently he put forth his hand to her to clip her,
whereon the big carle hove up his fist and smote him, so that he
fell to earth noseling.  Then ran the folk together to hale
off the stranger and help the shepherd, and it was like that the
stranger should be mishandled.  Then there thrust through
the press a young man with yellow hair and grey eyes, who cried
out, “Fellows, let be!  The stranger had the right of
it; this is no matter to make a quarrel or a court case of. 
Let the market go on!  This man and maid are true
folk.”  So when the folk heard the young man and his
bidding, they forebore and let the carle and the queen be, and
the shepherd went his ways little hurt.  Now then, who was
this young man?’

Quoth Gold-mane: ‘It was even I, and meseemeth it was no
great deed to do.’

‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and the big carle was my
brother, and the tall queen, it was myself.’

p.
55‘How then,’ said he, ‘for she was as
dark-skinned as a dwarf, and thou so bright and fair?’

She said: ‘Well, if the woods are good for nothing else,
yet are they good for the growing of herbs, and I know the craft
of simpling; and with one of these herbs had I stained my skin
and my brother’s also.  And it showed the darker
beneath the white coif.’

‘Yea,’ said he, ‘but why must ye needs fare
in feigned shapes?  Ye would have been welcome guests in the
Dale howsoever ye had come.’

‘I may not tell thee hereof as now,’ said she.

Said Gold-mane: ‘Yet thou mayst belike tell me wherefore
was that thy brother desired to slay me yesterday, if he knew me,
who I was.’

‘Gold-mane,’ she said, ‘thou art not slain,
so little story need be made of that: for the rest, belike he
knew thee not at that moment.  So it falls with us, that we
look to see foes rather than friends in the wild-woods. 
Many uncouth things are therein.  Moreover, I must tell thee
of my brother that whiles he is as the stalled bull late let
loose, and nothing is good to him save battle and onset; and then
is he blind and knows not friend from foe.’  Said
Face-of-god: ‘Thou hast asked of me and mine; wilt thou not
tell me of thee and thine?’

‘Nay,’ she said, ‘not as now; thou must
betake thee to the way.  Whither wert thou wending when thou
happenedst upon us?’

He said: ‘I know not; I was seeking something, but I
knew not what—meseemeth that now I have found
it.’

‘Art thou for the great mountains seeking gems?’
she said.  ‘Yet go not thither to-day: for who knoweth
what thou shalt meet there that shall be thy foe?’

He said: ‘Nay, nay; I have nought to do but to abide
here as long as I may, looking upon thee and hearkening to thy
voice.’

Her eyes were upon his, but yet she did not seem to see him,
and for a while she answered not; and still he wondered that mere
words should come from so fair a thing; for whether she moved p. 56foot, or
hand, or knee, or turned this way or that, each time she stirred
it was a caress to his very heart.

He spake again: ‘May I not abide here a while? 
What scathe may be in that?’

‘It is not so,’ she said; ‘thou must depart,
and that straightway: lo, there lieth thy spear which the
Wood-mother hath brought in from the waste.  Take thy gear
to thee and wend thy ways.  Have patience!  I will lead
thee to the place where we first met and there give thee
farewell.’

Therewith she arose and he also perforce, and when they came
to the doorway she stepped across the threshold and then turned
back and gave him her hand and so led him forth, the sun flashing
back from her golden raiment.  Together they went over the
short grey grass of that hillside till they came to the place
where he had arisen from that wrestle with her brother. 
There she stayed him and said:

‘This is the place; here must we part.’

But his heart failed him and he faltered in his speech as he
said:

‘When shall I see thee again?  Wilt thou slay me if
I seek to thee hither once more?’

‘Hearken,’ she said, ‘autumn is now a-dying
into winter: let winter and its snows go past: nor seek to me
hither; for me thou should’st not find, but thy death thou
mightest well fall in with; and I would not that thou shouldest
die.  When winter is gone, and spring is on the land, if
thou hast not forgotten us thou shalt meet us again.  Yet
shalt thou go further than this Woodland Hall.  In Shadowy
Vale shalt thou seek to me then, and there will I talk with
thee.’

‘And where,’ said he, ‘is Shadowy Vale? for
thereof have I never heard tell.’

She said: ‘The token when it cometh to thee shall show
thee thereof and the way thither.  Art thou a babbler,
Gold-mane?’

He said: ‘I have won no prize for babbling
hitherto.’

She said: ‘If thou listest to babble concerning what
hath befallen p.
57thee on the Mountain, so do, and repent it once only,
that is, thy life long.’

‘Why should I say any word thereof?’ said
he.  ‘Dost thou not know the sweetness of such a tale
untold?’

He spake as one who is somewhat wrathful, and she answered
humbly and kindly:

‘Well is that.  Bide thou the token that shall lead
thee to Shadowy Vale.  Farewell now.’

She drew her hand from his, and turned and went her ways
swiftly to the house: he could not choose but gaze on her as she
went glittering-bright and fair in that grey place of the
mountains, till the dark doorway swallowed up her beauty. 
Then he turned away and took the path through the pine-woods,
muttering to himself as he went:

‘What thing have I done now that hitherto I had not
done?  What manner of man am I to-day other than the man I
was yesterday?’

CHAPTER VIII.  FACE-OF-GOD COMETH HOME AGAIN TO
BURGSTEAD.

Face-of-God went back through the
wood by the way he had come, paying little heed to the things
about him.  For whatever he thought of strayed not one whit
from the image of the Fair Woman of the Mountain-side.

He went through the wood swiftlier than yesterday, and made no
stay for noon or aught else, nor did he linger on the road when
he was come into the Dale, either to speak to any or to note what
they did.  So he came to the House of the Face about dusk,
and found no man within the hall either carle or queen.  So
he cried out on the folk, and there came in a damsel of the
house, whom he greeted kindly and she him again.  He bade
her bring the washing-water, and she did so and washed his feet
and his p.
58hands.  She was a fair maid enough, as were most in
the Dale, but he heeded her little; and when she was done he
kissed not her cheek for her pains, as his wont was, but let her
go her ways unthanked.  But he went to his shut-bed and
opened his chest, and drew fair raiment from it, and did off his
wood-gear, and did on him a goodly scarlet kirtle fairly
broidered, and a collar with gems of price therein, and other
braveries.  And when he was so attired he came out into the
hall, and there was old Stone-face standing by the hearth, which
was blazing brightly with fresh brands, so that things were clear
to see.

Stone-face noted Gold-mane’s gay raiment, for he was not
wont to wear such attire, save on the feasts and high days when
he behoved to.  So the old man smiled and said:

‘Welcome back from the Wood!  But what is it? 
Hast thou been wedded there, or who hath made thee Earl and
King?’

Said Face-of-god: ‘Foster-father, sooth it is that I
have been to the wood, but there have I seen nought of manfolk
worse than myself.  Now as to my raiment, needs must I keep
it from the moth.  And I am weary withal, and this kirtle is
light and easy to me.  Moreover, I look to see the Bride
here again, and I would pleasure her with the sight of gay
raiment upon me.’

‘Nay,’ said Stone-face, ‘hast thou not seen
some woman in the wood arrayed like the image of a God? and hath
she not bidden thee thus to worship her to-night?  For I
know that such wights be in the wood, and that such is their
wont.’

Said Gold-mane: ‘I worship nought save the Gods and the
Fathers.  Nor saw I in the wood any such as thou
sayest.’

Therewith Stone-face shook his head; but after a while he
said:

‘Art thou for the wood to-morrow?’

‘Nay,’ said Gold-mane angrily, knitting his
brows.

‘The morrow of to-morrow,’ said Stone-face,
‘is the day when we look to see the Westland merchants:
after all, wilt thou not go hence with them when they wend their
ways back before the first snows fall?’

p.
59‘Nay,’ said he, ‘I have no mind to it,
fosterer; cease egging me on hereto.’

Then Stone-face shook his head again, and looked on him long,
and muttered: ‘To the wood wilt thou go to-morrow or next
day; or some day when doomed is thine undoing.’

Therewith entered the service and torches, and presently after
came the Alderman with Hall-face; and Iron-face greeted his son
and said to him: ‘Thou hast not hit the time to do on thy
gay raiment, for the Bride will not be here to-night; she bideth
still at the Feast at the Apple-tree House: or wilt thou be
there, son?’

‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘I am
over-weary.  And as for my raiment, it is well; it is for
thine honour and the honour of the name.’

So to table they went, and Iron-face asked his son of his ways
again, and whether he was quite fixed in his mind not to go down
to the Plain and the Cities: ‘For,’ said he,
‘the morrow of to-morrow shall the merchants be here, and
this were great news for them if the son of the Alderman should
be their faring-fellow back.’

But Face-of-god answered without any haste or heat:
‘Nay, father, it may not be: fear not, thou shalt see that
I have a good will to work and live in the Dale.’

And in good sooth, though he was a young man and loved mirth
and the ways of his own will, he was a stalwarth workman, and few
could mow a match with him in the hay-month and win it; or fell
trees as certainly and swiftly, or drive as straight and clean a
furrow through the stiff land of the lower Dale; and in other
matters also was he deft and sturdy.

CHAPTER IX.  THOSE BRETHREN FARE TO THE YEWWOOD WITH THE
BRIDE.

Next morning Face-of-god dight
himself for work, and took his axe; for his brother Hall-face had
bidden him go down with him to the Yew-wood and cut timber there,
p. 60since he
of all men knew where to go straight to the sticks that would
quarter best for bow-staves; whereas the Alderman had the right
of hewing in that wood.  So they went forth, those brethren,
from the House of the Face, but when they were gotten to the
gate, who should be there but the Bride awaiting them, and she
with an ass duly saddled for bearing the yew-sticks. 
Because Hall-face had told her that he and belike Gold-mane were
going to hew in the wood, and she thought it good to be of the
company, as oft had befallen erst.  When they met she
greeted Face-of-god and kissed him as her wont was; and he looked
upon her and saw how fair she was, and how kind and friendly were
her eyes that beheld him, and how her whole face was eager for
him as their lips parted.  Then his heart failed him, when
he knew that he no longer desired her as she did him, and he said
within himself:

‘Would that she had been of our nighest kindred! 
Would that I had had a sister and that this were she!’

So the three went along the highway down the Dale, and
Hall-face and the Bride talked merrily together and laughed, for
she was happy, since she knew that Gold-mane had been to the wood
and was back safe and much as he had been before.  So indeed
it seemed of him; for though at first he was moody and of few
words, yet presently he cursed himself for a mar-sport, and so
fell into the talk, and enforced himself to be merry; and soon he
was so indeed; for he thought: ‘She drew me thither: she
hath a deed for me to do.  I shall do the deed and have my
reward.  Soon will the spring-tide be here, and I shall be a
young man yet when it comes.’

So came they to the place where he had met the three maidens
yesterday; there they also turned from the highway; and as they
went down the bent, Gold-mane could not but turn his eyes on the
beauty of the Bride and the lovely ways of her body: but
presently he remembered all that had betid, and turned away again
as one who is noting what it behoves him not to note.  And
he said to himself: ‘Where art thou, Gold-mane?  Whose
art thou?  p.
61Yea, even if that had been but a dream that I have
dreamed, yet would that this fair woman were my
sister!’

So came they to the Yew-wood, and the brethren fell to work,
and the Bride with them, for she was deft with the axe and strong
withal.  But at midday they rested on the green slope
without the Yew-wood; and they ate bread and flesh and onions and
apples, and drank red wine of the Dale.  And while they were
resting after their meat, the Bride sang to them, and her song
was a lay of time past; and here ye have somewhat of it:

’Tis over the hill and over the dale

   Men ride from the city fast and far,

If they may have a soothfast tale,

   True tidings of the host of war.

And first they hap on men-at-arms,

   All clad in steel from head to foot:

Now tell true tale of the new-come harms,

   And the gathered hosts of the mountain-root.

Fair sirs, from murder-carles we flee,

   Whose fashion is as the mountain-trolls’;

No man can tell how many they be,

   And the voice of their host as the thunder
rolls.

They were weary men at the ending of day,

   But they spurred nor stayed for longer word.

Now ye, O merchants, whither away?

   What do ye there with the helm and the sword?

O we must fight for life and gear,

   For our beasts are spent and our wains are
stayed,

And the host of the Mountain-men draws near,

   That maketh all the world afraid.

p.
62They left the chapmen on the hill,

   And through the eve and through the night

They rode to have true tidings still,

   And were there on the way when the dawn was
bright.

O damsels fair, what do ye then

   To loiter thus upon the way,

And have no fear of the Mountain-men,

   The host of the carles that strip and slay?

O riders weary with the road,

   Come eat and drink on the grass hereby!

And lay you down in a fair abode

   Till the midday sun is broad and high;

Then unto you shall we come aback,

   And lead you forth to the Mountain-men,

To note their plenty and their lack,

   And have true tidings there and then.

’Tis over the hill and over the dale

   They ride from the mountain fast and far;

And now have they learned a soothfast tale,

   True tidings of the host of war.

It was summer-tide and the Month of Hay,

   And men and maids must fare afield;

But we saw the place were the bow-staves lay,

   And the hall was hung with spear and shield.

When the moon was high we drank in the hall,

   And they drank to the guests and were kind and
blithe,

And they said: Come back when the chestnuts fall,

   And the wine-carts wend across the hythe.

Come oft and o’er again, they said;

   Wander your ways; but we abide

p. 63For all
the world in the little stead;

   For wise are we, though the world be wide.

Yea, come in arms if ye will, they said;

   And despite your host shall we abide

For life or death in the little stead;

   For wise are we, though the world be wide.

So she made an end and looked at the fairness of the dale
spreading wide before her, and a robin came nigh from out of a
thorn-bush and sung his song also, the sweet herald of coming
winter; and the lapwings wheeled about, black and white, above
the meadow by the river, sending forth their wheedling pipe as
they hung above the soft turf.

She felt the brothers near her, and knew their friendliness
from of old, and she was happy; nor had she looked closer at
Gold-mane would she have noted any change in him belike; for the
meat and the good wine, and the fair sunny time, and the
Bride’s sweet voice, and the ancient song softened his
heart while it fed the desire therein.

So in a while they arose from their rest and did what was left
them of their work, and so went back to Burgstead through the
fair afternoon; by seeming all three in all content.  But
yet Gold-mane, as from time to time he looked upon the Bride,
kept saying to himself: ‘O if she had been but my sister!
sweet had the kinship been!’

CHAPTER X.  NEW TIDINGS IN THE DALE.

It was three days thereafter that
Gold-mane, leading an ass, went along the highway to fetch home
certain fleeces which were needed for the house from a stead a
little west of Wildlake; but he had gone scant half a mile ere he
fell in with a p.
64throng of folk going to Burgstead.  They were of
the Shepherds; they had weapons with them, and some were clad in
coats of fence.  They went along making a great noise, for
they were all talking each to each at the same time, and seemed
very hot and eager about some matter.  When they saw
Gold-mane anigh, they stopped, and the throng opened as if to let
him into their midmost; so he mingled with them, and they stood
in a ring about him and an old man more ill-favoured than it was
the wont of the Dalesmen to be.

For he was long, stooping, gaunt and spindle-shanked, his
hands big and crippled with gout: his cheeks were red after an
old man’s fashion, covered with a crimson network like a
pippin; his lips thin and not well hiding his few teeth; his nose
long like a snipe’s neb.  In short, a shame and a
laughing-stock to the Folk, and a man whom the kindreds had in
small esteem, and that for good reasons.

Face-of-god knew him at once for a notable close-fist and
starve-all fool of the Shepherds; and his name was now become
Penny-thumb the Lean, whatever it might once have been.

So Face-of-god greeted all men, and they him again; and he
said: ‘What aileth you, neighbours?  Your weapons, are
bare, but I see not that they be bloody.  What is it,
goodman Penny-thumb?’

Penny-thumb did but groan for all answer; but a stout carle
who stood by with a broad grin on his face answered and said:

‘Face-of-god, evil tidings be abroad; the strong-thieves
of the wood are astir; and some deem that the wood-wights be
helping them.’

‘Yea, and what is the deed they have done?’ said
Gold-mane.

Said the carle: ‘Thou knowest Penny-thumb’s
abode?’

‘Yea surely,’ said Face-of-god; ‘fair are
the water-meadows about it; great gain of cheese can be gotten
thence.’

‘Hast thou been within the house?’ said the
carle.

‘Nay,’ said Gold-mane.

p. 65Then
spake Penny-thumb: ‘Within is scant gear: we gather for
others to scatter; we make meat for others’
mouths.’

The carle laughed: ‘Sooth is that,’ said he,
‘that there is little gear therein now; for the
strong-thieves have voided both hall and bower and
byre.’

‘And when was that?’ said Face-of-god.

‘The night before last night,’ said the carle,
‘the door was smitten on, and when none answered it was
broken down.’

‘Yea,’ quoth Penny-thumb, ‘a host entered,
and they in arms.’

‘No host was within,’ said the carle,
‘nought but Penny-thumb and his sister and his
sister’s son, and three carles that work for him; and one
of them, Rusty to wit, was the worst man of the
hill-country.  These then the host whereof the goodman
telleth bound, but without doing them any scathe; and they
ransacked the house, and took away much gear; yet left
some.’

‘Thou liest,’ said Penny-thumb; ‘they took
little and left none.’

Thereat all men laughed, for this seemed to them good game,
and another man said: ‘Well, neighbour Penny-thumb, if it
was so little, thou hast done unneighbourly in giving us such a
heap of trouble about it.’

And they laughed again, but the first carle said: ‘True
it is, goodman, that thou wert exceeding eager to raise the hue
and cry after that little when we happed upon thee and thy
housemates bound in your chairs yesterday morning.  Well,
Alderman’s son, short is the tale to tell: we could not
fail to follow the gear, and the slot led us into the wood, and
ill is the going there for us shepherds, who are used to the bare
downs, save Rusty, who was a good woodsman and lifted the slot
for us; so he outwent us all, and ran out of sight of us, so
presently we came upon him dead-slain, with the manslayer’s
spear in his breast.  What then could we do but turn back
again, for now was the wood blind now Rusty was dead, and we knew
not whither to follow the fray; and the man himself was but
little loss: so back we turned, and told goodman Penny-thumb of
all this, for we had left him p. 66alone in his hall lamenting his gear;
so we bided to-day’s morn, and have come out now, with our
neighbour and the spear, and the dead corpse of Rusty. 
Stand aside, neighbours, and let the Alderman’s son see
it.’

They did so, and there was the corpse of a thin-faced tall
wiry man, somewhat foxy of aspect, lying on a hand-bier covered
with black cloth.

‘Yea, Face-of-god,’ said the carle, ‘he is
not good to see now he is dead, yet alive was he worser: but,
look you, though the man was no good man, yet was he of our
people, and the feud is with us; so we would see the Alderman,
and do him to wit of the tidings, that he may call the neighbours
together to seek a blood-wite for Rusty and atonement for the
ransacking.  Or what sayest thou?’

‘Have ye the spear that ye found in Rusty?’ quoth
Gold-mane.

‘Yea verily,’ said the carle.  ‘Hither
with it, neighbours; give it to the Alderman’s
son.’

So the spear came into his hand, and he looked at it and
said:

‘This is no spear of the smiths’ work of the Dale,
as my father will tell you.  We take but little keep of the
forging of spearheads here, so that they be well-tempered and
made so as to ride well on the shaft; but this head, daintily is
it wrought, the blood-trench as clean and trim as though it were
an Earl’s sword.  See you withal this inlaying of
runes on the steel?  It is done with no tin or copper, but
with very silver; and these bands about the shaft be of silver
also.  It is a fair weapon, and the owner hath a loss of it
greater than his gain in the slaying of Rusty; and he will have
left it in the wound so that he might be known hereafter, and
that he might be said not to have murdered Rusty but to have
slain him.  Or how think ye?’

They all said that this seemed like to be; but that if the man
who had slain Rusty were one of the ransackers they might have a
blood-wite of him, if they could find him.  Gold-mane said
that so it was, and therewithal he gave the shepherds good-speed
and went on his way.

p. 67But
they came to Burgstead and found the Alderman, and in due time
was a Court held, and a finding uttered, and outlawry given forth
for the manslaying and the ransacking against certain men
unknown.  As for the spear, it was laid up in the House of
the Face.

But Face-of-god pondered these matters in his mind, for such
ransackings there had been none of in late years; and he said to
himself that his friends of the Mountain must have other folk, of
which the Dalesmen knew nought, whose gear they could lift, or
how could they live in that place.  And he marvelled that
they should risk drawing the Dalesmen’s wrath upon them;
whereas they of the Dale were strong men not easily daunted,
albeit peaceable enough if not stirred to wrath.  For in
good sooth he had no doubt concerning that spear, whose it was
and whence it came: for that very weapon had been leaning against
the panel of his shut-bed the night he slept on the Mountain, and
all the other spears that he saw there were more or less of the
same fashion, and adorned with silver.

