CHAPTER VII
“Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew sayes, A little I am hurt, but yett not slaine; I’le but lye downe and bleede awhile, And then I’le rise and fight againe.” Ballad of Sir Andrew Barton.
But I could not remain where I was any longer, though the daylight washateful to me, and the thought of the great, innocent, bold sunriseunendurable. Here there was no well to cool my face, smarting with thebitterness of my own tears. Nor would I have washed in the well ofthat grotto, had it flowed clear as the rivers of Paradise. I rose, andfeebly left the sepulchral cave. I took my way I knew not whither, butstill towards the sunrise. The birds were singing; but not for me. Allthe creatures spoke a language of their own, with which I had nothing todo, and to which I cared not to find the key any more.
I walked listlessly along. What distressed me most--more even than myown folly--was the perplexing question, How can beauty and uglinessdwell so near? Even with her altered complexion and her face of dislike;disenchanted of the belief that clung around her; known for aliving, walking sepulchre, faithless, deluding, traitorous; I feltnotwithstanding all this, that she was beautiful. Upon this I ponderedwith undiminished perplexity, though not without some gain. Then I beganto make surmises as to the mode of my deliverance; and concluded thatsome hero, wandering in search of adventure, had heard how the forestwas infested; and, knowing it was useless to attack the evil thing inperson, had assailed with his battle-axe the body in which he dwelt, andon which he was dependent for his power of mischief in the wood. “Verylikely,” I thought, “the repentant-knight, who warned me of the evilwhich has befallen me, was busy retrieving his lost honour, while I wassinking into the same sorrow with himself; and, hearing of the dangerousand mysterious being, arrived at his tree in time to save me from beingdragged to its roots, and buried like carrion, to nourish him foryet deeper insatiableness.” I found afterwards that my conjecture wascorrect. I wondered how he had fared when his blows recalled the Ashhimself, and that too I learned afterwards.
I walked on the whole day, with intervals of rest, but without food; forI could not have eaten, had any been offered me; till, in the afternoon,I seemed to approach the outskirts of the forest, and at length arrivedat a farm-house. An unspeakable joy arose in my heart at beholding anabode of human beings once more, and I hastened up to the door, andknocked. A kind-looking, matronly woman, still handsome, made herappearance; who, as soon as she saw me, said kindly, “Ah, my poor boy,you have come from the wood! Were you in it last night?”
I should have ill endured, the day before, to be called BOY; but now themotherly kindness of the word went to my heart; and, like a boy indeed,I burst into tears. She soothed me right gently; and, leading me intoa room, made me lie down on a settle, while she went to find me somerefreshment. She soon returned with food, but I could not eat. Shealmost compelled me to swallow some wine, when I revived sufficiently tobe able to answer some of her questions. I told her the whole story.
“It is just as I feared,” she said; “but you are now for the nightbeyond the reach of any of these dreadful creatures. It is no wonderthey could delude a child like you. But I must beg you, when my husbandcomes in, not to say a word about these things; for he thinks me evenhalf crazy for believing anything of the sort. But I must believe mysenses, as he cannot believe beyond his, which give him no intimationsof this kind. I think he could spend the whole of Midsummer-eve inthe wood and come back with the report that he saw nothing worse thanhimself. Indeed, good man, he would hardly find anything better thanhimself, if he had seven more senses given him.”
“But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heartat all--without any place even for a heart to live in.”
“I cannot quite tell,” she said; “but I am sure she would not look sobeautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautifulthan she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love withher before you saw her beauty, mistaking her for the lady of themarble--another kind altogether, I should think. But the chief thingthat makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, sheloves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, herdesire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his loveeither, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty,through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely--with aself-destructive beauty, though; for it is that which is constantlywearing her away within, till, at last, the decay will reach her face,and her whole front, when all the lovely mask of nothing will fall topieces, and she be vanished for ever. So a wise man, whom she met inthe wood some years ago, and who, I think, for all his wisdom, fared nobetter than you, told me, when, like you, he spent the next night here,and recounted to me his adventures.”
I thanked her very warmly for her solution, though it was but partial;wondering much that in her, as in woman I met on my first entering theforest, there should be such superiority to her apparent condition. Hereshe left me to take some rest; though, indeed, I was too much agitatedto rest in any other way than by simply ceasing to move.