Albeit all that he knew, and all that he thought of, he kept
in his own heart and said nothing of it.

So wore the autumn into early winter; and the Westland
merchants came in due time, and departed without Face-of-god,
though his father made him that offer one last time.  He
went to and fro about his work in the Dale, and seemed to most
men’s eyes nought changed from what he had been.  But
the Bride noted that he saw her less often than his wont was, and
abode with her a lesser space when he met her; and she could not
think what this might mean; nor had she heart to ask him thereof,
though she was sorry and grieved, but rather withdrew her company
from him somewhat; and when she perceived that he noted it not,
and made no question of it, then was she the sorrier.

But the first winter-snow came on with a great storm of wind
from the north-east, so that no man stirred abroad who was not
compelled thereto, and those who went abroad risked life and limb
p.
68thereby.  Next morning all was calm again, and the
snow was deep, but it did not endure long, for the wind shifted
to the southwest and the thaw came, and three days after, when
folk could fare easily again up and down the Dale, came tidings
to Burgstead and the Alderman from the Lower Dale, how a house
called Greentofts had been ransacked there, and none knew by
whom.  Now the goodman of Greentofts was little loved of the
neighbours: he was grasping and overbearing, and had often cowed
others out of their due: he was very cross-grained, both at home
and abroad: his wife had fled from his hand, neither did his sons
find it good to abide with him: therewithal he was wealthy of
goods, a strong man and a deft man-at-arms.  When his sons
and his wife departed from him, and none other of the Dalesmen
cared to abide with him, he went down into the Plain, and got
thence men to be with him for hire, men who were not well seen to
in their own land.  These to the number of twelve abode with
him, and did his bidding whenso it pleased them.  Two more
had he had who had been slain by good men of the Dale for their
masterful ways; and no blood-wite had been paid for them, because
of their ill-doings, though they had not been made outlaws. 
This man of Greentofts was called Harts-bane after his father,
who was a great hunter.

Now the full tidings of the ransacking were these: The storm
began two hours before sunset, and an hour thereafter, when it
was quite dark, for without none could see because the wind was
at its height and the drift of the snow was hard and full, the
hall-door flew open; and at first men thought it had been the
wind, until they saw in the dimness (for all lights but the fire
on the hearth had been quenched) certain things tumbling in which
at first they deemed were wolves; but when they took swords and
staves against them, lo they were met by swords and axes, and
they saw that the seeming wolves were men with wolf-skins drawn
over them.  So the new-comers cowed them that they threw
down their weapons, and were bound in their places; but when they
p. 69were
bound, and had had time to note who the ransackers were, they saw
that there were but six of them all told, who had cowed and bound
Harts-bane and his twelve masterful men; and this they deemed a
great shaming to them, as might well be.

So then the stead was ransacked, and those wolves took away
what they would, and went their ways through the fierce storm,
and none could tell whether they had lived or died in it; but at
least neither the men nor their prey were seen again; nor did
they leave any slot, for next morning the snow lay deep over
everything.

No doubt had Gold-mane but that these ransackers were his
friends of the Mountain; but he held his peace, abiding till the
winter should be over.

CHAPTER XI.  MEN MAKE OATH AT BURGSTEAD ON THE HOLY
BOAR.

A week after the ransacking at
Greentofts the snow and the winter came on in earnest, and all
the Dale lay in snow, and men went on skids when they fared up
and down the Dale or on the Mountain.

All was now tidingless till Yule over, and in Burgstead was
there feasting and joyance enough; and especially at the House of
the Face was high-tide holden, and the Alderman and his sons and
Stone-face and all the kindred and all their men sat in glorious
attire within the hall; and many others were there of the best of
the kindreds of Burgstead who had been bidden.

Face-of-god sat between his father and Stone-face; and he
looked up and down the tables and the hall and saw not the Bride,
and his heart misgave him because she was not there, and he
wondered what had befallen and if she were sick of sorrow.

But Iron-face beheld him how he gazed about, and he laughed;
for he was exceeding merry that night and fared as a young
man.  p.
70Then he said to his son: ‘Whom seekest thou, son?
is there someone lacking?’

Face-of-god reddened as one who lies unused to it, and
said:

‘Yea, kinsman, so it is that I was seeking the Bride my
kinswoman.’

‘Nay,’ said Iron-face, ‘call her not
kinswoman: therein is ill-luck, lest it seem that thou art to wed
one too nigh thine own blood.  Call her the Bride only: to
thee and to me the name is good.  Well, son, desirest thou
sorely to see her?’

‘Yea, yea, surely,’ said Face-of-god; but his eyes
went all about the hall still, as though his mind strayed from
the place and that home of his.

Said Iron-face: ‘Have patience, son, thou shalt see her
anon, and that in such guise as shall please thee.’

Therewithal came the maidens with the ewers of wine, and they
filled all horns and beakers, and then stood by the endlong
tables on either side laughing and talking with the carles and
the older women; and the hall was a fair sight to see, for the
many candles burned bright and the fire on the hearth flared up,
and those maids were clad in fair raiment, and there was none of
them but was comely, and some were fair, and some very fair: the
walls also were hung with goodly pictured cloths, and the image
of the God of the Face looked down smiling terribly from the
gable-end above the high-seat.

Thus as they sat they heard the sound of a horn winded close
outside the hall door, and the door was smitten on.  Then
rose Iron-face smiling merrily, and cried out:

‘Enter ye, whether ye be friends or foes: for if ye be
foemen, yet shall ye keep the holy peace of Yule, unless ye be
the foes of all kindreds and nations, and then shall we slay
you.’

Thereat some who knew what was toward laughed; but Gold-mane,
who had been away from Burgstead some days past, marvelled and
knit his brows, and let his right hand fall on his
sword-hilt.  For this folk, who were of merry ways, were
wont p. 71to
deal diversely with the Yule-tide customs in the manner of shows;
and he knew not that this was one of them.

Now was the Outer door thrown open, and there entered seven
men, whereof two were all-armed in bright war-gear, and two bore
slug-horns, and two bore up somewhat on a dish covered over with
a piece of rich cloth, and the seventh stood before them all
wrapped up in a dark fur mantle.

Thus they stood a moment; and when he saw their number, back
to Gold-mane’s heart came the thought of those folk on the
Mountain: for indeed he was somewhat out of himself for doubt and
longing, else would he have deemed that all this was but a
Yule-tide play.

Now the men with the slug-horns set them to their mouths and
blew a long blast; while the first of the new-comers set hand to
the clasps of the fur cloak and let it fall to the ground, and
lo! a woman exceeding beauteous, clad in glistering raiment of
gold and fine web; her hair wreathed with bay, and in her hand a
naked sword with goodly-wrought golden hilt and polished
blue-gleaming blade.

Face-of-god started up in his sear, and stared like a man
new-wakened from a strange dream: because for one moment he
deemed verily that it was the Woman of the Mountain arrayed as he
had last seen her, and he cried aloud ‘The Friend, the
Friend!’

His father brake out into loud laughter thereat, and clapped
his son on the shoulder and said: ‘Yea, yea, lad, thou
mayst well say the Friend; for this is thine old playmate whom
thou hast been looking round the hall for, arrayed this eve in
such fashion as is meet for her goodliness and her
worthiness.  Yea, this is the Friend indeed!’

Then waxed Face-of-god as red as blood for shame, and he sat
him down in his place again: for now he wotted what was toward,
and saw that this fair woman was the Bride.

But Stone-face from the other side looked keenly on him.

p. 72Then
blew the horns again, and the Bride stepped daintily up the hall,
and the sweet odour of her raiment went from her about the
fire-warmed dwelling, and her beauty moved all hearts with
love.  So stood she at the high-table; and those two who
bore the burden set it down thereon and drew off the covering,
and lo! there was the Holy Boar of Yule on which men were wont to
make oath of deeds that they would do in the coming year,
according to the custom of their forefathers.  Then the
Bride laid the goodly sword beside the dish, and then went round
the table and sat down betwixt Face-of-god and Stone-face, and
turned kindly to Gold-mane, and was glad; for now was his fair
face as its wont was to be.  He in turn smiled upon her, for
she was fair and kind and his fellow for many a day.

Now the men-at-arms stood each side the Boar, and out from
them on each side stood the two hornsmen: then these blew up
again, whereon the Alderman stood up and cried:

‘Ye sons of the brave who have any deed that ye may be
desirous of doing, come up, come lay your hand on the sword, and
the point of the sword to the Holy Beast, and swear the oath that
lieth on your hearts.’

Therewith he sat down, and there strode a man up the hall,
strong-built and sturdy, but short of stature; black-haired,
red-bearded, and ruddy-faced: and he stood on the daïs, and
took up the sword and laid its point on the Boar, and said:

‘I am Bristler, son of Brightling, a man of the
Shepherds.  Here by the Holy Boar I swear to follow up the
ransackers of Penny-thumb and the slayers of Rusty.  And I
take this feud upon me, although they be no good men, because I
am of the kin and it falleth to me, since others forbear; and
when the Court was hallowed hereon I was away out of the Dale and
the Downs.  So help me the Warrior, and the God of the
Earth.’

Then the Alderman nodded his head to him kindly, and reached
him out a cup of wine, and as he drank there went up a rumour of
praise from the hall; and men said that his oath was p. 73manly and
that he was like to keep it; for he was a good man-at-arms and a
stout heart.

Then came up three men of the Shepherds and two of the Dale
and swore to help Bristler in his feud, and men thought it well
sworn.

After that came a braggart, a man very gay of his raiment, and
swore with many words that if he lived the year through he would
be a captain over the men of the Plain, and would come back again
with many gifts for his friends in the Dale.  This men
deemed foolishly sworn, for they knew the man; so they jeered at
him and laughed as he went back to his place ashamed.

Then swore three others oaths not hard to be kept, and men
laughed and were merry.

At last uprose the Alderman, and said: ‘Kinsmen, and
good fellows, good days and peaceable are in the Dale as now; and
of such days little is the story, and little it availeth to swear
a deed of derring-do: yet three things I swear by this Beast; and
first to gainsay no man’s asking if I may perform it; and
next to set right above law and mercy above custom; and lastly,
if the days change and war cometh to us or we go to meet it, I
will be no backwarder in the onset than three fathoms behind the
foremost.  So help me the Warrior, and the God of the Face
and the Holy Earth!’

p.
74Therewith he sat down, and all men shouted for joy of
him, and said that it was most like that he would keep his
oath.

Last of all uprose Face-of-god and took up the sword and
looked at it; and so bright was the blade that he saw in it the
image of the golden braveries which the Bride bore, and even some
broken image of her face.  Then he handled the hilt and laid
the point on the Boar, and cried:

‘Hereby I swear to wed the fairest woman of the Earth
before the year is worn to an end; and that whether the Dalesmen
gainsay me or the men beyond the Dale.  So help me the
Warrior, and the God of the Face and the Holy Earth!’

Therewith he sat down; and once more men shouted for the love
of him and of the Bride, and they said he had sworn well and like
a chieftain.

But the Bride noted him that neither were his eyes nor his
voice like to their wont as he swore, for she knew him well; and
thereat was she ill at ease, for now whatever was new in him was
to her a threat of evil to come.

Stone-face also noted him, and he knew the young man better
than all others save the Bride, and he saw withal that she was
ill-pleased, and he said to himself: ‘I will speak to my
fosterling to-morrow if I may find him alone.’

So came the swearing to an end, and they fell to on their meat
and feasted on the Boar of Atonement after they had duly given
the Gods their due share, and the wine went about the hall and
men were merry till they drank the parting cup and fared to rest
in the shut-beds, and whereso else they might in the Hall and the
House, for there were many men there.

CHAPTER XII.  STONE-FACE TELLETH CONCERNING THE
WOOD-WIGHTS.

Early on the morrow Gold-mane arose
and clad himself and went out-a-doors and over the trodden snow
on to the bridge over the Weltering Water, and there betook
himself into one of the coins of safety built over the up-stream
piles; there he leaned against the wall and turned his face to
the Thorp, and fell to pondering on his case.  And first he
thought about his oath, and how that he had sworn to wed the
Mountain Woman, although his kindred and her kindred should
gainsay him, yea and herself also.  Great seemed that oath
to him, yet at that moment he wished he had made it greater, and
made all the kindred, yea and the Bride herself, sure of the
meaning of the words of it: and he deemed himself a dastard that
he had not done so.  Then he p. 75looked round him and beheld the
winter, and he fell into mere longing that the spring were come
and the token from the Mountain.  Things seemed too hard for
him to deal with, and he between a mighty folk and two wayward
women; and he went nigh to wish that he had taken his
father’s offer and gone down to the Cities; and even had he
met his bane: well were that!  And, as young folk will, he
set to work making a picture of his deeds there, had he been
there.  He showed himself the stricken fight in the plain,
and the press, and the struggle, and the breaking of the serried
band, and himself amidst the ring of foemen doing most valiantly,
and falling there at last, his shield o’er-heavy with the
weight of foemen’s spears for a man to uphold it. 
Then the victory of his folk and the lamentation and praise over
the slain man of the Mountain Dales, and the burial of the
valiant warrior, the praising weeping folk meeting him at the
City-gate, laid stark and cold in his arms on the gold-hung
garlanded bier.

There ended his dream, and he laughed aloud and said: ‘I
am a fool!  All this were good and sweet if I should see it
myself; and forsooth that is how I am thinking of it, as if I
still alive should see myself dead and famous!’

Then he turned a little and looked at the houses of the Thorp
lying dark about the snowy ways under the starlit heavens of the
winter morning: dark they were indeed and grey, save where here
and there the half-burned Yule-fire reddened the windows of a
hall, or where, as in one place, the candle of some early waker
shone white in a chamber window.  There was scarce a man
astir, he deemed, and no sound reached him save the crowing of
the cocks muffled by their houses, and a faint sound of beasts in
the byres.

Thus he stood a while, his thoughts wandering now, till
presently he heard footsteps coming his way down the street and
turned toward them, and lo it was the old man Stone-face. 
He had seen Gold-mane go out, and had risen and followed him that
he might talk with him apart.  Gold-mane greeted him kindly,
p. 76though,
sooth to say, he was but half content to see him; since he
doubted, what was verily the case, that his foster-father would
give him many words, counselling him to refrain from going to the
wood, and this was loathsome to him; but he spake and said:

‘Meseems, father, that the eastern sky is brightening
toward dawn.’

‘Yea,’ quoth Stone-face.

‘It will be light in an hour,’ said
Face-of-god.

‘Even so,’ said Stone-face.

‘And a fair day for the morrow of Yule,’ said the
swain.

‘Yea,’ said Stone-face, ‘and what wilt thou
do with the fair day?  Wilt thou to the wood?’

‘Maybe, father,’ said Gold-mane; ‘Hall-face
and some of the swains are talking of elks up the fells which may
be trapped in the drifts, and if they go a-hunting them, I may go
in their company.’

‘Ah, son,’ quoth Stone-face, ‘thou wilt look
to see other kind of beasts than elks.  Things may ye fall
in with there who may not be impounded in the snow like to elks,
but can go light-foot on the top of the soft drift from one place
to another.’

Said Gold-mane: ‘Father, fear me not; I shall either
refrain me from the wood, or if I go, I shall go to hunt the
wood-deer with other hunters.  But since thou hast come to
me, tell me more about the wood, for thy tales thereof are
fair.’

‘Yea,’ said Stone-face, ‘fair tales of foul
things, as oft it befalleth in the world.  Hearken now! if
thou deemest that what thou seekest shall come readier to thine
hand because of the winter and the snow, thou errest.  For
the wights that waylay the bodies and souls of the mighty in the
wild-wood heed such matters nothing; yea and at Yule-tide are
they most abroad, and most armed for the fray.  Even such an
one have I seen time agone, when the snow was deep and the wind
was rough; and it was in the likeness of a woman clad in such
raiment as the Bride bore last night, and she trod the snow
light-foot in thin raiment where it would p. 77scarce bear
the skids of a deft snow-runner.  Even so she stood before
me; the icy wind blew her raiment round about her, and drifted
the hair from her garlanded head toward me, and she as fair and
fresh as in the midsummer days.  Up the fell she fared,
sweetest of all things to look on, and beckoned on me to follow;
on me, the Warrior, the Stout-heart; and I followed, and between
us grief was born; but I it was that fostered that child and not
she.  Always when she would be, was she merry and lovely;
and even so is she now, for she is of those that be
long-lived.  And I wot that thou hast seen even such an
one!’

‘Tell me more of thy tales, foster-father,’ said
Gold-mane, ‘and fear not for me!’

‘Ah, son,’ he said, ‘mayst thou have no such
tales to tell to those that shall be young when thou art
old.  Yet hearken!  We sat in the hall together and
there was no third; and methought that the birds sang and the
flowers bloomed, and sweet was their savour, though it was
midwinter.  A rose-wreath was on her head; grapes were on
the board, and fair unwrinkled summer apples on the day that we
feasted together.  When was the feast? sayst thou. 
Long ago.  What was the hall, thou sayest, wherein ye
feasted?  I know not if it were on the earth or under it, or
if we rode the clouds that even.  But on the morrow what was
there but the stark wood and the drift of the snow, and the iron
wind howling through the branches, and a lonely man, a wanderer
rising from the ground.  A wanderer through the wood and up
the fell, and up the high mountain, and up and up to the edges of
the ice-river and the green caves of the ice-hills.  A
wanderer in spring, in summer, autumn and winter, with an empty
heart and a burning never-satisfied desire; who hath seen in the
uncouth places many an evil unmanly shape, many a foul hag and
changing ugly semblance; who hath suffered hunger and thirst and
wounding and fever, and hath seen many things, but hath never
again seen that fair woman, or that lovely feast-hall.

‘All praise and honour to the House of the Face, and the
p. 78bounteous
valiant men thereof! and the like praise and honour to the fair
women whom they wed of the valiant and goodly House of the
Steer!’

‘Even so say I,’ quoth Gold-mane calmly;
‘but now wend we aback to the House, for it is morning
indeed, and folk will be stirring there.’

So they turned from the bridge together; and Stone-face was
kind and fatherly, and was telling his foster-son many wise
things concerning the life of a chieftain, and the giving-out of
dooms and the gathering for battle; to all which talk Face-of-god
seemed to hearken gladly, but indeed hearkened not at all; for
verily his eyes were beholding that snowy waste, and the fair
woman upon it; even such an one as Stone-face had told of.

CHAPTER XIII.  THEY FARE TO THE HUNTING OF THE ELK.

When they came into the Hall, the
hearth-fire had been quickened, and the sleepers on the floor had
been wakened, and all folk were astir.  So the old man sat
down by the hearth while Gold-mane busied himself in fetching
wood and water, and in sweeping out the Hall, and other such
works of the early morning.  In a little while Hall-face and
the other young men and warriors were afoot duly clad, and the
Alderman came from his chamber and greeted all men kindly. 
Soon meat was set upon the boards, and men broke their fast; and
day dawned while they were about it, and ere it was all done the
sun rose clear and golden, so that all men knew that the day
would be fair, for the frost seemed hard and enduring.

Then the eager young men and the hunters, and those who knew
the mountain best drew together about the hearth, and fell to
talking of the hunting of the elk; and there were three there who
knew both the woods and also the fells right up to the ice-rivers
p. 79better
than any other; and these said that they who were fain of the
hunting of the elk would have no likelier time than that day for
a year to come.  Short was the rede betwixt them, for they
said they would go to the work at once and make the most of the
short winter daylight.  So they went each to his place, and
some outside that House to their fathers’ houses to fetch
each man his gear.  Face-of-god for his part went to his
shut-bed, and stood by his chest, and opened it, and drew out of
it a fine hauberk of ring-mail which his father had made for him:
for though Face-of-god was a deft wright, he was not by a long
way so deft as his father, who was the deftest of all men of that
time and country; so that the alien merchants would give him what
he would for his hauberks and helms, whenso he would chaffer with
them, which was but seldom.  So Face-of-god did on this
hauberk over his kirtle, and over it he cast his foul-weather
weed, so that none might see it: he girt a strong war-sword to
his side, cast his quiver over his shoulder, and took his bow in
his hand, although he had little lust to shoot elks that day,
even as Stone-face had said; therewithal he took his skids, and
went forth of the hall to the gate of the Burg; whereto gathered
the whole company of twenty-three, and Gold-mane the
twenty-fourth.  And each man there had his skids and his bow
and quiver, and whatso other weapon, as short-sword, or
wood-knife, or axe, seemed good to him.

So they went out-a-gates, and clomb the stairway in the cliff
which led to the ancient watch-tower: for it was on the lower
slopes of the fells which lay near to the Weltering Water that
they looked to find the elks, and this was the nighest road
thereto.  When they had gotten to the top they lost no time,
but went their ways nearly due east, making way easily where
there were but scattered trees close to the lip of the sheer
cliffs.

They went merrily on their skids over the close-lying snow,
and were soon up on the great shoulders of the fells that went up
from the bank of the Weltering Water: at noon they came into p. 80a little dale
wherein were a few trees, and there they abided to eat their
meat, and were very merry, making for themselves tables and
benches of the drifted snow, and piling it up to windward as a
defence against the wind, which had now arisen, little but bitter
from the south-east; so that some, and they the wisest, began to
look for foul weather: wherefore they tarried the shorter while
in the said dale or hollow.

But they were scarcely on their way again before the aforesaid
south-east wind began to grow bigger, and at last blew a gale,
and brought up with it a drift of fine snow, through which they
yet made their way, but slowly, till the drift grew so thick that
they could not see each other five paces apart.

Then perforce they made stay, and gathered together under a
bent which by good luck they happened upon, where they were
sheltered from the worst of the drift.  There they abode,
till in less than an hour’s space the drift abated and the
wind fell, and in a little while after it was quite clear, with
the sun shining brightly and the young waxing moon white and high
up in the heavens; and the frost was harder than ever.

This seemed good to them; but now that they could see each
other’s faces they fell to telling over their company, and
there was none missing save Face-of-god.  They were somewhat
dismayed thereat, but knew not what to do, and they deemed he
might not be far off, either a little behind or a little ahead;
and Hall-face said:

‘There is no need to make this to-do about my brother;
he can take good care of himself; neither does a warrior of the
Face die because of a little cold and frost and snow-drift. 
Withal Gold-mane is a wilful man, and of late days hath been
wilful beyond his wont; let us now find the elks.’

So they went on their ways hoping to fall in with him
again.  No long story need be made of their hunting, for not
very far from where they had taken shelter they came upon the
elks, many of them, impounded in the drifts, pretty much where
the deft p.
81hunters looked to find them.  There then was battle
between the elks and the men, till the beasts were all slain and
only one man hurt: then they made them sleighs from wood which
they found in the hollows thereby, and they laid the carcasses
thereon, and so turned their faces homeward, dragging their prey
with them.  But they met not Face-of-god either there or on
the way home; and Hall-face said: ‘Maybe Gold-mane will lie
on the fell to-night; and I would I were with him; for adventures
oft befall such folk when they abide in the wilds.’

Now it was late at night by then they reached Burgstead, so
laden as they were with the dead beasts; but they heeded the
night little, for the moon was well-nigh as bright as day for
them.  But when they came to the gate of the Thorp, there
were assembled the goodmen and swains to meet them with torches
and wine in their honour.  There also was Gold-mane come
back before them, yea for these two hours; and he stood clad in
his holiday raiment and smiled on them.

Then was there some jeering at him that he was come back
empty-handed from the hunting, and that he was not able to abide
the wind and the drift; but he laughed thereat, for all this was
but game and play, since men knew him for a keen hunter and a
stout woodsman; and they had deemed it a heavy loss of him if he
had been cast away, as some feared he had been: and his brother
Hall-face embraced him and kissed him, and said to him:
‘Now the next time that thou farest to the wood will I be
with thee foot to foot, and never leave thee, and then meseemeth
I shall wot of the tale that hath befallen thee, and belike it
shall be no sorry one.’

Face-of-god laughed and answered but little, and they all
betook them to the House of the Face and held high feast therein,
for as late as the night was, in honour of this Hunting of the
Elk.

No man cared to question Face-of-god closely as to how or
where he had strayed from the hunt; for he had told his own tale
at once as soon as he came home, to wit, that his right-foot
skid-strap had broken, and even while he stopped to mend it came
on p. 82that
drift and weather; and that he could not move from that place
without losing his way, and that when it had cleared he knew not
whither they had gone because the snow had covered their
slot.  So he deemed it not unlike that they had gone back,
and that he might come up with one or two on the way, and that in
any case he wotted well that they could look after themselves; so
he turned back, not going very swiftly.  All this seemed
like enough, and a little matter except to jest about, so no man
made any question concerning it: only old Stone-face said to
himself:

‘Now were I fain to have a true tale out of him, but it
is little likely that anything shall come of my much questioning;
and it is ill forcing a young man to tell lies.’

So he held his peace, and the feast went on merrily and
blithely.

CHAPTER XIV.  CONCERNING FACE-OF-GOD AND THE
MOUNTAIN.

But it must be told of Gold-mane
that what had befallen him was in this wise.  His skid-strap
brake in good sooth, and he stayed to mend it; but when he had
done what was needful, he looked up and saw no man nigh, what for
the drift, and that they had gone on somewhat; so he rose to his
feet, and without more delay, instead of keeping on toward the
elk-ground and the way his face had been set, he turned himself
north-and-by-east, and went his ways swiftly towards that
aírt, because he deemed that it might lead him to the
Mountain-hall where he had guested.  He abode not for the
storm to clear, but swept off through the thick of it; and indeed
the wind was somewhat at his back, so that he went the
swiftlier.  But when the drift was gotten to its very worst,
he sheltered himself for a little in a hollow behind a thorn-bush
he stumbled upon.  As soon as it began to abate he went on
again, and at last when it was quite clear, and the sun shone
out, he found himself on a long slope of the fells p. 83covered deep
with smooth white snow, and at the higher end a great crag rising
bare fifty feet above the snow, and more rocks, but none so
great, and broken ground as he judged (the snow being deep) about
it on the hither side; and on the further, three great pine-trees
all bent down and mingled together by their load of snow.

Thitherward he made, as a man might, seeing nothing else to
note before him; but he had not made many strides when forth from
behind the crag by the pine-trees came a man; and at first
Face-of-god thought it might be one of his hunting-fellows gone
astray, and he hailed him in a loud voice, but as he looked he
saw the sun flash back from a bright helm on the
new-comer’s head; albeit he kept on his way till there was
but a space of two hundred yards between them; when lo! the
helm-bearer notched a shaft to his bent bow and loosed at
Face-of-god, and the arrow came whistling and passed six inches
by his right ear.  Then Face-of-god stopped perplexed with
his case; for he was on the deep snow in his skids, with his bow
unbent, and he knew not how to bend it speedily.  He was
loth to turn his back and flee, and indeed he scarce deemed that
it would help him.  Meanwhile of his tarrying the archer
loosed again at him, and this time the shaft flew close to his
left ear.  Then Face-of-god thought to cast himself down
into the snow, but he was ashamed; till there came a third shaft
which flew over his head amidmost and close to it. 
‘Good shooting on the Mountain!’ muttered he;
‘the next shaft will be amidst my breast, and who knows
whether the Alderman’s handiwork will keep it
out.’

So he cried aloud: ‘Thou shootest well, brother; but art
thou a foe?  If thou art, I have a sword by my side, and so
hast thou; come hither to me, and let us fight it out friendly if
we must needs fight.’

A laugh came down the wind to him clear but somewhat shrill,
and the archer came swiftly towards him on his skids with no
weapon in his hand save his bow; so that Face-of-god did not draw
his sword, but stood wondering.

p. 84As they
drew nearer he beheld the face of the new-comer, and deemed that
he had seen it before; and soon, for all that it was hooded close
by the ill-weather raiment, he perceived it to be the face of
Bow-may, ruddy and smiling.

She laughed out loud again, as she stopped herself within
three feet of him, and said:

‘Yea, friend Yellow-hair, we heard of the elks and
looked to see thee hereabouts, and I knew thee at once when I
came out from behind the crag and saw thee stand
bewildered.’

Said Gold-mane: ‘Hail to thee, Bow-may! and glad am I to
see thee.  But thou liest in saying that thou knewest me;
else why didst thou shoot those three shafts at me?  Surely
thou art not so quick as that with all thy friends: these be
sharp greetings of you Mountain-folk.’

‘Thou lad with the sweet mouth,’ she said,
‘I like to see thee and hear thee talk, but now must I
hasten thy departure; so stand we here no longer.  Let us
get down into the wood where we can do off our skids and sit
down, and then will I tell thee the tidings.  Come
on!’

And she caught his hand in hers, and they went speedily down
the slopes toward the great oak-wood, the wind whistling past
their ears.

‘Whither are we going?’ said he.

Said she: ‘I am to show thee the way back home, which
thou wilt not know surely amidst this snow.  Come, no words!
thou shalt not have my tale from me till we are in the wood: so
the sooner we are there the sooner shalt thou be
pleased.’

So Face-of-god held his peace, and they went on swiftly side
by side.  But it was not Bow-may’s wont to be silent
for long, so presently she said:

‘Thou art good so do as I bid thee; but see thou, sweet
playmate, for all thou art a chieftain’s son, thou wert but
feather-brained to ask me why I shot at thee.  I shoot at
thee! that were a fine tale to tell her this even!  Or dost
thou think that I could p. 85shoot at a big man on the snow at two
hundred paces and miss him three times?  Unless I aimed to
miss.’

‘Yea, Bow-may,’ said he, ‘art thou so deft a
Bow-may?  Thou shalt be in my company whenso I fare to
battle.’

‘Indeed,’ she said, ‘therein thou sayest but
the bare truth: nowhere else shall I be, and thou shalt find my
bow no worse than a good shield.’

He laughed somewhat lightly; but she looked on him soberly and
said: ‘Laugh in that fashion on the day of battle, and we
shall be well content with thee!’

So on they sped very swiftly, for their way was mostly down
hill, so that they were soon amongst the outskirting trees of the
wood, and presently after reached the edge of the thicket, beyond
which the ground was but thinly covered with snow.

There they took off their skids, and went into the thick wood
and sat down under a hornbeam tree; and ere Gold-mane could open
his mouth to speak Bow-may began and said:

‘Well it was that I fell in with thee, Dalesman, else
had there been murders of men to tell of; but ever she ordereth
all things wisely, though unwisely hast thou done to seek to
her.  Hearken! dost thou think that thou hast done well that
thou hast me here with my tale?  Well, hadst thou busied
thyself with the slaying of elks, or with sitting quietly at
home, yet shouldest thou have heard my tale, and thou shouldest
have seen me in Burgstead in a day or two to tell thee concerning
the flitting of the token.  And ill it is that I have missed
it, for fain had I been to behold the House of the Face, and to
have seen thee sitting there in thy dignity amidst the kindred of
chieftains.’

And she sighed therewith.  But he said: ‘Hold up
thine heart, Bow-may!  On the word of a true man that shall
befall thee one day.  But come, playmate, give me thy
tale!’

‘Yea,’ she said, ‘I must now tell thee in
the wild-wood what else I had told thee in the Hall. 
Hearken closely, for this is the message:

p.
86‘Seek not to me again till thou hast the
token; else assuredly wilt thou be slain, and I
shall be sorry for many a day.  Thereof as now I may
not tell thee more.  Now as to the token: When
March is worn two weeks fail not to go to and fro on the place of
the Maiden Ward for an hour before sunrise every day till thou
hear tidings.’

‘Now,’ quoth Bow-may, ‘hast thou hearkened
and understood?’

‘Yea,’ said he.

She said: ‘Then tell me the words of my message
concerning the token.’  And he did so word for
word.  Then she said:

‘It is well, there is no more to say.  Now must I
lead thee till thou knowest the wood; and then mayst thou get on
to the smooth snow again, and so home merrily.  Yet, thou
grey-eyed fellow, I will have my pay of thee before I do that
last work.’

Therewith she turned about to him and took his head between
her hands, and kissed him well favouredly both cheeks and mouth;
and she laughed, albeit the tears stood in her eyes as she said:
‘Now smelleth the wood sweeter, and summer will come back
again.  And even thus will I do once more when we stand side
by side in battle array.’

He smiled kindly on her and nodded as they both rose up from
the earth: she had taken off her foul-weather gloves while they
spake, and he kissed her hand, which was shapely of fashion
albeit somewhat brown, and hard of palm, and he said in friendly
wise:

‘Thou art a merry faring-fellow, Bow-may, and belike
shalt be withal a true fighting-fellow.  Come now, thou
shalt be my sister and I thy brother, in despite of those three
shafts across the snow.’

He laughed therewith; she laughed not, but seemed glad, and
said soberly:

‘Yea, I may well be thy sister; for belike I also am of
the people of the Gods, who have come into these Dales by many
far ways.  I am of the House of the Ragged Sword of the
Kindred of the Wolf.  Come, brother, let us toward
Wildlake’s Way.’

Therewith she went before him and led through the thicket p. 87as by an
assured and wonted path, and he followed hard at heel; but his
thought went from her for a while; for those words of brother and
sister that he had spoken called to his mind the Bride, and their
kindness of little children, and the days when they seemed to
have nought to do but to make the sun brighter, and the flowers
fairer, and the grass greener, and the birds happier each for the
other; and a hard and evil thing it seemed to him that now he
should be making all these things nought and dreary to her, now
when he had become a man and deeds lay before him.  Yet
again was he solaced by what Bow-may had said concerning battle
to come; for he deemed that she must have had this from the
Friend’s foreseeing; and he longed sore for deeds to do,
wherein all these things might be cleared up and washen clean as
it were.

So passed they through the wood a long way, and it was getting
dark therein, and Gold-mane said:

‘Hold now, Bow-may, for I am at home here.’

She looked around and said: ‘Yea, so it is: I was
thinking of many things.  Farewell and live merrily till
March comes and the token!’

Therewith she turned and went her ways and was soon out of
sight, and he went lightly through the wood, and then on skids
over the hard snow along the Dale’s edge till he was come
to the watch-tower, when the moon was bright in heaven.

Thus was he at Burgstead and the House of the Face betimes,
and before the hunters were gotten back.

CHAPTER XV.  MURDER AMONGST THE FOLK OF THE
WOODLANDERS.

So wore away midwinter
tidingless.  Stone-face spake no more to Face-of-god about
the wood and its wights, when he saw that the young man had come
back hale and merry, seemed not to crave over-much to go back
thither.  As for p. 88the Bride, she was sad, and more than
misdoubted all; but dauntless as she was in matters that try
men’s hardihood, she yet lacked heart to ask of Face-of-god
what had befallen him since the autumn-tide, or where he was with
her.  So she put a force upon herself not to look sad or
craving when she was in his company, as full oft she was; for he
rather sought her than shunned her.  For when he saw her
thus, he deemed things were changing with her as they had changed
with him, and he bethought him of what he had spoken to Bow-may,
and deemed that even so he might speak with the Bride when the
time came, and that she would not be grieved beyond measure, and
all would be well.

Now came on the thaw, and the snow went, and the grass grew
all up and down the Dale, and all waters were big.  And
about this time arose rumours of strange men in the wood,
uncouth, vile, and murderous, and many of the feebler sort were
made timorous thereby.

But a little before March was born came new tidings from the
Woodlanders; to wit: There came on a time to the house of a
woodland carle, a worthy goodman well renowned of all, two
wayfarers in the first watch of the night; and these men said
that they were wending down to the Plain from a far-away dale,
Rose-dale to wit, which all men had heard of, and that they had
strayed from the way and were exceeding weary, and they craved a
meal’s meat and lodging for the night.

This the goodman might nowise gainsay, and he saw no harm in
it, wherefore he bade them abide and be merry.

These men, said they who told the tidings, were outlanders,
and no man had seen any like them before: they were armed, and
bore short bows made of horn, and round targets, and
coats-of-fence done over with horn scales; they had crooked
swords girt to their sides, and axes of steel forged all in one
piece, right good weapons.  They were clad in scarlet and
had much silver on their raiment and about their weapons, and
great rings of the same on their arms; and all this silver seemed
brand-new.

p. 89Now the
Woodland Carle gave them of such things as he had, and was kind
and blithe to them: there were in his house besides himself five
men of his sons and kindred, and his wife and three daughters and
two other maids.  So they feasted after the
Woodlanders’ fashion, and went to bed a little before
midnight.  Two hours after, the carle awoke and heard a
little stir, and he looked and saw the guests on their feet
amidst the hall clad in all their war-gear; and they had betwixt
them his two youngest daughters, maids of fifteen and twelve
winters, and had bound their hands and done clouts over their
mouths, so that they might not cry out; and they were just at
point to carry them off.  Thereat the goodman, naked as he
was, caught up his sword and made at these murder-carles, and or
ever they were ware of him he had hewn down one and turned to
face the other, who smote at him with his steel axe and gave him
a great wound on the shoulder, and therewithal fled out at the
open door and forth into the wood.

The Woodlander made no stay to raise the cry (there was no
need, for the hall was astir now from end to end, and men getting
to their weapons), but ran out after the felon even as he was;
and, in spite of his grievous hurt, overran him no long way from
the house before he had gotten into the thicket.  But the
man was nimble and strong, and the goodman unsteady from his
wound, and by then the others of the household came up with the
hue and cry he had gotten two more sore wounds and was just
making an end of throttling the felon with his bare hands. 
So he fell into their arms fainting from weakness, and for all
they could do he died in two hours’ time from that
axe-wound in his shoulder, and another on the side of the head,
and a knife-thrust in his side; and he was a man of sixty
winters.

But the stranger he had slain outright; and the one whom he
had smitten in the hall died before the dawn, thrusting all help
aside, and making no sound of speech.

When these tidings came to Burgstead they seemed great to men,
and to Gold-mane more than all.  So he and many others p. 90took their
weapons and fared up to Wildlake’s Way, and so came to the
Woodland Carles.  But the Woodlanders had borne out the
carcasses of those felons and laid them on the green before
Wood-grey’s door (for that was the name of the dead
goodman), and they were saying that they would not bury such
accursed folk, but would bear them a little way so that they
should not be vexed with the stink of them, and cast them into
the thicket for the wolf and the wild-cat and the stoat to deal
with; and they should lie there, weapons and silver and all; and
they deemed it base to strip such wretches, for who would wear
their raiment or bear their weapons after them.

There was a great ring of folk round about them when they of
Burgstead drew near, and they shouted for joy to see their
neighbours, and made way before them.  Then the Dalesmen
cursed these murderers who had slain so good a man, and they all
praised his manliness, whereas he ran out into the night naked
and wounded after his foe, and had fallen like his folk of old
time.

It was a bright spring afternoon in that clearing of the Wood,
and they looked at the two dead men closely; and Gold-mane, who
had been somewhat silent and moody till then, became merry and
wordy; for he beheld the men and saw that they were utterly
strange to him: they were short of stature, crooked-legged,
long-armed, very strong for their size: with small blue eyes,
snubbed-nosed, wide-mouthed, thin-lipped, very swarthy of skin,
exceeding foul of favour.  He and all others wondered who
they were, and whence they came, for never had they seen their
like; and the Woodlanders, who often guested outlanders strayed
from the way of divers kindreds and nations, said also that none
such had they ever seen.  But Stone-face, who stood by
Gold-mane, shook his head and quoth he:

‘The Wild-wood holdeth many marvels, and these be of
them: the spawn of evil wights quickeneth therein, and at other
whiles it melteth away again like the snow; so may it be with
these carcasses.’

p. 91And
some of the older folk of the Woodlanders who stood by hearkened
what he said, and deemed his words wise, for they remembered
their ancient lore and many a tale of old time.

Thereafter they of Burgstead went into Wood-grey’s hall,
or as many of them as might, for it was but a poor place and not
right great.  There they saw the goodman laid on the
daïs in all his war-gear, under the last tie-beam of his
hall, whereon was carved amidst much goodly work of knots and
flowers and twining stems the image of the Wolf of the Waste, his
jaws open and gaping: the wife and daughters of the goodman and
other women of the folk stood about the bier singing some old
song in a low voice, and some sobbing therewithal, for the man
was much beloved: and much people of the Woodlanders was in the
hall, and it was somewhat dusk within.

So the Burgstead men greeted that folk kindly and humbly, and
again they fell to praising the dead man, saying how his deed
should long be remembered in the Dale and wide about; and they
called him a fearless man and of great worth.  And the women
hearkened, and ceased their crooning and their sobbing, and stood
up proudly and raised their heads with gleaming eyes; and as the
words of the Burgstead men ended, they lifted up their voices and
sang loudly and clearly, standing together in a row, ten of them,
on the daïs of that poor hall, facing the gable and the
wolf-adorned tie-beam, heeding nought as they sang what was about
or behind them.

And this is some of what they sang:

Why sit ye bare in the spinning-room?

Why weave ye naked at the loom?

Bare and white as the moon we be,

That the Earth and the drifting night may see.

Now what is the worst of all your work?

What curse amidst the web shall lurk?

p.
92The worst of the work our hands shall win

Is wrack and ruin round the kin.

Shall the woollen yarn and the flaxen thread

Be gear for living men or dead?

The woollen yarn and the flaxen thread

Shall flare ’twixt living men and dead.

O what is the ending of your day?