In half an hour, I heard a heavy step approach and enter the house. Ajolly voice, whose slight huskiness appeared to proceed from overmuchlaughter, called out “Betsy, the pigs’ trough is quite empty, and thatis a pity. Let them swill, lass! They’re of no use but to get fat. Ha!ha! ha! Gluttony is not forbidden in their commandments. Ha! ha! ha!” The very voice, kind and jovial, seemed to disrobe the room of thestrange look which all new places wear--to disenchant it out of therealm of the ideal into that of the actual. It began to look as if Ihad known every corner of it for twenty years; and when, soon after, thedame came and fetched me to partake of their early supper, the grasp ofhis great hand, and the harvest-moon of his benevolent face, which wasneeded to light up the rotundity of the globe beneath it, produced sucha reaction in me, that, for a moment, I could hardly believe that therewas a Fairy Land; and that all I had passed through since I left home,had not been the wandering dream of a diseased imagination, operating ona too mobile frame, not merely causing me indeed to travel, but peoplingfor me with vague phantoms the regions through which my actual stepshad led me. But the next moment my eye fell upon a little girl who wassitting in the chimney-corner, with a little book open on her knee, fromwhich she had apparently just looked up to fix great inquiring eyes uponme. I believed in Fairy Land again. She went on with her reading, assoon as she saw that I observed her looking at me. I went near, andpeeping over her shoulder, saw that she was reading “The History ofGraciosa and Percinet.”
“Very improving book, sir,” remarked the old farmer, with agood-humoured laugh. “We are in the very hottest corner of Fairy Landhere. Ha! ha! Stormy night, last night, sir.”
“Was it, indeed?” I rejoined. “It was not so with me. A lovelier night Inever saw.” “Indeed! Where were you last night?”
“I spent it in the forest. I had lost my way.”
“Ah! then, perhaps, you will be able to convince my good woman, thatthere is nothing very remarkable about the forest; for, to tell thetruth, it bears but a bad name in these parts. I dare say you sawnothing worse than yourself there?”
“I hope I did,” was my inward reply; but, for an audible one, Icontented myself with saying, “Why, I certainly did see some appearancesI could hardly account for; but that is nothing to be wondered at in anunknown wild forest, and with the uncertain light of the moon alone togo by.”
“Very true! you speak like a sensible man, sir. We have but few sensiblefolks round about us. Now, you would hardly credit it, but my wifebelieves every fairy-tale that ever was written. I cannot account forit. She is a most sensible woman in everything else.”
“But should not that make you treat her belief with something ofrespect, though you cannot share in it yourself?”
“Yes, that is all very well in theory; but when you come to liveevery day in the midst of absurdity, it is far less easy to behaverespectfully to it. Why, my wife actually be
lieves the story of the‘White Cat.’ You know it, I dare say.”
“I read all these tales when a child, and know that one especiallywell.”
“But, father,” interposed the little girl in the chimney-corner, “youknow quite well that mother is descended from that very princess who waschanged by the wicked fairy into a white cat. Mother has told me so amany times, and you ought to believe everything she says.”
“I can easily believe that,” rejoined the farmer, with another fit oflaughter; “for, the other night, a mouse came gnawing and scratchingbeneath the floor, and would not let us go to sleep. Your mother sprangout of bed, and going as near it as she could, mewed so infernally likea great cat, that the noise ceased instantly. I believe the poor mousedied of the fright, for we have never heard it again. Ha! ha! ha!”
The son, an ill-looking youth, who had entered during the conversation,joined in his father’s laugh; but his laugh was very different from theold man’s: it was polluted with a sneer. I watched him, and saw that,as soon as it was over, he looked scared, as if he dreaded some evilconsequences to follow his presumption. The woman stood near, waitingtill we should seat ourselves at the table, and listening to it allwith an amused air, which had something in it of the look with which onelistens to the sententious remarks of a pompous child. We sat down tosupper, and I ate heartily. My bygone distresses began already to lookfar off.
“In what direction are you going?” asked the old man.
“Eastward,” I replied; nor could I have given a more definite answer.“Does the forest extend much further in that direction?”
“Oh! for miles and miles; I do not know how far. For although I havelived on the borders of it all my life, I have been too busy to makejourneys of discovery into it. Nor do I see what I could discover. Itis only trees and trees, till one is sick of them. By the way, if youfollow the eastward track from here, you will pass close to what thechildren say is the very house of the ogre that Hop-o’-my-Thumb visited,and ate his little daughters with the crowns of gold.”