When shall ye rise and wend away?

Our day shall end to-morrow morn,

When we hear the voice of the battle-horn.

Where first shall eyes of men behold

This weaving of the moonlight cold?

There where the alien host abides

The gathering on the Mountain-sides.

How long aloft shall the fair web fly

When the bows are bent and the spears draw nigh?

From eve to morn and morn till eve

Aloft shall fly the work we weave.

What then is this, the web ye win?

What wood-beast waxeth stark therein?

We weave the Wolf and the gift of war

From the men that were to the men that are.

So sang they: and much were all men moved at their singing,
and there was none but called to mind the old days of the
Fathers, and the years when their banner went wide in the
world.

But the Woodlanders feasted them of Burgstead what they might,
and then went the Dalesmen back to their houses; but on p. 93the
morrow’s morrow they fared thither again, and Wood-grey was
laid in mound amidst a great assemblage of the Folk.

Many men said that there was no doubt that those two felons
were of the company of those who had ransacked the steads of
Penny-thumb and Harts-bane; and so at first deemed Bristler the
son of Brightling: but after a while, when he had had time to
think of it, he changed his mind; for he said that such men as
these would have slain first and ransacked afterwards: and some
who loved neither Penny-thumb nor Harts-bane said that they would
not have been at the pains to choose for ransacking the two worst
men about the Dale, whose loss was no loss to any but
themselves.

As for Gold-mane he knew not what to think, except that his
friends of the Mountain had had nought to do with it.

So wore the days awhile.

CHAPTER XVI.  THE BRIDE SPEAKETH WITH FACE-OF-GOD.

February had died into March, and
March was now twelve days old, on a fair and sunny day an hour
before noon; and Face-of-god was in a meadow a scant mile down
the Dale from Burgstead.  He had been driving a bull into a
goodman’s byre nearby, and had had to spend toil and
patience both in getting him out of the fields and into the byre;
for the beast was hot with the spring days and the new
grass.  So now he was resting himself in happy mood in an
exceeding pleasant place, a little meadow to wit, on one side
whereof was a great orchard or grove of sweet chestnuts, which
went right up to the feet of the Southern Cliffs: across the
meadow ran a clear brook towards the Weltering Water, free from
big stones, in some places dammed up for the flooding of the deep
pasture-meadow, and with the grass growing on its lips down to
the very water.  There p. 94was a low bank just outside the
chestnut trees, as if someone had raised a dyke about them when
they were young, which had been trodden low and spreading through
the lapse of years by the faring of many men and beasts. 
The primroses bloomed thick upon it now, and here and there along
it was a low blackthorn bush in full blossom; from the mid-meadow
and right down to the lip of the brook was the grass well nigh
hidden by the blossoms of the meadow-saffron, with daffodils
sprinkled about amongst them, and in the trees and bushes the
birds, and chiefly the blackbirds, were singing their
loudest.

There sat Face-of-god on the bank resting after his toil, and
happy was his mood; since in two days’ wearing he should be
pacing the Maiden Ward awaiting the token that was to lead him to
Shadowy Vale; so he sat calling to mind the Friend as he had last
seen her, and striving as it were to set her image standing on
the flowery grass before him, till all the beauty of the meadow
seemed bare and empty to him without her.  Then it fell into
his mind that this had been a beloved trysting-place betwixt him
and the Bride, and that often when they were little would they
come to gather chestnuts in the grove, and thereafter sit and
prattle on the old dyke; or in spring when the season was warm
would they go barefoot into the brook, seeking its treasures of
troutlets and flowers and clean-washed agate pebbles.  Yea,
and time not long ago had they met here to talk as lovers, and
sat on that very bank in all the kindness of good days without a
blemish, and both he and she had loved the place well for its
wealth of blossoms and deep grass and goodly trees and clear
running stream.

As he thought of all this, and how often there he had praised
to himself her beauty, which he scarce dared praise to her, he
frowned and slowly rose to his feet, and turned toward the
chestnut-grove, as though he would go thence that way; but or
ever he stepped down from the dyke he turned about again, and
even therewith, like the very image and ghost of his thought, lo!
the p. 95Bride
herself coming up from out the brook and wending toward him, her
wet naked feet gleaming in the sun as they trod down the tender
meadow-saffron and brushed past the tufts of daffodils.  He
stood staring at her discomforted, for on that day he had much to
think of that seemed happy to him, and he deemed that she would
now question him, and his mind pondered divers ways of answering
her, and none seemed good to him.  She drew near and let her
skirts fall over her feet, and came to him, her gown hem dragging
over the flowers: then she stood straight up before him and
greeted him, but reached not forth her hand to him nor touched
him.  Her face was paler that its wont, and her voice
trembled as she spake to him and said:

‘Face-of-god, I would ask thee a gift.’

‘All gifts,’ he said, ‘that thou mayest ask,
and I may give, lie open to thee.’

She said: ‘If I be alive when the time comes this gift
thou mayst well give me.’

‘Sweet kinswoman,’ said he, ‘tell me what it
is that thou wouldest have of me.’  And he was
ill-at-ease as he waited for her answer.

She said: ‘Ah, kinsman, kinsman!  Woe on the day
that maketh kinship accursed to me because thou desirest
it!’

He held his peace and was exceeding sorry; and she said:

‘This is the gift that I ask of thee, that in the days
to come when thou art wedded, thou wilt give me the second
man-child whom thou begettest.’

He said: ‘This shalt thou have, and would that I might
give thee much more.  Would that we were little children
together other again, as when we played here in other
days.’

She said: ‘I would have a token of thee that thou shalt
show to the God, and swear on it to give me the gift.  For
the times change.’

‘What token wilt thou have?’ said he.

She said: ‘When next thou farest to the Wood, thou shalt
bring me back, it maybe a flower from the bank ye sit upon, or p. 96a splinter
from the daïs of the hall wherein ye feast, or maybe a ring
or some matter that the strangers are wont to wear.  That
shall be the token.’

She spoke slowly, hanging her head adown, but she lifted it
presently and looked into his face and said:

‘Woe’s me, woe’s me, Gold-mane!  How
evil is this day, when bewailing me I may not bewail thee
also!  For I know that thine heart is glad.  All
through the winter have I kept this hidden in my heart, and durst
not speak to thee.  But now the spring-tide hath driven me
to it.  Let summer come, and who shall say?’

Great was his grief, and his shame kept him silent, and he had
no word to say; and again she said:

‘Tell me, Gold-mane, when goest thou thither?’

He said: ‘I know not surely, may happen in two days, may
happen in ten.  Why askest thou?’

‘O friend!’ she said, ‘is it a new thing
that I should ask thee whither thou goest and whence thou comest,
and the times of thy coming and going.  Farewell
to-day!  Forget not the token.  Woe’s me, that I
may not kiss thy fair face!’

She spread her arms abroad and lifted up her face as one who
waileth, but no sound came from her lips; then she turned about
and went away as she had come.

But as for him he stood there after she was gone in all
confusion, as if he were undone: for he felt his manhood lessened
that he should thus and so sorely have hurt a friend, and in a
manner against his will.  And yet he was somewhat wroth with
her, that she had come upon him so suddenly, and spoken to him
with such mastery, and in so few words, and he with none to make
answer to her, and that she had so marred his pleasure and his
hope of that fair day.  Then he sat him down again on the
flowery bank, and little by little his heart softened, and he
once more called to mind many a time when they had been there
before, and the plays and the games they had had together there
when they were little.  And he bethought him of the days
that were long to him then, p. 97and now seemed short to him, and as
if they were all grown together into one story, and that a sweet
one.  Then his breast heaved with a sob, and the tears rose
to his eyes and burned and stung him, and he fell a-weeping for
that sweet tale, and wept as he had wept once before on that old
dyke when there had been some child’s quarrel between them,
and she had gone away and left him.

Then after a while he ceased his weeping, and looked about him
lest anyone might be coming, and then he arose and went to and
fro in the chestnut-grove for a good while, and afterwards went
his ways from that meadow, saying to himself: ‘Yet
remaineth to me the morrow of to-morrow, and that is the first of
the days of the watching for the token.’

But all that day he was slow to meet the eyes of men; and in
the hall that eve he was silent and moody; for from time to time
it came over him that some of his manhood had departed from
him.

CHAPTER XVII.  THE TOKEN COMETH FROM THE MOUNTAIN.

The next day wore away tidingless;
and the day after Face-of-god arose betimes; for it was the first
day of his watch, and he was at the Maiden Ward before the time
appointed on a very fair and bright morning, and he went to and
fro on that place, and had no tidings.  So he came away
somewhat cast down, and said within himself: ‘Is it but a
lie and a mocking when all is said?’

On the morrow he went thither again, and the morn was wild and
stormy with drift of rain, and low clouds hurrying over the
earth, though for the sunrise they lifted a little in the east,
and the sun came up over the passes, amidst the red and angry
rack of clouds.  This morn also gave him no tidings of the
token, and he p.
98was wroth and perturbed in spirit: but towards evening
he said:

‘It is well: ten days she gave me, so that she might be
able to send without fail on one of them; she will not fail
me.’

So again on the morrow he was there betimes, and the morn was
windy as on the day before, but the clouds higher and of better
promise for the day.  Face-of-god walked to and fro on the
Maiden Ward, and as he turned toward Burgstead for the tenth
time, he heard, as he deemed, a bow-string twang afar off, and
even therewith came a shaft flying heavily like a winged bird,
which smote a great standing stone on the other side of the way,
where of old some chieftain had been buried, and fell to earth at
its foot.  He went up to it and handled it, and saw that
there was a piece of thin parchment wrapped about it, which
indeed he was eager to unwrap at once, but forebore; because he
was on the highway, and people were already astir, and even then
passed by him a goodman of the Dale with a man of his going
afield together, and they gave him the sele of the day.  So
he went along the highway a little till he came to a place where
was a footbridge over into the meadow.  He crossed thereby
and went swiftly till he reached a rising ground grown over with
hazel-trees; there he sat down among the rabbit-holes, the
primrose and wild-garlic blooming about him, and three blackbirds
answering one another from the edges of the coppice. 
Straightway when he had looked and seen none coming he broke the
threads that were wound about the scroll and the arrow, and
unrolled the parchment; and there was writing thereon in black
ink of small letters, but very fair, and this is what he read
therein:

Come thou to the Mountain Hall by the path
which thou knowest of, on the morrow of the day whereon
thou readest this.  Rise betimes and come armed,
for there are other men than we in the wood; to whom
thy death should be a gain.  When thou art come to
the Hall, thou shalt find no man therein; but a
great hound only, tied to a bench nigh the
daïs.  Call him by his name, Sure-foot to
wit, and give him to eat from the meat upon the board,
and give him water p. 99to drink.  If the day
is then far spent, as it is like to be, abide thou
with the hound in the hall through the night, and eat of
what thou shalt find there; but see that the hound fares
not abroad till the morrow’s morn: then lead him out
and bring him to the north-east corner of the Hall, and he
shall lift the slot for thee that leadeth to the Shadowy
Yale.  Follow him and all good go with thee.

Now when he had read this, earth seemed fair indeed about him,
and he scarce knew whither to turn or what to do to make the most
of his joy.  He presently went back to Burgstead and into
the House of the Face, where all men were astir now, and the day
was clearing.  He hid the shaft under his kirtle, for he
would not that any should see it; so he went to his shut-bed and
laid it up in his chest, wherein he kept his chiefest treasures;
but the writing on the scroll he set in his bosom and so hid
it.  He went joyfully and proudly, as one who knoweth more
tidings and better than those around him.  But Stone-face
beheld him, and said ‘Foster-son, thou art happy.  Is
it that the spring-tide is in thy blood, and maketh thee blithe
with all things, or hast thou some new tidings?  Nay, I
would not have an answer out of thee; but here is good rede: when
next thou goest into the wood, it were nought so ill for thee to
have a valiant old carle by thy side; one that loveth thee, and
would die for thee if need were; one who might watch when thou
wert seeking.  Or else beware! for there are evil things
abroad in the Wood, and moreover the brethren of those two felons
who were slain at Carlstead.’

Then Gold-mane constrained himself to answer the old carle
softly; and he thanked him kindly for his offer, and said that so
it should be before long.  So the talk between them fell,
and Stone-face went away somewhat well-pleased.

And now was Face-of-god become wary; and he would not draw
men’s eyes and speech on him; so he went afield with
Hall-face to deal with the lambs and the ewes, and did like other
men.  No less wary was he in the hall that even, and neither
spake much nor little; and when his father spake to him
concerning the Bride, p. 100and made game of him as a somewhat
sluggish groom, he did not change countenance, but answered
lightly what came to hand.

On the morrow ere the earliest dawn he was afoot, and he clad
himself and did on his hauberk, his father’s work, which
was fine-wrought and a stout defence, and reached down to his
knees; and over that he did on a goodly green kirtle well
embroidered: he girt his war-sword to his side, and it was the
work of his father’s father, and a very good sword: its
name was Dale-warden.  He did a good helm on his head, and
slung a targe at his back, and took two spears in his hand, short
but strong-shafted and well-steeled.  Thus arrayed he left
Burgstead before the dawn, and came to Wildlake’s Way and
betook him to the Woodland.  He made no stop or stay on the
path, but ate his meat standing by an oak-tree close by the
half-blind track.  When he came to the little wood-lawn,
where was the toft of the ancient house, he looked all round
about him, for he deemed that a likely place for those ugly
wood-wights to set on him; but nought befell him, though he
stooped and drank of the woodland rill warily enough.  So he
passed on; and there were other places also where he fared
warily, because they seemed like to hold lurking felons; though
forsooth the whole wood might well serve their turn.  But no
evil befell him, and at last, when it yet lacked an hour to
sunset, he came to the wood-lawn where Wild-wearer had made his
onset that other eve.

He went straight up to the house, his heart beating, and he
scarce believing but that he should find the Friend abiding him
there: but when he pushed the door it gave way before him at
once, and he entered and found no man therein, and the walls
stripped bare and no shield or weapon hanging on the
panels.  But the hound he saw tied to a bench nigh the
daïs, and the bristles on the beast’s neck arose, and
he snarled on Face-of-god, and strained on his leathern
leash.  Then Face-of-god went up to him and called him by
his name, Sure-foot, and gave him his hand to lick, and he
brought him water, and fed him with flesh from p. 101the meat on
the board; so the beast became friendly and wagged his tail and
whined and slobbered his hand.

Then he went all about the house, and saw and heard no living
thing therein save the mice in the panels and Sure-foot.  So
he came back to the daïs, and sat him down at the board and
ate his fill, and thought concerning his case.  And it came
into his mind that the Woman of the Mountain had some deed for
him to do which would try his manliness and exalt his fame; and
his heart rose high and he was glad, and he saw himself sitting
beside her on the daïs of a very fair hall beloved and
honoured of all the folk, and none had aught to say against him
or owed him any grudge.  Thus he pleased himself in thinking
of the good days to come, sitting there till the hall grew dusk
and dark and the night-wind moaned about it.

Then after a while he arose and raked together the brands on
the hearth, and made light in the hall and looked to the
door.  And he found there were bolts and bars thereto, so he
shot the bolts and drew the bars into their places and made all
as sure as might be.  Then he brought Sure-foot down from
the daïs, and tied him up so that he might lie down athwart
the door, and then lay down his hauberk with his naked sword
ready to his hand, and slept long while.

When he awoke it was darker than when he had lain him for the
moon had set; yet he deemed that the day was at point of
breaking.  So he fetched water and washed the night off him,
and saw a little glimmer of the dawn.  Then he ate somewhat
of the meat on the board, and did on his helm and his other gear,
and unbarred the door, and led Sure-foot without, and brought him
to the north-east corner of the house, and in a little while he
lifted the slot and they departed, the man and the hound, just as
broke dawn from over the mountains.

Sure-foot led right into the heart of the pine-wood, and it
was dark enough therein, with nought but a feeble glimmer for
some while, and long was the way therethrough; but in two
hours’ p.
102space was there something of a break, and they came to
the shore of a dark deep tarn on whose windless and green waters
the daylight shone fully.  The hound skirted the water, and
led on unchecked till the trees began to grow smaller and the air
colder for all that the sun was higher; for they had been going
up and up all the way.

So at last after a six hours’ journey they came clean
out of the pine-wood, and before them lay the black wilderness of
the bare mountains, and beyond them, looking quite near now, the
great ice-peaks, the wall of the world.  It was but an hour
short of noon by this time, and the high sun shone down on a
barren boggy moss which lay betwixt them and the rocky
waste.  Sure-foot made no stay, but threaded the ways that
went betwixt the quagmires, and in another hour led Face-of-god
into a winding valley blinded by great rocks, and everywhere
stony and rough, with a trickle of water running amidst of
it.  The hound fared on up the dale to where the water was
bridged by a great fallen stone, and so over it and up a steep
bent on the further side, on to a marvellously rough
mountain-neck, whiles mere black sand cumbered with scattered
rocks and stones, whiles beset with mires grown over with the
cottony mire-grass; here and there a little scanty grass growing;
otherwhere nought but dwarf willow ever dying ever growing,
mingled with moss or red-blossomed sengreen; and all blending
together into mere desolation.

Few living things they saw there; up on the neck a few sheep
were grazing the scanty grass, but there was none to tend them;
yet Face-of-god deemed the sight of them good, for there must be
men anigh who owned them.  For the rest, the whimbrel
laughed across the mires; high up in heaven a great eagle was
hanging; once and again a grey fox leapt up before them, and the
heath-fowl whirred up from under Face-of-god’s feet. 
A raven who was sitting croaking on a rock in that first dale
stirred uneasily on his perch as he saw them, and when they were
passed flapped his wings and flew after them croaking still.

p. 103Now
they fared over that neck somewhat east, making but slow way
because the ground was so broken and rocky; and in another
hour’s space Sure-foot led down-hill due east to where the
stony neck sank into another desolate miry heath still falling
toward the east, but whose further side was walled by a rampart
of crags cleft at their tops into marvellous-shapes, coal-black,
ungrassed and unmossed.  Thitherward the hound led straight,
and Gold-mane followed wondering: as he drew near them he saw
that they were not very high, the tallest peak scant fifty feet
from the face of the heath.

They made their way through the scattered rocks at the foot of
these crags, till, just where the rock-wall seemed the closest,
the way through the stones turned into a path going through it
skew-wise; and it was now so clear a path that belike it had been
bettered by men’s hands.  Down thereby Face-of-god
followed the hound, deeming that he was come to the gates of the
Shadowy Vale, and the path went down steeply and swiftly. 
But when he had gone down a while, the rocks on his right hand
sank lower for a space, so that he could look over and see what
lay beneath.

There lay below him a long narrow vale quite plain at the
bottom, walled on the further side as on the hither by sheer
rocks of black stone.  The plain was grown over with grass,
but he could see no tree therein: a deep river, dark and green,
ran through the vale, sometimes through its midmost, sometimes
lapping the further rock-wall: and he thought indeed that on many
a day in the year the sun would never shine on that valley.

Thus much he saw, and then the rocks rose again and shut it
from his sight; and at last they drew so close together over head
that he was in a way going through a cave with little daylight
coming from above, and in the end he was in a cave indeed and
mere darkness: but with the last feeble glimmer of light he
thought he saw carved on a smooth space of the living rock at his
left hand the image of a wolf.

p. 104This
cave lasted but a little way, and soon the hound and the man were
going once more between sheer black rocks, and the path grew
steeper yet and was cut into steps.  At last there was a
sharp turn, and they stood on the top of a long stony scree, down
which Sure-foot bounded eagerly, giving tongue as he went; but
Face-of-god stood still and looked, for now the whole Dale lay
open before him.

That river ran from north to south, and at the south end the
cliffs drew so close to it that looking thence no outgate could
be seen; but at the north end there was as it were a dreary
street of rocks, the river flowing amidmost and leaving little
foothold on either side, somewhat as it was with the pass leading
from the mountains into Burgdale.

Amidmost of the Dale a little toward the north end he saw a
doom-ring of black stones, and hard by it an ancient hall builded
of the same black stone both wall and roof, and thitherward was
Sure-foot now running.  Face-of-god looked up and down the
Dale and could see no break in the wall of sheer rock: toward the
southern end he saw a few booths and cots built roughly of stone
and thatched with turf; thereabout he saw a few folk moving
about, the most of whom seemed to be women and children; there
were some sheep and lambs near these cots, and a herd of fifty or
so of somewhat goodly mountain-kine were feeding higher up the
valley.  He could look down into the river from where he
stood, and he saw that it ran between rocky banks going straight
down from the face of the meadow, which was rather high above the
water, so that it seemed little likely that the water should rise
over its banks, either in summer or winter; and in summer was it
like to be highest, because the vale was so near to the high
mountains and their snows.

p.
105CHAPTER XVIII.  FACE-OF-GOD TALKETH WITH THE
FRIEND IN SHADOWY VALE.

It was now about two hours after
noon, and a broad band of sunlight lay upon the grass of the vale
below Gold-mane’s feet; he went lightly down the scree, and
strode forward over the level grass toward the Doom-ring, his
helm and war-gear glittering bright in the sun.  He must
needs go through the Doom-ring to come to the Hall, and as he
stepped out from behind the last of the big upright-stones, he
saw a woman standing on the threshold of the Hall-door, which was
but some score of paces from him, and knew her at once for the
Friend.

She was clad like himself in a green kirtle gaily embroidered
and fitting close to her body, and had no gown or cloak over it;
she had a golden fillet on her head beset with blue mountain
stones, and her hair hung loose behind her.

Her beauty was so exceeding, and so far beyond all memory of
her that his mind had held, that once more fear of her fell upon
Face-of-god, and he stood still with beating heart till she
should speak to him.  But she came forward swiftly with both
her hands held out, smiling and happy-faced, and looking very
kindly on him, and she took his hands and said to him:

‘Now welcome, Gold-mane, welcome, Face-of-god! and twice
welcome art thou and threefold.  Lo! this is the day that
thou asked for: art thou happy in it?’

He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them timorously,
but said nought; and therewithal Sure-foot came running forth
from the Hall, and fell to bounding round about them, barking
noisily after the manner of dogs who have met their masters
again; and still she held his hands and beheld him kindly. 
Then she called the hound to her, and patted him on the neck and
quieted him, and then turned to Face-of-god and laughed happily
and said:

‘I do not bid thee hold thy peace; yet thou sayest
nought.  Is well with thee?’

p.
106‘Yea,’ he said, ‘and more than
well.’

‘Thou seemest to me a goodly warrior,’ she said;
‘hast thou met any foemen yesterday or this
morning?’

‘Nay,’ said he, ‘none hindered me; thou hast
made the ways easy to me.’

She said soberly, ‘Such as I might do, I did.  But
we may not wield everything, for our foes are many, and I feared
for thee.  But come thou into our house, which is ours, and
far more ours than the booth before the pine-wood.’

She took his hand again and led him toward the door, but
Face-of-god looked up, and above the lintel he saw carved on the
dark stone that image of the Wolf, even as he had seen it carved
on Wood-grey’s tie-beam; and therewith such thoughts came
into his mind that he stopped to look, pressing the
Friend’s hand hard as though bidding her note it.  The
stone wherein the image was carved was darker than the other
building stones, and might be called black; the jaws of the
wood-beast were open and gaping, and had been painted with
cinnabar, but wind and weather had worn away the most of the
colour.

Spake the Friend: ‘So it is: thou beholdest the token of
the God and Father of out Fathers, that telleth the tale of so
many days, that the days which now pass by us be to them but as
the drop in the sea of waters.  Thou beholdest the sign of
our sorrow, the memory of our wrong; yet is it also the token of
our hope.  Maybe it shall lead thee far.’

‘Whither?’ said he.  But she answered not a
great while, and he looked at her as she stood a-gazing on the
image, and saw how the tears stole out of her eyes and ran adown
her cheeks.  Then again came the thought to him of
Wood-grey’s hall, and the women of the kindred standing
before the Wolf and singing of him; and though there was little
comeliness in them and she was so exceeding beauteous, he could
not but deem that they were akin to her.

But after a while she wiped the tears from her face and turned
p. 107to him
and said: ‘My friend, the Wolf shall lead thee no-whither
but where I also shall be, whatsoever peril or grief may beset
the road or lurk at the ending thereof.  Thou shalt be no
thrall, to labour while I look on.’

His heart swelled within him as she spoke, and he was at point
to beseech her love that moment; but now her face had grown gay
and bright again, and she said while he was gathering words to
speak withal:

‘Come in, Gold-mane, come into our house; for I have
many things to say to thee.  And moreover thou art so
hushed, and so fearsome in thy mail, that I think thou yet
deemest me to be a Wight of the Waste, such as Stone-face thy
Fosterer told thee tales of, and forewarned thee.  So would
I eat before thee, and sign the meat with the sign of the
Earth-god’s Hammer, to show thee that he is in error
concerning me, and that I am a very woman flesh and fell, as my
kindred were before me.’

He laughed and was exceeding glad, and said: ‘Tell me
now, kind friend, dost thou deem that Stone-face’s tales
are mere mockery of his dreams, and that he is beguiled by empty
semblances or less?  Or are there such Wights in the
Waste.’

‘Nay,’ she said, ‘the man is a true man; and
of these things are there many ancient tales which we may not
doubt.  Yet so it is that such wights have I never yet seen,
nor aught to scare me save evil men: belike it is that I have
been over-much busied in dealing with sorrow and ruin to look
after them: or it may be that they feared me and the
wrath-breeding grief of the kindred.’

He looked at her earnestly, and the wisdom of her heart seemed
to enter into his; but she said: ‘It is of men we must
talk, and of me and thee.  Come with me, my
friend.’

And she stepped lightly over the threshold and drew him
in.  The Hall was stern and grim and somewhat dusky, for its
windows were but small: it was all of stone, both walls and
roof.  There was no timber-work therein save the benches and
chairs, a little about the doors at the lower end that led to the
buttery p.
108and out-bowers; and this seemed to have been wrought of
late years; yea, the chairs against the gable on the daïs
were of stone built into the wall, adorned with carving somewhat
sparingly, the image of the Wolf being done over the midmost of
them.  He looked up and down the Hall, and deemed it some
seventy feet over all from end to end; and he could see in the
dimness those same goodly hangings on the wall which he had seen
in the woodland booth.

She led him up to the daïs, and stood there leaning up
against the arm of one of those stone seats silent for a while;
then she turned and looked at him, and said:

‘Yea, thou lookest a goodly warrior; yet am I glad that
thou camest hither without battle.  Tell me,
Gold-mane,’ she said, taking one of his spears from his
hand, ‘art thou deft with the spear?’

‘I have been called so,’ said he.

She looked at him sweetly and said: ‘Canst thou show me
the feat of spear-throwing in this Hall, or shall we wend outside
presently that I may see thee throw?’

‘The Hall sufficeth,’ he said.  ‘Shall
I set this steel in the lintel of the buttery door
yonder?’

‘Yea, if thou canst,’ she said.

He smiled and took the spear from her, and poised it and shook
it till it quivered again, then suddenly drew back his arm and
cast, and the shaft sped whistling down the dim hall, and smote
the aforesaid door-lintel and stuck there quivering: then he
sprang down from the daïs, and ran down the hall, and put
forth his hand and pulled it forth from the wood, and was on the
daïs again in a trice, and cast again, and the second time
set the spear in the same place, and then took his other spear
from the board and cast it, and there stood the two staves in the
wood side by side; then he went soberly down the hall and drew
them both out of the wood and came back to her, while she stood
watching him, her cheek flushed, her lips a little parted.

p. 109She
said: ‘Good spear-casting, forsooth! and far above what our
folk can do, who be no great throwers of the spear.’

Gold-mane laughed: ‘Sooth is that,’ said he,
‘or hardly were I here to teach thee
spear-throwing.’

‘Wilt thou never be paid for that simple
onslaught?’ she said.

‘Have I been paid then?’ said he.

She reddened, for she remembered her word to him on the
mountain; and he put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her
cheek, but timorously; nor did she withstand him or shrink aback,
but said soberly:

‘Good indeed is thy spear-throwing, and meseems my
brother will love thee when he hath seen thee strike a stroke or
two in wrath.  But, fair warrior, there be no foemen here:
so get thee to the lower end of the Hall, and in the bower beyond
shalt thou find fresh water; there wash the waste from off thee,
and do off thine helm and hauberk, and come back speedily and eat
with me; for I hunger, and so dost thou.’

He did as she bade him, and came back presently bearing in his
hand both helm and hauberk, and he looked light-limbed and trim
and lissome, an exceeding goodly man.

CHAPTER XIX.  THE FAIR WOMAN TELLETH FACE-OF-GOD OF HER
KINDRED.

When he came back to the daïs
he saw that there was meat upon the board, and the Friend said to
him:

‘Now art thou Gold-mane indeed: but come now, sit by me
and eat, though the Wood-woman giveth thee but a sorry banquet, O
guest; but from the Dale it is, and we be too far now from the
dwellings of men to have delicate meat on the board, though
to-night when they come back thy cheer shall be better.  Yet
even then thou shalt have no such dainties as Stone-face hath
imagined for thee at the hands of the Wood-wight.’

p. 110She
laughed therewith, and he no less; and in sooth the meat was but
simple, of curds and new cheese, meat of the herdsmen.  But
Face-of-god said gaily: ‘Sweet it shall be to me; good is
all that the Friend giveth.’

Then she raised her hand and made the sign of the Hammer over
the board, and looked up at him and said:

‘Hath the Earth-god changed my face, Gold-mane, to what
I verily am?’

He held his face close to hers and looked into it, and
him-seemed it was as pure as the waters of a mountain lake, and
as fine and well-wrought every deal of it as when his father had
wrought in his stithy many days and fashioned a small piece of
great mastery.  He was ashamed to kiss her again, but he
said to himself, ‘This is the fairest woman of the world,
whom I have sworn to wed this year.’  Then he spake
aloud and said:

‘I see the face of the Friend, and it will not change to
me.’

Again she reddened a little, and the happy look in her face
seemed to grow yet sweeter, and he was bewildered with longing
and delight.

But she stood up and went to an ambrye in the wall and brought
forth a horn shod and lipped with silver of ancient fashion, and
she poured wine into it and held it forth and said:

‘O guest from the Dale, I pledge thee! and when thou
hast drunk to me in turn we will talk of weighty matters. 
For indeed I bear hopes in my hands too heavy for the daughters
of men to bear; and thou art a chieftain’s son, and mayst
well help me to bear them; so let us talk simply and without
guile, as folk that trust one another.’

So she drank and held out the horn to him, and he took the
horn and her hand both, and he kissed her hand and said:

‘Here in this Hall I drink to the Sons of the Wolf,
whosoever they be.’  Therewith he drank and he said:
‘Simply and guilelessly indeed will I talk with thee; for I
am weary of lies, and for thy sake have I told a many.’

p.
111‘Thou shalt tell no more,’ she said;
‘and as for the health thou hast drunk, it is good, and
shall profit thee.  Now sit we here in these ancient seats
and let us talk.’

So they sat them down while the sun was westering in the March
afternoon, and she said:

‘Tell me first what tidings have been in the
Dale.’

So he told her of the ransackings and of the murder at
Carlstead.

She said: ‘These tidings have we heard before, and some
deal of them we know better than ye do, or can; for we were the
ransackers of Penny-thumb and Harts-bane.  Thereof will I
say more presently.  What other tidings hast thou to tell
of?  What oaths were sworn upon the Boar last
Yule?’

So he told her of the oath of Bristler the son of
Brightling.  She smiled and said: ‘He shall keep his
oath, and yet redden no blade.’

Then he told of his father’s oath, and she said:

‘It is good; but even so would he do and no oath
sworn.  All men may trust Iron-face.  And thou, my
friend, what oath didst thou swear?’

His face grew somewhat troubled as he said: ‘I swore to
wed the fairest woman in the world, though the Dalesmen gainsaid
me, and they beyond the Dale.’

‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and there is no need to
ask thee whom thou didst mean by thy “fairest woman,”
for I have seen that thou deemest me fair enough.  My
friend, maybe thy kindred will be against it, and the kindred of
the Bride; and it might be that my kindred would have gainsaid it
if things were not as they are.  But though all men gainsay
it, yet will not I.  It is meet and right that we twain
wed.’

She spake very soberly and quietly, but when she had spoken
there was nothing in his heart but joy and gladness: yet shame of
her loveliness refrained him, and he cast down his eyes before
hers.  Then she said in a kind voice:

‘I know thee, how glad thou art of this word of mine,
because p.
112thou lookest on me with eyes of love, and thinkest of
me as better than I am; though I am no ill woman and no
beguiler.  But this is not all that I have to say to thee,
though it be much; for there are more folk in the world than thou
and I only.  But I told thee this first, that thou mightest
trust me in all things.  So, my friend, if thou canst,
refrain thy joy and thy longing a little, and hearken to what
concerneth thee and me, and thy people and mine.’

‘Fair woman and sweet friend,’ he said,
‘thou knowest of a gladness which is hard to bear if one
must lay it aside for a while; and of a longing which is hard to
refrain if it mingle with another longing—knowest thou
not?’

‘Yea,’ she said, ‘I know it.’

‘Yet,’ said Face-of-god, ‘I will forbear as
thou biddest me.  Tell me, then, what were the felons who
were slain at Carlstead?  Knowest thou of them?’

‘Over well,’ she said, ‘they are our foes
this many a year; and since we met last autumn they have become
foes of you Dalesmen also.  Soon shall ye have tidings of
them; and it was against them that I bade thee arm
yesterday.’

Said Face-of-god: ‘Is it against them that thou wouldst
have us do battle along with thy folk?’

‘So it is,’ she said; ‘no other foemen have
we.  And now, Gold-mane, thou art become a friend of the
Wolf, and shalt before long be of affinity with our House; that
other day thou didst ask me to tell thee of me and mine, and now
will I do according to thine asking.  Short shall my tale
be; because maybe thou shalt hear it told again, and in goodly
wise, before thine whole folk.

‘As thou wottest we be now outlaws and Wolves’
Heads; and whiles we lift the gear of men, but ever if we may of
ill men and not of good; there is no worthy goodman of the Dale
from whom we would take one hoof, or a skin of wine, or a cake of
wax.

‘Wherefore are we outlaws?  Because we have been
driven p.
113from our own, and we bore away our lives and our
weapons, and little else; and for our lands, thou seest this Vale
in the howling wilderness and how narrow and poor it is, though
it hath been the nurse of warriors in time past.

‘Hearken!  Time long ago came the kindred of the
Wolf to these Mountains of the World; and they were in a pass in
the stony maze and the utter wilderness of the Mountains, and the
foe was behind them in numbers not to be borne up against. 
And so it befell that the pass forked, and there were two ways
before our Folk; and one part of them would take the way to the
north and the other the way to the south; and they could not
agree which way the whole Folk should take.  So they
sundered into two companies, and one took one way and one
another.  Now as to those who fared by the southern road, we
knew not what befell them, nor for long and long had we any tale
of them.

‘But we who took the northern road, we happened on this
Vale amidst the wilderness, and we were weary of fleeing from the
over-mastering foe; and the dale seemed enough, and a refuge, and
a place to dwell in, and no man was there before us, and few were
like to find it, and we were but a few.  So we dwelt here in
this Vale for as wild as it is, the place where the sun shineth
never in the winter, and scant is the summer sunshine
therein.  Here we raised a Doom-ring and builded us a Hall,
wherein thou now sittest beside me, O friend, and we dwelt here
many seasons.

‘We had a few sheep in the wilderness, and a few neat
fed down the grass of the Vale; and we found gems and copper in
the rocks about us wherewith at whiles to chaffer with the
aliens, and fish we drew from our river the Shivering
Flood.  Also it is not to be hidden that in those days we
did not spare to lift the goods of men; yea, whiles would our
warriors fare down unto the edges of the Plain and lie in wait
there till the time served, and then drive the spoil from under
the very walls of the p. 114Cities.  Our men were not
little-hearted, nor did our women lament the death of warriors
over-much, for they were there to bear more warriors to the
Folk.

‘But the seasons passed, and the Folk multiplied in
Shadowy Vale, and livelihood seemed like to fail them, and needs
must they seek wider lands.  So by ways which thou wilt one
day wot of, we came into a valley that lieth north-west of
Shadowy Vale: a land like thine of Burgdale, or better; wide it
was, plenteous of grass and trees, well watered, full of all
things that man can desire.

‘Were there men before us in this Dale? sayest
thou.  Yea, but not very many, and they feeble in battle,
weak of heart, though strong of body.  These, when they saw
the Sons of the Wolf with weapons in their hands, felt themselves
puny before us, and their hearts failed them; and they came to us
with gifts, and offered to share the Dale between them and us,
for they said there was enough for both folks.  So we took
their offer and became their friends; and some of our Houses
wedded wives of the strangers, and gave them their women to
wife.  Therein they did amiss; for the blended Folk as the
generations passed became softer than our blood, and many were
untrusty and greedy and tyrannous, and the days of the whoredom
fell upon us, and when we deemed ourselves the mightiest then
were we the nearest to our fall.  But the House whereof I am
would never wed with these Westlanders, and other Houses there
were who had affinity with us who chiefly wedded with us of the
Wolf, and their fathers had come with ours into that fruitful
Dale; and these were called the Red Hand, and the Silver Arm, and
the Golden Bushel, and the Ragged Sword.  Thou hast heard
those names once before, friend?’

‘Yea,’ he said, and as he spoke the picture of
that other day came back to him, and he called to mind all that
he had said, and his happiness of that hour seemed the more and
the sweeter for that memory.

p. 115She
went on: ‘Fair and goodly is that Dale as mine own eyes
have seen, and plentiful of all things, and up in its mountains
to the east are caves and pits whence silver is digged
abundantly; therefore is the Dale called Silver-dale.  Hast
thou heard thereof, my friend?’

‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘though I have
marvelled whence ye gat such foison of silver.’

He looked on her and marvelled, for now she seemed as if it
were another woman: her eyes were gleaming bright, her lips were
parted; there was a bright red flush on the pommels of her two
cheeks as she spake again and said:

‘Happy lived the Folk in Silver-dale for many and many
winters and summers: the seasons were good and no lack was there:
little sickness there was and less war, and all seemed better
than well.  It is strange that ye Dalesmen have not heard of
Silver-dale.’

‘Nay,’ said he, ‘but I have not; of
Rose-dale have I heard, as a land very far away: but no further
do we know of toward that aírt.  Lieth Silver-dale
anywhere nigh to Rose-dale?’

She said: ‘It is the next dale to it, yet is it a far
journey betwixt the two, for the ice-sea pusheth a horn in
betwixt them; and even below the ice the mountain-neck is
passable to none save a bold crag-climber, and to him only
bearing his life in his hands.  But, my friend, I am but
lingering over my tale, because it grieveth me sore to have to
tell it.  Hearken then!  In the days when I had seen
but ten summers, and my brother was a very young man, but
exceeding strong, and as beautiful as thou art now, war fell on
us without rumour or warning; for there swarmed into Silver-dale,
though not by the ways whereby we had entered it, a host of
aliens, short of stature, crooked of limb, foul of aspect, but
fierce warriors and armed full well: they were men having no
country to go back to, though they had no women or children with
them, as we had when we were young in these lands, but used all
women whom they took as their beastly lust bade them, making them
their thralls if they p. 116slew them not.  Soon we found
that these foemen asked no more of us than all we had, and
therewithal our lives to be cast away or used for their service
as beasts of burden or pleasure.  There then we gathered our
fighting-men and withstood them; and if we had been all of the
kindreds of the Wolf and the fruit of the wives of warriors, we
should have driven back these felons and saved the Dale, though
it maybe more than half ruined: but the most part of us were of
that mingled blood, or of the generations of the Dalesmen whom we
had conquered long ago, and stout as they were of body their
hearts failed them, and they gave themselves up to the aliens to
be as their oxen and asses.

‘Why make a long tale of it?  We who were left, and
could brook death but not thraldom, fought it out together, women
as well as men, till the sweetness of life and a happy chance for
escape bid us flee, vanquished but free men.  For at the end
of three days’ fight we had been driven up to the
easternmost end of the Dale, and up anigh to the jaws of the pass
whereby the Folk had first come into Silver-dale, and we had
those with us who knew every cranny of that way, while to
strangers who knew it not it was utterly impassable; night was
coming on also, and even those murder-carles were weary with
slaying; and, moreover, on this last day, when they saw that they
had won all, they were fighting to keep, and not to slay, and a
few stubborn carles and queens, of what use would they be, or
where was the gain of risking life to win them?

‘So they forbore us, and night came on moonless and
dark; and it was the early spring season, when the days are not
yet long, and so by night and cloud we fled away, and back again
to Shadowy Vale.

‘Forsooth, we were but a few; for when we were gotten
into this Vale, this strip of grass and water in the wilderness,
and had told up our company, we were but two hundred and thirty
and five of men and women and children.  For there were an
hundred and thirty and three grown men of all ages, and of women
grown seventy and five, and one score and seven children, whereof
I was one; p.
117for, as thou mayst deem, it was easier for grown men
with weapons in their hands to escape from that slaughter than
for women and children.

‘There sat we in yonder Doom-ring and took counsel, and
to some it seemed good that we should all dwell together in
Shadowy Vale, and beset the skirts of the foemen till the days
should better; but others deemed that there was little avail
therein; and there was a mighty man of the kindred, Stone-wolf by
name, a man of middle-age, and he said, that late in life had he
tasted of war, and though the banquet was made bitter with
defeat, yet did the meat seem wholesome to him.  “Come
down with me to the Cities of the Plain,” said he,
“all you who are stout warriors; and leave we here the old
men and the swains and the women and children.  Hateful are
the folk there, and full of malice, but soft withal and
dastardly.  Let us go down thither and make ourselves strong
amongst them, and sell our valour for their wealth till we come
to rule them, and they make us their kings, and we establish the
Folk of the Wolf amongst the aliens; then will we come back
hither and bring away that which we have left.”

‘So he spake, and the more part of the warriors yea said
his rede, and they went with him to the Westland, and amongst
these was my brother Folk-might (for that is his name in the
kindred).  And I sorrowed at his departure, for he had borne
me thither out of the flames and the clash of swords and the
press of battle, and to me had he ever been kind and loving,
albeit he hath had the Words of hard and froward used on him full
oft.

‘So in this Vale abode we that were left, and the
seasons passed; some of the elders died, and some of the children
also; but more children were born, for amongst us were men and
women to whom it was lawful to wed with each other.  Even
with this scanty remnant was left some of the life of the kindred
of old days; and after we had been here but a little while, the
young men, yea and the old also, and even some of the women,
would steal through passes that we, and we only, knew of, and
would fall upon p.
118the Aliens in Silver-dale as occasion served, and lift
their goods both live and dead; and this became both a craft and
a pastime amongst us.  Nor may I hide that we sometimes went
lifting otherwhere; for in the summer and autumn we would fare
west a little and abide in the woods the season through, and hunt
the deer thereof, and whiles would we drive the spoil from the
scattered folk not far from your Shepherd-Folk; but with the
Shepherds themselves and with you Dalesmen we meddled not.

‘Now that little wood-lawn with the toft of an ancient
dwelling in it, wherein, saith Bow-may, thou didst once rest, was
one of our summer abodes; and later on we built the hall under
the pine-wood that thou knowest.

‘Thus then grew up our young men; and our maids were
little softer; e’en such as Bow-may is (and kind is she
withal), and it seemed in very sooth as if the Spirit of the Wolf
was with us, and the roughness of the Waste made us fierce; and
law we had not and heeded not, though love was amongst
us.’

She stopped awhile and fell a-musing, and her face softened,
and she turned to him with that sweet happy look upon it and
said:

‘Desolate and dreary is the Dale, thou deemest, friend;
and yet for me I love it and its dark-green water, and it is to
me as if the Fathers of the kindred visit it and hold converse
with us; and there I grew up when I was little, before I knew
what a woman was, and strange communings had I with the
wilderness.  Friend, when we are wedded, and thou art a
great chieftain, as thou wilt be, I shall ask of thee the boon to
suffer me to abide here at whiles that I may remember the days
when I was little and the love of the kindred waxed in
me.’

‘This is but a little thing to ask,’ said
Face-of-god; ‘I would thou hadst asked me more.’

‘Fear not,’ she said, ‘I shall ask thee for
much and many things; and some of them belike thou shalt deny
me.’

He shook his head; but she smiled in his face and said:

‘Yea, so it is, friend; but hearken.  The seasons
passed, and p.
119six years wore, and I was grown a tall slim maiden,
fleet of foot and able to endure toil enough, though I never bore
weapons, nor have done.  So on a fair even of midsummer when
we were together, the most of us, round about this Hall and the
Doom-ring, we saw a tall man in bright war-gear come forth into
the Dale by the path that thou camest, and then another and
another till there were two score and seven men-at-arms standing
on the grass below the scree yonder; by that time had we gotten
some weapons in our hands, and we stood together to meet the
new-comers, but they drew no sword and notched no shaft, but came
towards us laughing and joyous, and lo! it was my brother
Folk-might and his men, those that were left of them, come back
to us from the Westland.

‘Glad indeed was I to behold him; and for him when he
had taken me in his arms and looked up and down the Dale, he
cried out: ‘In many fair places and many rich dwellings
have I been; but this is the hour that I have looked
for.’

‘Now when we asked him concerning Stone-wolf and the
others who were missing (for ten tens of stalwarth men had fared
to the Westland), he swept out his hand toward the west and said
with a solemn face: “There they lie, and grass groweth over
their bones, and we who have come aback, and ye who have abided,
these are now the children of the Wolf: there are no more now on
the earth.”

‘Let be!  It was a fair even and high was the feast
in the Hall that night, and sweet was the converse with our folk
come back.  A glad man was my brother Folk-might when he
heard that for years past we had been lifting the gear of men,
and chiefly of the Aliens in Silver-dale: and he himself was
become learned in war and a deft leader of men.

‘So the days passed and the seasons, and we lived on as
we might; but with Folk-might’s return there began to grow
up in all our hearts what had long been flourishing in mine, and
that was the hope of one day winning back our own again, and
dying amidst the dear groves of Silver-dale.  Within these
years we had p.
120increased somewhat in number; for if we had lost those
warriors in the Westland, and some old men who had died in the
Dale, yet our children had grown up (I have now seen twenty and
one summers) and more were growing up.  Moreover, after the
first year, from the time when we began to fall upon the Dusky
Men of Silver-dale, from time to time they who went on such
adventures set free such thralls of our blood as they could fall
in with and whom they could trust in, and they dwelt (and yet
dwell) with us in the Dale: first and last we have taken in three
score and twelve of such men, and a score of women-thralls
withal.

‘Now during these seasons, and not very long ago, after
I was a woman grown, the thought came to me, and to Folk-might
also, that there were kindreds of the people dwelling anear us
whom we might so deal with that they should become our friends
and brothers in arms, and that through them we might win back
Silver-dale.

‘Of Rose-dale we wotted already that the Folk were
nought of our blood, feeble in the field, cowed by the Dusky Men,
and at last made thralls to them; so nought was to do
there.  But Folk-might went to and fro to gather tidings: at
whiles I with him, at whiles one or more of Wood-father’s
children, who with their father and mother and Bow-may have
abided in the Vale ever since the Great Undoing.

‘Soon he fell in with thy Folk, and first of all with
the Woodlanders, and that was a joy to him; for wot ye
what?  He got to know that these men were the children of
those of our Folk who had sundered from us in the mountain passes
time long and long ago; and he loved them, for he saw that they
were hardy and trusty, and warriors at heart.

‘Then he went amongst the Shepherd-Folk, and he deemed
them good men easily stirred, and deemed that they might soon be
won to friendship; and he knew that they were mostly come from
the Houses of the Woodlanders, so that they also were of the
kindred.

‘And last he came into Burgdale, and found there a merry
p. 121and
happy Folk, little wont to war, but stout-hearted, and nowise
puny either of body or soul; he went there often and learned much
about them, and deemed that they would not be hard to win to
fellowship.  And he found that the House of the Face was the
chiefest house there; and that the Alderman and his sons were
well beloved of all the folk, and that they were the men to be
won first, since through them should all others be won.  I
also went to Burgstead with him twice, as I told thee erst; and I
saw thee, and I deemed that thou wouldest lightly become our
friend; and it came into my mind that I myself might wed thee,
and that the House of the Face thereby might have affinity
thenceforth with the Children of the Wolf.’

He said: ‘Why didst thou deem thus of me, O
friend?’

She laughed and said: ‘Dost thou long to hear me say the
words when thou knowest my thought well?  So be it.  I
saw thee both young and fair; and I knew thee to be the son of a
noble, worthy, guileless man and of a beauteous woman of great
wits and good rede.  And I found thee to be kind and
open-handed and simple like thy father, and like thy mother wiser
than thou thyself knew of thyself; and that thou wert desirous of
deeds and fain of women.’

She was silent for a while, and he also: then he said:
‘Didst thou draw me to the woods and to thee?’

She reddened and said: ‘I am no spell-wife: but true it
is that Wood-mother made a waxen image of thee, and thrust
through the heart thereof the pin of my girdle-buckle, and
stroked it every morning with an oak-bough over which she had
sung spells.  But dost thou not remember, Gold-mane, how
that one day last Hay-month, as ye were resting in the meadows in
the cool of the evening, there came to you a minstrel that played
to you on the fiddle, and therewith sang a song that melted all
your hearts, and that this song told of the Wild-wood, and what
was therein of desire and peril and beguiling and death, and love
unto Death itself?  Dost thou remember, friend?’

p.
122‘Yea,’ he said, ‘and how when the
minstrel was done Stone-face fell to telling us more tales yet of
the woodland, and the minstrel sang again and yet again, till his
tales had entered into my very heart.’

‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and that minstrel was
Wood-wont; and I sent him to sing to thee and thine, deeming that
if thou didst hearken, thou would’st seek the woodland and
happen upon us.’

He laughed and said: ‘Thou didst not doubt but that if
we met, thou mightest do with me as thou wouldest?’

‘So it is,’ she said, ‘that I doubted it
little.’

‘Therein wert thou wise,’ said Face-of-god;
‘but now that we are talking without guile to each other,
mightest thou tell me wherefore it was that Folk-might made that
onslaught upon me?  For certain it is that he was minded to
slay me.’

She said: ‘It was sooth what I told thee, that whiles he
groweth so battle-eager that whatso edge-tool he beareth must
needs come out of the scabbard; but there was more in it than
that, which I could not tell thee erst.  Two days before thy
coming he had been down to Burgstead in the guise of an old carle
such as thou sawest him with me in the market-place.  There
was he guested in your Hall, and once more saw thee and the Bride
together; and he saw the eyes of love wherewith she looked on
thee (for so much he told me), and deemed that thou didst take
her love but lightly.  And he himself looked on her with
such love (and this he told me not) that he deemed nought good
enough for her, and would have had thee give thyself up wholly to
her; for my brother is a generous man, my friend.  So when I
told him on the morn of that day whereon we met that we looked to
see thee that eve (for indeed I am somewhat foreseeing), he said:
“Look thou, Sun-beam, if he cometh, it is not unlike that I
shall drive a spear through him.” 
“Wherefore?” said I; “can he serve our turn
when he is dead?”  Said he: “I care
little.  Mine own turn will I serve.  Thou sayest
Wherefore?  I tell thee this stripling beguileth to
her torment the fairest woman that is in the p.
123world—such an one as is meet to be the mother of
chieftains, and to stand by warriors in their day of peril. 
I have seen her; and thus have I seen her.”  Then said
I: “Greatly forsooth shalt thou pleasure her by slaying
him!”  And he answered: “I shall pleasure
myself.  And one day she shall thank me, when she taketh my
hand in hers and we go together to the Bride-bed.” 
Therewith came over me a clear foresight of the hours to come,
and I said to him: “Yea, Folk-might, cast the spear and
draw the sword; but him thou shalt not slay: and thou shalt one
day see him standing with us before the shafts of the Dusky
Men.”  So I spake; but he looked fiercely at me, and
departed and shunned me all that day, and by good hap I was hard
at hand when thou drewest nigh our abode.  Nay, Gold-mane,
what would’st thou with thy sword?  Why art thou so
red and wrathful?  Would’st thou fight with my brother
because he loveth thy friend, thine old playmate, thy kinswoman,
and thinketh pity of her sorrow?’

He said, with knit brow and gleaming eyes: ‘Would the
man take her away from me perforce?’

‘My friend,’ she said, ‘thou art not yet so
wise as not to be a fool at whiles.  Is it not so that she
herself hath taken herself from thee, since she hath come to know
that thou hast given thyself to another?  Hath she noted
nought of thee this winter and spring?  Is she well pleased
with the ways of thee?’

He said: ‘Thou hast spoken simply with me, and I will do
no less with thee.  It was but four days agone that she did
me to wit that she knew of me how I sought my love on the
Mountain; and she put me to sore shame, and afterwards I wept for
her sorrow.’

Therewith he told her all that the Bride had said to him, as
he well might, for he had forgotten no word of it.

Then said the Friend: ‘She shall have the token that she
craveth, and it is I that shall give it to her.’

Therewith she took from her finger a ring wherein was set a
very fair changeful mountain-stone, and gave it to him, and
said:

p.
124‘Thou shalt give her this and tell her whence
thou hadst it; and tell her that I bid her remember that
To-morrow is a new day.’

CHAPTER XX.  THOSE TWO TOGETHER HOLD THE RING OF THE
EARTH-GOD.

And now they fell silent both of
them, and sat hearkening the sounds of the Dale, from the whistle
of the plover down by the water-side to the far-off voices of the
children and maidens about the kine in the lower meadows. 
At last Gold-mane took up the word and said:

‘Sweet friend, tell me the uttermost of what thou
would’st have of me.  Is it not that I should stand by
thee and thine in the Folk-mote of the Dalesmen, and speak for
you when ye pray us for help against your foemen; and then again
that I do my best when ye and we are arrayed for battle against
the Dusky Men?  This is easy to do, and great is the reward
thou offerest me.’

‘I look for this service of thee,’ she said,
‘and none other.’

‘And when I go down to the battle,’ said he,
‘shalt thou be sorry for our sundering?’

She said: ‘There shall be no sundering; I shall wend
with thee.’

Said he: ‘And if I were slain in the battle,
would’st thou lament me?’

‘Thou shalt not be slain,’ she said.

Again was there silence betwixt them, till at last he
said:

‘This then is why thou didst draw me to thee in the
Wild-wood?’

‘Yea,’ said she.

Again for a while no word was spoken, and Face-of-god looked
on her till she cast her eyes down before him.

Then at last he spake, and the colour came and went in his
face as he said: ‘Tell me thy name what it is.’

She said: ‘I am called the Sun-beam.’

Then he said, and his voice trembled therewith: ‘O
Sun-beam, I have been seeking pleasant and cunning words, and can
find p.
125none such.  But tell me this if thou wilt: dost
thou desire me as I desire thee? or is it that thou wilt suffer
me to wed thee and bed thee at last as mere payment for the help
that I shall give to thee and thine?  Nay, doubt it not that
I will take the payment, if this is what thou wilt give me and
nought else.  Yet tell me.’

Her face grew troubled, and she said:

‘Gold-mane, maybe that thou hast now asked me one
question too many; for this is no fair game to be played between
us.  For thee, as I deem, there are this day but two people
in the world, and that is thou and I, and the earth is for us two
alone.  But, my friend, though I have seen but twenty and
one summers, it is nowise so with me, and to me there are many in
the world; and chiefly the Folk of the Wolf, amidst whose very
heart I have grown up.  Moreover, I can think of her whom I
have supplanted, the Bride to wit; and I know her, and how bitter
and empty her days shall be for a while, and how vain all our
redes for her shall seem to her.  Yea, I know her sorrow,
and see it and grieve for it: so canst not thou, unless thou
verily see her before thee, her face unhappy, and her voice
changed and hard.  Well, I will tell thee what thou
askest.  When I drew thee to me on the Mountain I thought
but of the friendship and brotherhood to be knitted up between
our two Folks, nor did I anywise desire thy love of a young
man.  But when I saw thee on the heath and in the Hall that
day, it pleased me to think that a man so fair and chieftain-like
should one day lie by my side; and again when I saw that the love
of me had taken hold of thee, I would not have thee grieved
because of me, but would have thee happy.  And now what
shall I say?—I know not; I cannot tell.  Yet am I the
Friend, as erst I called myself.

‘And, Gold-mane, I have seen hitherto but the outward
show and image of thee, and though that be goodly, how would it
be if thou didst shame me with little-heartedness and evil
deeds?  Let me see thee in the Folk-mote and the battle, and
then may I answer thee.’

p. 126Then
she held her peace, and he answered nothing; and she turned her
face from him and said:

‘Out on it! have I beguiled myself as well as
thee?  These are but empty words I have been saying. 
If thou wilt drag the truth out of me, this is the very truth:
that to-day is happy to me as it is to thee, and that I have
longed sore for its coming.  O Gold-mane, O speech-friend,
if thou wert to pray me or command me that I lie in thine arms
to-night, I should know not how to gainsay thee.  Yet I
beseech thee to forbear, lest thy death and mine come of
it.  And why should we die, O friend, when we are so young,
and the world lies so fair before us, and the happy days are at
hand when the Children of the Wolf and the kindreds of the Dale
shall deliver the Folk, and all days shall be good and all
years?’

They had both risen up as she spake, and now he put forth his
hands to her and took her in his arms, wondering the while, as he
drew her to him, how much slenderer and smaller and weaker she
seemed in his embrace than he had thought of her; and when their
lips met, he felt that she kissed him as he her.  Then he
held her by the shoulders at arms’ length from him, and
beheld her face how her eyes were closed and her lips
quivering.  But before him, in a moment of time, passed a
picture of the life to be in the fair Dale, and all she would
give him there, and the days good and lovely from morn to eve and
eve to morn; and though in that moment it was hard for him to
speak, at last he spoke in a voice hoarse at first, and said:

‘Thou sayest sooth, O friend; we will not die, but live;
I will not drag our deaths upon us both, nor put a sword in the
hands of Folk-might, who loves me not.’

Then he kissed her on the brow and said: ‘Now shalt thou
take me by the hand and lead me forth from the Hall.  For
the day is waxing old, and here meseemeth in this dim hall there
are words crossing in the air about us—words spoken in days
long ago, and tales of old time, that keep egging me on to do my
will p. 127and
die, because that is all that the world hath for a valiant man;
and to such words I would not hearken, for in this hour I have no
will to die, nor can I think of death.’

She took his hand and led him forth without more words, and
they went hand in hand and paced slowly round the Doom-ring, the
light air breathing upon them till their faces were as calm and
quiet as their wont was, and hers especially as bright and happy
as when he had first seen her that day.

The sun was sinking now, and only sent one golden ray into the
valley through a cleft in the western rock-wall, but the sky
overhead was bright and clear; from the meadows came the sound of
the lowing of kine and the voices of children a-sporting, and it
seemed to Gold-mane that they were drawing nigher, both the
children and the kine, and somewhat he begrudged it that he
should not be alone with the Friend.

Now when they had made half the circuit of the Doom-ring, the
Sun-beam stopped him, and then led him through the Ring of
Stones, and brought him up to the altar which was amidst of it;
and the altar was a great black stone hewn smooth and clean, and
with the image of the Wolf carven on the front thereof; and on
its face lay the gold ring which the priest or captain of the
Folk bore on his arm between the God and the people at all
folk-motes.

So she said: ‘This is the altar of the God of Earth, and
often hath it been reddened by mighty men; and thereon lieth the
Ring of the Sons of the Wolf; and now it were well that we swore
troth on that ring before my brother cometh; for now will he soon
be here.’

Then Gold-mane took the Ring and thrust his right hand through
it, and took her right hand in his; so that the Ring lay on both
their hands, and therewith he spake aloud:

‘I am Face-of-god of the House of the Face, and I do
thee to wit, O God of the Earth, that I pledge my troth to this
woman, the Sun-beam of the Kindred of the Wolf, to beget my
offspring p.
128on her, and to live with her, and to die with her: so
help me, thou God of the Earth, and the Warrior and the God of
the Face!’

Then spake the Sun-beam: ‘I, the Sun-beam of the
Children of the Wolf, pledge my troth to Face-of-god to lie in
his bed and to bear his children and none other’s, and to
be his speech-friend till I die: so help me the Wolf and the
Warrior and the God of the Earth!’

Then they laid the Ring on the altar again, and they kissed
each other long and sweetly, and then turned away from the altar
and departed from the Doom-ring, going hand in hand together down
the meadow, and as they went, the noise of the kine and the
children grew nearer and nearer, and presently came the whole
company of them round a ness of the rock-wall; there were some
thirty little lads and lasses driving on the milch-kine, with
half a score of older maids and grown women, one of whom was
Bow-may, who was lightly and scantily clad, as one who heeds not
the weather, or deems all months midsummer.

The children came running up merrily when they saw the
Sun-beam, but stopped short shyly when they noted the tall fair
stranger with her.  They were all strong and sturdy
children, and some very fair, but brown with the weather, if not
with the sun.  Bow-may came up to Gold-mane and took his
hand and greeted him kindly and said:

‘So here thou art at last in Shadowy Vale; and I hope
that thou art content therewith, and as happy as I would wish
thee to be.  Well, this is the first time; and when thou
comest the second time it may well be that the world shall be
growing better.’

She held the distaff which she bore in her hand (for she had
been spinning) as if it were a spear; her limbs were goodly and
shapely, and she trod the thick grass of the Vale with a kind of
wary firmness, as though foemen might be lurking nearby. 
The Sun-beam smiled upon her kindly and said:

‘That shall not fail to be, Bow-may: ye have won a new
friend p.
129to-day.  But tell me, when dost thou look to see
the men here, for I was down by the water when they went away
yesterday?’

‘They shall come into the Dale a little after
sunset,’ said Bow-may.

‘Shall I abide them, my friend?’ said Gold-mane,
turning to the Sun-beam.

‘Yea,’ she said; ‘for what else art thou
come hither? or art thou so pressed to depart from us?  Last
time we met thou wert not so hasty to sunder.’

They smiled on each other; and Bow-may looked on them and
laughed outright; then a flush showed in her cheeks through the
tan of them, and she turned toward the children and the other
women who were busied about the milking of the kine.

But those two sat down together on a bank amidst the plain
meadow, facing the river and the eastern rock-wall, and the
Sun-beam said:

‘I am fain to speak to thee and to see thine eyes
watching me while I speak; and now, my friend, I will tell thee
something unasked which has to do with what e’en now thou
didst ask me; for I would have thee trust me wholly, and know me
for what I am.  Time was I schemed and planned for this day
of betrothal; but now I tell thee it has become no longer needful
for bringing to pass our fellowship in arms with thy
people.  Yea yesterday, ere he went on a hunt, whereof he
shall tell thee, Folk-might was against it, in words at least;
and yet as one who would have it done if he might have no part in
it.  So, in good sooth, this hand that lieth in thine is the
hand of a wilful woman, who desireth a man, and would keep him
for her speech-friend.  Now art thou fond and happy; yet
bear in mind that there are deeds to be done, and the troth we
have just plighted must be paid for.  So hearken, I bid
thee.  Dost thou care to know why the wheedling of thee is
no longer needful to us?’

He said: ‘A little while ago I should have said, Yea, If
thy lips say the words.  But now, O friend, it seemeth as if
thine p.
130heart were already become a part of mine, and I feel as
if the chieftain were growing up in me and the longing for deeds:
so I say, Tell me, for I were fain to hear what toucheth the
welfare of thy Folk and their fellowship with my Folk; for on
that also have I set my heart?’

She said gravely and with solemn eyes:

‘What thou sayest is good: full glad am I that I have
not plighted my troth to a mere goodly lad, but rather to a
chieftain and a warrior.  Now then hearken!  Since I
saw thee first in the autumn this hath happened, that the Dusky
Men, increasing both in numbers and insolence, have it in their
hearts to win more than Silver-dale, and it is years since they
have fallen upon Rose-dale and conquered it, rather by murder
than by battle, and made all men thralls there, for feeble were
the Folk thereof; and doubt it not but that they will look into
Burgdale before long.  They are already abroad in the woods,
and were it not for the fear of the Wolf they would be thicker
therein, and faring wider; for we have slain many of them, coming
upon them unawares; and they know not where we dwell, nor who we
be: so they fear to spread about over-much and pry into unknown
places lest the Wolf howl on them.  Yet beware! for they
will gather in numbers that we may not meet, and then will they
swarm into the Dale; and if ye would live your happy life that ye
love so well, ye must now fight for it; and in that battle must
ye needs join yourselves to us, that we may help each
other.  Herein have ye nought to choose, for now with you it
is no longer a thing to talk of whether ye will help certain
strangers and guests and thereby win some gain to yourselves, but
whether ye have the hearts to fight for yourselves, and the wits
to be the fellows of tall men and stout warriors who have pledged
their lives to win or die for it.’

She was silent a little and then turned and looked fondly on
Face-of-god and said:

‘Therefore, Gold-mane, we need thee no longer; for thou
must needs fight in our battle.  I have no longer aught to
do to wheedle p.
131thee to love me.  Yet if thou wilt love me, then
am I a glad woman.’

He said: ‘Thou wottest well that thou hast all my love,
neither will I fail thee in the battle.  I am not
little-hearted, though I would have given myself to thee for no
reward.’

‘It is well,’ said the Sun-beam; ‘nought is
undone by that which I have done.  Moreover, it is good that
we have plighted troth to-day.  For Folk-might will
presently hear thereof, and he must needs abide the thing which
is done.  Hearken! he cometh.’

For as she spoke there came a glad cry from the women and
children, and those two stood up and turned toward the west and
beheld the warriors of the Wolf coming down into the Dale by the
way that Gold-mane had come.

‘Come,’ said the Sun-beam, ‘here are your
brethren in arms, let us go greet them; they will rejoice in
thee.’

So they went thither, and there stood eighty and seven men on
the grass below the scree and Folk-might their captain; and
besides some valiant women, and a few carles who were on watch on
the waste, and a half score who had been left in the Dale, these
were all the warriors of the Wolf.  They were clad in no
holiday raiment, not even Folk-might, but were in sheep-brown
gear of the coarsest, like to husbandmen late come from the
plough, but armed well and goodly.

But when the twain drew near, the men clashed their spears on
their shields, and cried out for joy of them, for they all knew
what Face-of-god’s presence there betokened of fellowship
with the kindreds; but Folk-might came forward and took
Face-of-god’s hand and greeted him and said:

‘Hail, son of the Alderman!  Here hast thou come
into the ancient abode of chieftains and warriors, and belike
deeds await thee also.’

Yet his brow was knitted as he said these words, and he spake
slowly, as one that constraineth himself; but presently his face
cleared somewhat and he said:

p.
132‘Dalesman, it behoveth thy people to bestir them
if ye would live and see good days.  Hath my sister told
thee what is toward?  Or what sayest thou?’

‘Hail to thee, son of the Wolf!’ said
Face-of-god.  ‘Thy sister hath told me all; and even
if these Dusky Felons were not our foe-men also, yet could I have
my way, we should have given thee all help, and should have
brought back peace and good days to thy folk.’

Then Folk-might flushed red and spake, as he cast out his hand
towards the warriors and up and down toward the Dale:

‘These be my folk, and these only: and as to peace, only
those of us know of it who are old men.  Yet is it well; and
if we and ye together be strong enough to bring back good days to
the feeble men whom the Dusky Ones torment in Silver-dale it
shall be better yet.’

Then he turned about to his sister, and looked keenly into her
eyes till she reddened, and took her hand and looked at the wrist
and said:

‘O sister, see I not the mark on thy wrist of the Ring
of the God of the Earth?  Have not oaths been sworn since
yesterday?’

‘True it is,’ she said, ‘that this man and I
have plighted troth together at the altar of the
Doom-ring.’

Said Folk-might: ‘Thou wilt have thy will, and I may not
amend it.’  Therewith he turned about to Face-of-god
and said:

‘Thou must look to it to keep this oath, whatever other
one thou hast failed in.’

Said Face-of-god somewhat wrathfully: ‘I shall keep it,
whether thou biddest me to keep it or break it.’

‘That is well,’ said Folk-might, ‘and then
for all that hath gone before thou mayest in a manner pay, if
thou art dauntless before the foe.’

‘I look to be no blencher in the battle,’ said
Face-of-god; ‘that is not the fashion of our kindred,
whosoever may be before us.  Yea, and even were it thy
blade, O mighty warrior of the Wolf, I would do my best to meet
it in manly fashion.’

p. 133As he
spake he half drew forth Dale-warden from his sheath, looking
steadily into the eyes of Folk-might; and the Sun-beam looked
upon him happily.  But Folk-might laughed and said:

‘Thy sword is good, and I deem that thine heart will not
fail thee; but it is by my side and not in face of me that thou
shalt redden the good blade: I see not the day when we twain
shall hew at each other.’

Then in a while he spake again:

‘Thou must pardon us if our words are rough; for we have
stood in rough places, where we had to speak both short and loud,
whereas there was much to do.  But now will we twain talk of
matters that concern chieftains who are going on a hard
adventure.  And ye women, do ye dight the Hall for the
evening feast, which shall be the feast of the troth-plight for
you twain.  This indeed we owe thee, O guest; for little
shall be thine heritage which thou shalt have with my sister,
over and above that thy sword winneth for thee.’

But the Sun-beam said: ‘Hast thou any
to-night?’

‘Yea,’ he said; ‘Spear-god, how many was
it?’

There came forward a tall man bearing an axe in his right
hand, and carrying over his shoulder by his left hand a bundle of
silver arm-rings just such as Gold-mane had seen on the felons
who were slain by Wood-grey’s house.  The carle cast
them on the ground and then knelt down and fell to telling them
over; and then looked up and said: ‘Twelve yesterday in the
wood where the battle was going on; and this morning seven by the
tarn in the pine-wood and six near this eastern edge of the wood:
one score and five all told.  But, Folk-might, they are
coming nigh to Shadowy Vale.’

‘Sooth is that,’ said Folk-might; ‘but it
shall be looked to.  Come now apart with me,
Face-of-god.’

So the others went their ways toward the Hall, while
Folk-might led the Burgdaler to a sheltered nook under the sheer
rocks, and there they sat down to talk, and Folk-might asked p. 134Gold-mane
closely of the muster of the Dalesmen and the Shepherds and the
Woodland Caries, and he was well pleased when Face-of-god told
him of how many could march to a stricken field, and of their
archery, and of their weapons and their goodness.

All this took some time in the telling, and now night was
coming on apace, and Folk-might said:

‘Now will it be time to go to the Hall; but keep in thy
mind that these Dusky Men will overrun you unless ye deal with
them betimes.  These are of the kind that ye must cast fear
into their hearts by falling on them; for if ye abide till they
fall upon you, they are like the winter wolves that swarm on and
on, how many soever ye slay.  And this above all things
shall help you, that we shall bring you whereas ye shall fall on
them unawares and destroy them as boys do with a wasp’s
nest.  Yet shall many a mother’s son bite the
dust.

‘Is it not so that in four weeks’ time is your
spring-feast and market at Burgstead, and thereafter the great
Folk-mote?’

‘So it is,’ said Gold-mane.

‘Thither shall I come then,’ said Folk-might,
‘and give myself out for the slayer of Rusty and the
ransacker of Harts-bane and Penny-thumb; and therefor shall I
offer good blood-wite and theft-wite; and thy father shall take
that; for he is a just man.  Then shall I tell my
tale.  Yet it may be thou shalt see us before if battle
betide.  And now fair befall this new year; for soon shall
the scabbards be empty and the white swords be dancing in the
air, and spears and axes shall be the growth of this
spring-tide.’

And he leaped up from his seat and walked to and fro before
Gold-mane, and now was it grown quite dark.  Then Folk-might
turned to Face-of-god and said:

‘Come, guest, the windows of the Hall are yellow; let us
to the feast.  To-morrow shalt thou get thee to the
beginning of this work.  I hope of thee that thou art a good
sword; else have I p.
135done a folly and my sister a worse one.  But now
forget that, and feast.’

Gold-mane arose, not very well at ease, for the man seemed
overbearing; yet how might he fall upon the Sun-beam’s
kindred, and the captain of these new brethren in arms?  So
he spake not.  But Folk-might said to him:

‘Yet I would not have thee forget that I was wroth with
thee when I saw thee to-day; and had it not been for the coming
battle I had drawn sword upon thee.’

Then Face-of-god’s wrath was stirred, and he said:

‘There is yet time for that! but why art thou wroth with
me?  And I shall tell thee that there is little manliness in
thy chiding.  For how may I fight with thee, thou the
brother of my plighted speech-friend and my captain in this
battle?’

‘Therein thou sayest sooth,’ said Folk-might;
‘but hard it was to see you two standing together; and thou
canst not give the Bride to me as I give my sister to thee. 
For I have seen her, and I have seen her looking at thee; and I
know that she will not have it so.’

Then they went on together toward the Hall, and Face-of-god
was silent and somewhat troubled; and as they drew near to the
Hall, Folk-might spake again:

‘Yet time may amend it; and if not, there is the battle,
and maybe the end.  Now be we merry!’

So they went into the Hall together, and there was the
Sun-beam gloriously arrayed, as erst in the woodland bower, and
Face-of-god sat on the daïs beside her, and the uttermost
sweetness of desire entered into his soul as he noted her eyes
and her mouth, that were grown so kind to him, and her hand that
strayed toward his.

The Hall was full of folk, and all those warriors were there
with Wood-father and his sons, and Wood-mother, and Bow-may and
many other women; and Gold-mane looked down the Hall and deemed
that he had never seen such stalwarth bodies of men, or p. 136so bold and
meet for battle: as for the women he had seen fairer in Burgdale,
but these were fair of their own fashion, shapely and well-knit,
and strong-armed and large-limbed, yet sweet-voiced and gentle
withal.  Nay, the very lads of fifteen winters or so,
whereof a few were there, seemed bold and bright-eyed and keen of
wit, and it seemed like that if the warriors fared afield these
would be with them.

So wore the feast; and Folk-might as aforetime amongst the
healths called on men to drink to the Jaws of the Wolf, and the
Red Hand, and the Silver Arm, and the Golden Bushel, and the
Ragged Sword.  But now had Face-of-god no need to ask what
these meant, since he knew that they were the names of the
kindreds of the Wolf.  They drank also to the troth-plight
and to those twain, and shouted aloud over the health and clashed
their weapons: and Gold-mane wondered what echo of that shout
would reach to Burgstead.

Then sang men songs of old time, and amongst them Wood-wont
stood with his fiddle amidst the Hall and Bow-may beside him, and
they sang in turn to it sweetly and clearly; and this is some of
what they sang:

She singeth.

Wild is the waste and long leagues over;

   Whither then wend ye spear and sword,

Where nought shall see your helms but the plover,

   Far and far from the dear Dale’s sward?

He singeth.

Many a league shall we wend together

   With helm and spear and bended bow.

Hark! how the wind blows up for weather:

   Dark shall the night be whither we go.

Dark shall the night be round the byre,

   And dark as we drive the brindled kine;

p. 137Dark and
dark round the beacon-fire,

   Dark down in the pass round our wavering line.

Turn on thy path, O fair-foot maiden,

   And come our ways by the pathless road;

Look how the clouds hang low and laden

   Over the walls of the old abode!

She singeth.

Bare are my feet for the rough waste’s
wending,

   Wild is the wind, and my kirtle’s thin;

Faint shall I be ere the long way’s ending

   Drops down to the Dale and the grief therein.

He singeth.

Do on the brogues of the wild-wood rover,

   Do on the byrnies’ ring-close mail;

Take thou the staff that the barbs hang over,

   O’er the wind and the waste and the way to
prevail.

Come, for how from thee shall I sunder?

   Come, that a tale may arise in the land;

Come, that the night may be held for a wonder,

   When the Wolf was led by a maiden’s hand!

She singeth.

Now will I fare as ye are faring,

   And wend no way but the way ye wend;

And bear but the burdens ye are bearing,

   And end the day as ye shall end.

And many an eve when the clouds are drifting

   Down through the Dale till they dim the roof,

Shall they tell in the Hall of the Maiden’s Lifting,

   And how we drave the spoil aloof.

p. 138They sing together.

Over the moss through the wind and the
weather,

   Through the morn and the eve and the death of the
day,

Wend we man and maid together,

   For out of the waste is born the fray.

Then the Sun-beam spake to Gold-mane softly, and told him how
this song was made by a minstrel concerning a foray in the early
days of their first abode in Shadowy Vale, and how in good sooth
a maiden led the fray and was the captain of the warriors:

‘Erst,’ she said, ‘this was counted as a
wonder; but now we are so few that it is no wonder though the
women will do whatsoever they may.’

So they talked, and Gold-mane was very happy; but ere the
good-night cup was drunk, Folk-might spake to Face-of-god and
said:

‘It were well that ye rose betimes in the morning: but
thou shalt not go back by the way thou camest.  Wood-wise
and another shall go with thee, and show thee a way across the
necks and the heaths, which is rough enough as far as toil goes,
but where thy life shall be safer; and thereby shalt thou hit the
ghyll of the Weltering Water, and so come down safely into
Burgdale.  Now that we are friends and fellows, it is no
hurt for thee to know the shortest way to Shadowy Vale. 
What thou shalt tell concerning us in Burgdale I leave the tale
thereof to thee; yet belike thou wilt not tell everything till I
come to Burgstead at the spring market-tide.  Now must I
presently to bed; for before daylight to-morrow must I be
following the hunt along with two score good men of
ours.’

‘What beast is afield then?’ said Gold-mane.

Said Folk-might: ‘The beasts that beset our lives, the
Dusky Men.  In these days we have learned how to find
companies of them; and forsooth every week they draw nigher to
this Dale; and some day they should happen upon us if we were not
to look p.
139to it, and then would there be a murder great and grim;
therefore we scour the heaths round about, and the skirts of the
woodland, and we fall upon these felons in divers guises, so that
they may not know us for the same men; whiles are we clad in
homespun, as to-day, and seem like to field-working carles;
whiles in scarlet and gold, like knights of the Westland; whiles
in wolf-skins; whiles in white glittering gear, like the Wights
of the Waste: and in all guises these felons, for all their
fierce hearts, fear us, and flee from us, and we follow and slay
them, and so minish their numbers somewhat against the great day
of battle.’

‘Tell me,’ said Gold-mane; ‘when we fall
upon Silver-dale shall their thralls, the old Dale-dwellers,
fight for them or for us?’

Said Folk-might: ‘The Dusky Men will not dare to put
weapons into the hands of their thralls.  Nay, the thralls
shall help us; for though they have but small stomach for the
fight, yet joyfully when the fight is over shall they cut their
masters’ throats.’

‘How is it with these thralls?’ said
Gold-mane.  ‘I have never seen a thrall.’

‘But I,’ said Folk-might, ‘have seen a many
down in the Cities.  And there were thralls who were the
tyrants of thralls, and held the whip over them; and of the
others there were some who were not very hardly entreated. 
But with these it is otherwise, and they all bear grievous pains
daily; for the Dusky Men are as hogs in a garden of lilies. 
Whatsoever is fair there have they defiled and deflowered, and
they wallow in our fair halls as swine strayed from the
dunghill.  No delight in life, no sweet days do they have
for themselves, and they begrudge the delight of others
therein.  Therefore their thralls know no rest or solace;
their reward of toil is many stripes, and the healing of their
stripes grievous toil.  To many have they appointed to dig
and mine in the silver-yielding cliffs, and of all the tasks is
that the sorest, and there do stripes abound the most.  Such
thralls art thou happy not to behold till thou hast set them
free; as we shall do.’

‘Tell me again,’ said Face-of-god; ‘Is there
no mixed folk p.
140between these Dusky Men and the Dalesmen, since they
have no women of their own, but lie with the women of the
Dale?  Moreover, do not the poor folk of the Dale beget and
bear children, so that there are thralls born of
thralls?’

‘Wisely thou askest this,’ said Folk-might,
‘but thereof shall I tell thee, that when a Dusky Carle
mingles with a woman of the Dale, the child which she beareth
shall oftenest favour his race and not hers; or else shall it be
witless, a fool natural.  But as for the children of these
poor thralls; yea, the masters cause them to breed if so their
masterships will, and when the children are born, they keep them
or slay them as they will, as they would with whelps or
calves.  To be short, year by year these vile wretches grow
fiercer and more beastly, and their thralls more hapless and
down-trodden; and now at last is come the time either to do or to
die, as ye men of Burgdale shall speedily find out.  But now
must I go sleep if I am to be where I look to be at sunrise
to-morrow.’

Therewith he called for the sleeping-cup, and it was drunk,
and all men fared to bed.  But the Sun-beam took
Gold-mane’s hand ere they parted, and said:

‘I shall arise betimes on the morrow; so I say not
farewell to-night; yea, and after to-morrow it shall not be long
ere we meet again.’

So Gold-mane lay down in that ancient hall, and it seemed to
him ere he slept as if his own kindred were slipping away from
him and he were becoming a child of the Wolf.  ‘And
yet,’ said he to himself, ‘I am become a man; for my
Friend, now she no longer telleth me to do or forbear, and I
tremble.  Nay, rather she is fain to take the word from me;
and this great warrior and ripe man, he talketh with me as if I
were a chieftain meet for converse with chieftains.  Even so
it is and shall be.’

And soon thereafter he fell asleep in the Hall in Shadowy
Vale.

p.
141CHAPTER XXI.  FACE-OF-GOD LOOKETH ON THE DUSKY
MEN.

When he awoke again he saw a man
standing over him, and knew him for Wood-wise: he was clad in his
war-gear, and had his quiver at his back and his bow in his hand,
for Wood-father’s children were all good bowmen, though not
so sure as Bow-may.  He spake to Face-of-god:

‘Dawn is in the sky, Dalesman; there is yet time for
thee to wash the night off of thee in our bath of the Shivering
Flood and to put thy mouth to the milk-bowl; but time for nought
else: for I and Bow-may are appointed thy fellows for the road,
and it were well that we were back home speedily.’

So Face-of-god leapt up and went forth from the Hall, and
Wood-wise led to where was a pool in the river with steps cut
down to it in the rocky bank.

‘This,’ said Wood-wise, ‘is the
Carle’s Bath; but the Queen’s is lower down, where
the water is wider and shallower below the little mid-dale
force.’

So Gold-mane stripped off his raiment and leapt into the
ice-cold pool; and they had brought his weapons and war-gear with
them; so when he came out he clad and armed himself for the road,
and then turned with Wood-wise toward the outgate of the Dale;
and soon they saw two men coming from lower down the water in
such wise that they would presently cross their path, and as yet
it was little more than twilight, so that they saw not at first
who they were, but as they drew nearer they knew them for the
Sun-beam and Bow-may.  The Sun-beam was clad but in her
white linen smock and blue gown as he had first seen her, her
hair was wet and dripping with the river, her face fresh and
rosy: she carried in her two hands a great bowl of milk, and
stepped delicately, lest she should spill it.  But Bow-may
was clad in her war-gear with helm and byrny, and a quiver at her
back, and a bended bow in her hand.  So they greeted p. 142each other
kindly, and the Sun-beam gave the bowl to Face-of-god and
said:

‘Drink, guest, for thou hast a long and thirsty road
before thee.’

So Face-of-god drank, and gave her the bowl back again, and
she smiled on him and drank, and the others after her till the
bowl was empty: then Bow-may put her hand on Wood-wise’s
shoulder, and they led on toward the outgate, while those twain
followed them hand in hand.  But the Sun-beam said:

‘This then is the new day I spoke of, and lo! it
bringeth our sundering with it; yet shall it be no longer than a
day when all is said, and new days shall follow after.  And
now, my friend, I shall see thee no later than the April market;
for doubt not that I shall go thither with Folk-might, whether he
will or not.  Also as I led thee out of the house when we
last met, so shall I lead thee out of the Dale to-day, and I will
go with thee a little way on the waste; and therefore am I shod
this morning, as thou seest, for the ways on the waste are
rough.  And now I bid thee have courage while my hand
holdeth thine.  For afterwards I need not bid thee anything;
for thou wilt have enough to do when thou comest to thy Folk, and
must needs think more of warriors then than of
maidens.’

He looked at her and longed for her, but said soberly:
‘Thou art kind, O friend, and thinkest kindly of me
ever.  But methinks it were not well done for thee to wend
with me over a deal of the waste, and come back by thyself alone,
when ye have so many foemen nearby.’

‘Nay,’ she said, ‘they be nought so near as
that yet, and I wot that Folk-might hath gone forth toward the
north-west, where he looketh to fall in with a company of the
foemen.  His battle shall be a guard unto us.’

‘I pray thee turn back at the top of the outgate,’
said he, ‘and be not venturesome.  Thou wottest that
the pitcher is not broken the first time it goeth to the well,
nor maybe the twentieth, but at last it cometh not
back.’

p. 143She
said: ‘Nevertheless I shall have my will herein.  And
it is but a little way I will wend with thee.’

Therewith were they come to the scree, and talk fell down
between them as they clomb it; but when they were in the darksome
passage of the rocks, and could scarce see one another,
Face-of-god said:

‘Where then is another outgate from the Dale?  Is
it not up the water?’

‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and there is none other:
at the lower end the rocks rise sheer from out the water, and a
little further down is a great force thundering betwixt them; so
that by no boat or raft may ye come out of the Dale.  But
the outgate up the water is called the Road of War, as this is
named the Path of Peace.  But now are all ways ways of
war.’

‘There is peace in my heart,’ said Gold-mane.

She answered not for a while, but pressed his hand, and he
felt her breath on his cheek; and even therewithal they came out
of the dark, and Gold-mane saw that her cheek was flushed; and
now she spake:

‘One thing would I say to thee, my friend.  Thou
hast seen me amongst men of war, amongst outlaws who seek
violence; thou hast heard me bid my brother to count the slain,
and I shrinking not; thou knowest (for I have told thee) how I
have schemed and schemed for victorious battle.  Yet I would
not have thee think of me as a Chooser of the Slain, a warrior
maiden, or as of one who hath no joy save in the battle whereto
she biddeth others.  O friend, the many peaceful hours that
I have had on the grass down yonder, sitting with my rock and
spindle in hand, the children round about my knees hearkening to
some old story so well remembered by me! or the milking of the
kine in the dewy summer even, when all was still but for the
voice of the water and the cries of the happy children, and there
round about me were the dear and beauteous maidens with whom I
had grown up, happy amidst all our troubles, since their life was
free and p.
144they knew no guile.  In such times my heart was at
peace indeed, and it seemed to me as if we had won all we needed;
as if war and turmoil were over, after they had brought about
peace and good days for our little folk.

‘And as for the days that be, are they not as that
rugged pass, full of bitter winds and the voice of hurrying
waters, that leadeth yonder to Silver-dale, as thou hast divined?
and there is nought good in it save that the breath of life is
therein, and that it leadeth to pleasant places and the peace and
plenty of the fair dale.’

‘Sweet friend,’ he said, ‘what thou sayest
is better than well: for time shall be, if we come alive out of
this pass of battle and bitter strife, when I shall lead thee
into Burgdale to dwell there.  And thou wottest of our
people that there is little strife and grudging amongst them, and
that they are merry, and fair to look on, both men and women; and
no man there lacketh what the earth may give us, and it is a
saying amongst us that there may a man have that which he
desireth save the sun and moon in his hands to play with: and of
this gladness, which is made up of many little matters, what
story may be told?  Yet amongst it shall I live and thou
with me; and ill indeed it were if it wearied thee and thou wert
ever longing for some day of victorious strife, and to behold me
coming back from battle high-raised on the shields of men and
crowned with bay; if thine ears must ever be tickled with the
talk of men and their songs concerning my warrior deeds. 
For thus it shall not be.  When I drive the herds it shall
be at the neighbours’ bidding whereso they will; not necks
of men shall I smite, but the stalks of the tall wheat, and the
boles of the timber-trees which the woodreeve hath marked for
felling; the stilts of the plough rather than the hilts of the
sword shall harden my hands; my shafts shall be for the deer, and
my spears for the wood-boar, till war and sorrow fall upon us,
and I fight for the ceasing of war and trouble.  And though
I be called a chief and of the blood of chiefs, yet shall I not
be masterful to the goodman of the Dale, but rather to my hound;
for my chieftainship p. 145shall be that I shall be well
beloved and trusted, and that no man shall grudge against
me.  Canst thou learn to love such a life, which to me
seemeth lovely?  And thou? of whom I say that thou art as if
thou wert come down from the golden chairs of the Burg of the
Gods.’

They were well-nigh out of the steep path by now, and the
daylight was bright about them; there she stayed her feet a
moment and turned to him and said:

‘All this should I love even now, if the grief of our
Folk were but healed, and hereafter shall I learn yet more of thy
well-beloved face.’

Therewith she laid her face to his and kissed him fondly, and
put his hand to her side and held it there, saying: ‘Soon
shall we be one in body and in soul.’

And he laughed with joy and pride of life, and took her hand
and led her on again, and said:

‘Yet feel the cold rings of my hauberk, my friend; look
at the spears that cumber my hand, and at Dale-warden hanging by
my side.  Thou shalt yet see me as the Slain’s Chooser
would see her speech-friend; for there is much to do ere we win
wheat-harvest in Burgdale.’

Therewith they stepped together on to the level ground of the
waste, and saw Bow-may sitting on a stone hard by, and Wood-wise
standing beside her bending his bow.  Bow-may smiled on
Gold-mane and rose up, and they all went on together, turning so
that they went nearly alongside the wall of the Vale, but
westering a little; then the Sun-beam said:

‘Many a time have I trodden this heath alongside our
rock-wall; for if ye wend a little further as our faces are
turned, ye come to the crags over the place where the Shivering
Flood goeth out of Shadowy Vale.  There when ye have clomb a
little may’st thou stand on the edge of the rock-wall, and
look down and behold the Flood swirling and eddying in the black
gorge of the rocks, and see presently the reek of the force go
up, and hear the p.
146thunder of the waters as they pour over it: and all
this about us now is as the garden of our house—is it not
so, Bow-may?’

‘Yea,’ said she, ‘and there are goodly
cluster-berries to be gotten hereabout in the autumn; many a time
have the Sun-beam and I reddened our lips with them.  Yet is
it best to be wary when war is abroad and hot withal.’

‘Yea,’ said the Sun-beam, ‘and all this
place comes into the story of our House: lo!  Gold-mane, two
score paces before us a little on our right hand those five grey
stones.  They are called the Rocks of the Elders: for there
in the first days of our abiding in Shadowy Vale the Elders were
wont to come together to talk privily upon our
matters.’

Face-of-god looked thither as she spoke, but therewith saw
Bow-may, who went on the left hand of the Sun-beam, as
Face-of-god on her right hand, notch a shaft on her bent bow, and
Wood-wise, who was on his right hand, saw it also and did the
like, and therewithal Face-of-god got his target on to his arm,
and even as he did so Bow-may cried out suddenly:

‘Yea, yea!  Cast thyself on to the ground,
Sun-beam!  Gold-mane, targe and spear, targe and
spear!  For I see steel gleaming yonder out from behind the
Elders’ Rocks.’

Scarce were the words out of her mouth ere three shafts came
flying, and the bow-strings twanged.  Gold-mane felt that
one smote his helm and glanced from it.  Therewithal he saw
the Sun-beam fall to earth, though he knew not if she had but
cast herself down as Bow-may bade.  Bow-may’s string
twanged at once, and a yell came from the foemen: but Wood-wise
loosed not, but set his hand to his mouth and gave a loud wild
cry—Ha! ha! ha! ha!  How-ow-ow!—ending in a long
and exceeding great whoop like nought but the wolf’s
howl.  Now Gold-mane thinking swiftly, in a moment of time,
as war-meet men do, judged that if the Sun-beam were hurt (and
she had made no cry), it were yet wiser to fall on the foe before
turning to tend her, or else all might be lost; so he rushed
forward spear in hand and target on p. 147arm, and saw, as he opened up the
flank of the Elders’ Rocks, six men, whereof one leaned
aback on the rock with Bow-may’s shaft in his shoulder, and
two others were just in act of loosing at him.  In a moment,
as he rushed at them, one shaft went whistling by him, and the
other glanced from off his target; he cast a spear as he bounded
on, and saw it smite one of the shooters full in the naked face,
and saw the blood spout out and change his face and the man roll
over, and then in another moment four men were hewing at him with
their short steel axes.  He thrust out his target against
them, and then let the weight of his body come on his other
spear, and drave it through the second shooter’s throat,
and even therewith was smitten on the helm so hard that, though
the Alderman’s work held out, he fell to his knees, holding
his target over his head and striving to draw forth Dale-warden;
in that nick of time a shaft whistled close by his ear, and as he
rose to his feet again he saw his foeman rolling over and over,
clutching at the ling with both hands.  Then rang out again
the terrible wolf-whoop from Wood-wise’s mouth, and both he
and Bow-may loosed a shaft, for the two other foes had turned
their backs and were fleeing fast.  Again Bow-may hit the
clout, and the Dusky Man fell dead at once, but Wood-wise’s
arrow flew over the felon’s shoulder as he ran.  Then
in a trice was Gold-mane bounding after him like the hare just
roused from her form; for it came into his head that these felons
had beheld them coming up out of the Vale, and that if even this
one man escaped, he would bring his company down upon the
Vale-dwellers.

Strong and light-foot as any was Face-of-god, and though he
was cumbered with his hauberk, yet was Iron-face’s
handiwork far lighter than the war-coat of the Dusky Man, and the
race was soon over.  The felon turned breathless to meet
Gold-mane, who drave his target against him and cast him to
earth, and as he strove to rise smote off his head at one stroke;
for Dale-warden was a good sword and the Dalesman as fierce of
mood as might be.  There he let the felon lie, and, turning,
walked p.
148back swiftly toward the Elders’ Rocks, and found
there Wood-wise and the dead foemen, for the carle had slain the
wounded, and he was now drawing the silver arm-rings off the
slain men; for all these Dusky Felons bore silver
arm-rings.  But Bow-may was walking towards the Sun-beam,
and thitherward followed Gold-mane speedily.

He found her sitting on a tussock of grass close by where she
had fallen, her face pale, her eyes eager and gleaming; she
looked up at him as he drew nigher and said:

‘Friend, art thou hurt?’

‘Nay,’ he said, ‘and thou?  Thou art
pale.’

‘I am not hurt,’ she said.  Then she smiled
and said again:

‘Did I not tell thee that I am no warrior like Bow-may
here?  Such deeds make maidens pale.’

Said Bow-may: ‘If ye will have the truth, Gold-mane, she
is not wont to grow pale when battle is nigh her.  Look you,
she hath had the gift of a new delight, and findeth it sweeter
and softer than she had any thought of; and now hath she feared
lest it should be taken from her.’

‘Bow-may saith but the sooth,’ said the Sun-beam
simply, ‘and kind it is of her to say it.  I saw thee,
Bow-may, and good was thy shooting, and I love thee for
it.’

Said Bow-may: ‘I never shoot otherwise than well. 
But those idle shooters of the Dusky Ones, whereabouts nigh to
thee went their shafts?’

Said the Sun-beam: ‘One just lifted the hair by my left
ear, and that was not so ill-aimed; as for the other, it pierced
my raiment by my right knee, and pinned me to the earth, so that
I tottered and fell, and my gown and smock are grievously
wounded, both of them.’

And she took the folds of the garments in her hands to show
the rents therein; and her colour was come again, and she was
glad.

‘What were best to do now?’ she said.

Said Face-of-god: ‘Let us tarry a little; for some of
thy p.
149carles shall surely come up from the Vale: because they
will have heard Wood-wise’s whoop, since the wind sets that
way.’

‘Yea, they will come,’ said the Sun-beam.

‘Good is that,’ said Face-of-god; ‘for they
shall take the dead felons and cast them where they be not seen
if perchance any more stray hereby.  For if they wind them,
they may well happen on the path down to the Vale.  Also, my
friend, it were well if thou wert to bid a good few of the carles
that are in the Vale to keep watch and ward about here, lest
there be more foemen wandering about the waste.’

She said: ‘Thou art wise in war, Gold-mane; I will do as
thou biddest me.  But soothly this is a perilous thing that
the Dusky Men are gotten so close to the Vale.’

Said Face-of-god: ‘This will Folk-might look to when he
cometh home; and it is most like that he will deem it good to
fall on them somewhere a good way aloof, so as to draw them off
from wandering over the waste.  Also I will do my best to
busy them when I am home in Burgdale.’

Therewith came up Wood-wise, and fell to talk with them; and
his mind it was that these foemen were but a band of strayers,
and had had no inkling of Shadowy Vale till they had heard them
talking together as they came up the path from the Vale, and that
then they had made that ambush behind the Elders’ Rocks, so
that they might slay the men, and then bear off the woman. 
He said withal that it would be best to carry their corpses
further on, so that they might be cast over the cliffs into the
fierce stream of the Shivering Flood.

Amidst this talk came up men from the Vale, a score of them,
well armed; and they ran to meet the wayfarers; and when they
heard what had befallen, they rejoiced exceedingly, and were
above all glad that Face-of-god had shown himself doughty and
deft; and they deemed his rede wise, to set a watch thereabouts
till Folk-might came home, and said that they would do even
so.

Then spake the Sun-beam and said:

p.
150‘Now must ye wayfarers depart; for the road is
but rough, and the day not over-long.’

Then she turned to Face-of-god and put her hand on his
shoulder, and brought her face close to his and spake to him
softly:

‘Doth this second parting seem at all strange to thee,
and that I am now so familiar to thee, I whom thou didst once
deem to be a very goddess?  And now thou hast seen me redden
before thine eyes because of thee; and thou hast seen me grow
pale with fear because of thee; and thou hast felt my caresses
which I might not refrain; even as if I were altogether such a
maiden as ye warriors hang about for a nine days’ wonder,
and then all is over save an aching heart—wilt thou do so
with me?  Tell me, have I not belittled myself before thee
as if I asked thee to scorn me?  For thus desire dealeth
both with maid and man.’

He said: ‘In all this there is but one thing for me to
say, and that is that I love thee; and surely none the less, but
rather the more, because thou lovest me, and art of my kind, and
mayest share in my deeds and think well of them.  Now is my
heart full of joy, and one thing only weigheth on it; and that is
that my kinswoman the Bride begrudgeth our love together. 
For this is the thing that of all things most misliketh me, that
any should bear a grudge against me.’

She said: ‘Forget not the token, and my message to
her.’

‘I will not forget it,’ said he.  ‘And
now I bid thee to kiss me even before all these that are looking
on; for there is nought to belittle us therein, since we be
troth-plight.’

And indeed those folk stood all round about them gazing on
them, but a little aloof, that they might not hear their words if
they were minded to talk privily.  For they had long loved
the Sun-beam, and now the love of Face-of-god had begun to spring
up in their hearts.

So the twain embraced and kissed one another, and made no
haste thereover; and those men deemed that but meet and right,
and clashed their weapons on their shields in token of their
joy.

p. 151Then
Face-of-god turned about and strode out of the ring of men, with
Bow-may and Wood-wise beside him, and they went on their journey
over the necks towards Burgstead.  But the Sun-beam turned
slowly from that place toward the Vale, and two of the stoutest
carles went along with her to guard her from harm, and she went
down into the Vale pondering all these things in her heart.

Then the other carles dragged off the corpses of the Dusky Men
till they had brought them to the sheer rocks above the Shivering
Flood, and there they tossed them over into the boiling caldron
of the force, and so departed taking with them the silver
arm-rings of the slain to add to the tale.

But when they came back into the Vale the Sun-beam duly
ordered that watch and ward to keep the ingate thereto, and note
all that should befall till Folk-might came home.

CHAPTER XXII.  FACE-OF-GOD COMETH HOME TO
BURGSTEAD.

But Face-of-god with Bow-may and
Wood-wise fared over the waste, going at first alongside the
cliffs of the Shivering Flood, and then afterwards turning
somewhat to the west.  They soon had to climb a very high
and steep bent going up to a mountain-neck; and the way over the
neck was rough indeed when they were on it, and they toiled out
of it into a barren valley, and out of the valley again on to a
rough neck; and such-like their journey the day long, for they
were going athwart all those great dykes that went from the
ice-mountains toward the lower dales like the outspread fingers
of a hand or the roots of a great tree.  And the
ice-mountains they had on their left hands and whiles at their
backs.

They went very warily, with their bows bended and spear in
hand, but saw no man, good or bad, and but few living
things.  p.
152At noon they rested in a valley where was a stream, but
no grass, nought but stones and sand; but where they were at
least sheltered from the wind, which was mostly very great in
these high wastes; and there Bow-may drew meat and wine from a
wallet she bore, and they ate and drank, and were merry enough;
and Bow-may said:

‘I would I were going all the way with thee, Gold-mane;
for I long sore to let my eyes rest a while on the land where I
shall one day live.’

‘Yea,’ said Face-of-god, ‘art thou minded to
dwell there?  We shall be glad of that.’

‘Whither are thy wits straying?’ said she;
‘whether I am minded to it or not, I shall dwell
there.’

And Wood-wise nodded a yea to her.  But Face-of-god
said:

‘Good will be thy dwelling; but wherefore must it be
so?’

Then Wood-wise laughed and said: ‘I shall tell thee in
fewer words than she will, and time presses now: Wood-father and
Wood-mother, and I and my two brethren and this woman have ever
been about and anigh the Sun-beam; and we deem that war and other
troubles have made us of closer kin to her than we were born,
whether ye call it brotherhood or what not, and never shall we
sunder from her in life or in death.  So when thou goest to
Burgdale with her, there shall we be.’

Then was Face-of-god glad when he found that they deemed his
wedding so settled and sure; but Wood-wise fell to making ready
for the road.  And Face-of-god said to him:

‘Tell me one thing, Wood-wise; that whoop that thou
gavest forth when we were at handy-strokes e’en
now—is it but a cry of thine own or is it of thy Folk, and
shall I hear it again?’

‘Thou may’st look to hear it many a time,’
said Wood-wise, ‘for it is the cry of the Wolf. 
Seldom indeed hath battle been joined where men of our blood are,
but that cry is given forth.  Come now, to the
road!’

So they went their ways and the road worsened upon them, and
p. 153toilsome
was the climbing up steep bents and the scaling of doubtful paths
in the cliff-sides, so that the journey, though the distance of
it were not so long to the fowl flying, was much eked out for
them, and it was not till near nightfall that they came on the
ghyll of the Weltering Water some six miles above
Burgstead.  Forsooth Wood-wise said that the way might be
made less toilsome though far longer by turning back eastward a
little past the vale where they had rested at midday; and that
seemed good to Gold-mane, in case they should be wending
hereafter in a great company between Burgdale and Shadowy
Vale.

But now those two went with Face-of-god down a path in the
side of the cliff whereby him-seemed he had gone before; and they
came down into the ghyll and sat down together on a stone by the
water-side, and Face-of-god spake to them kindly, for he deemed
them good and trusty faring-fellows.