“Oh, father! ate his little daughters! No; he only changed their goldcrowns for nightcaps; and the great long-toothed ogre killed them inmistake; but I do not think even he ate them, for you know they were hisown little ogresses.”
“Well, well, child; you know all about it a great deal better than I do.However, the house has, of course, in such a foolish neighbourhood asthis, a bad enough name; and I must confess there is a woman livingin it, with teeth long enough, and white enough too, for the linealdescendant of the greatest ogre that ever was made. I think you hadbetter not go near her.”
In such talk as this the night wore on. When supper was finished, whichlasted some time, my hostess conducted me to my chamber.
“If you had not had enough of it already,” she said, “I would have putyou in another room, which looks towards the forest; and where youwould most likely have seen something more of its inhabitants. For theyfrequently pass the window, and even enter the room sometimes. Strangecreatures spend whole nights in it, at certain seasons of the year. I amused to it, and do not mind it. No more does my little girl, who sleepsin it always. But this room looks southward towards the open country,and they never show themselves here; at least I never saw any.”
I was somewhat sorry not to gather any experience that I might have, ofthe inhabitants of Fairy Land; but the effect of the farmer’s company,and of my own later adventures, was such, that I chose rather anundisturbed night in my more human quarters; which, with their cleanwhite curtains and white linen, were very inviting to my weariness.
In the morning I awoke refreshed, after a profound and dreamless sleep.The sun was high, when I looked out of the window, shining over a wide,undulating, cultivated country. Various garden-vegetables were growingbeneath my window. Everything was radiant with clear sunlight. Thedew-drops were sparkling their busiest; the cows in a near-by field wereeating as if they had not been at it all day yesterday; the maids weresinging at their work as they passed to and fro between the out-houses:I did not believe in Fairy Land. I went down, and found the familyalready at breakfast. But before I entered the room where they sat, thelittle girl came to me, and looked up in my face, as though she wantedto say something to me. I stooped towards her; she put her arms round myneck, and her mouth to my ear, and whispered--
“A white lady has been flitting about the house all night.”
“No whispering behind doors!” cried the farmer; and we entered together.“Well, how have you slept? No bogies, eh?”
“Not one, thank you; I slept uncommonly well.”
“I am glad to hear it. Come and breakfast.”
After breakfast, the farmer and his son went out; and I was left alonewith the mother and daughter.
“When I looked out of the window this morning,” I said, “I felt almostcertain that Fairy Land was all a delusion of my brain; but whenever Icome near you or your little daughter, I feel differently. Yet I couldpersuade myself, after my last adventures, to go back, and have nothingmore to do with such strange beings.”
“How will you go back?” said the woman.
“Nay, that I do not know.”
“Because I have heard, that, for those who enter Fairy Land, there is noway of going back. They must go on, and go through it. How, I do not inthe least know.”
“That is quite the impression on my own mind. Something compels me to goon, as if my only path was onward, but I feel less inclined this morningto continue my adventures.”
“Will you come and see my little child’s room? She sleeps in the one Itold you of, looking towards the forest.”
“Willingly,” I said.
So we went together, the little girl running before to open the door forus. It was a large room, full of old-fashioned furniture, that seemed tohave once belonged to some great house.
The window was built with a low arch, and filled with lozenge-shapedpanes. The wall was very thick, and built of solid stone. I could seethat part of the house had been erected against the remains of some oldcastle or abbey, or other great building; the fallen stones of whichhad probably served to complete it. But as soon as I looked out of thewindow, a gush of wonderment and longing flowed over my soul like thetide of a great sea. Fairy Land lay before me, and drew me towards itwith an irresistible attraction. The trees bathed their great heads inthe waves of the morning, while their roots were planted deep in gloom;save where on the borders the sunshine broke against their stems, orswept in long streams through their avenues, washing with brighter hueall the leaves over which it flowed; revealing the rich brown of thedecayed leaves and fallen pine-cones, and the delicate greens of thelong grasses and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel overwhich it passed in motionless rivers of light. I turned hurriedly to bidmy hostess farewell without further delay. She smiled at my haste, butwith an anxious look.
“You had better not go near the house of the ogre, I think. My son willshow you into another path, which will join the first beyond it.”
Not wishing to be headstrong or too confident any more, I agreed;and having taken leave of my kind entertainers, went into the wood,accompanied by the youth. He scarcely spoke as we went along; but he ledme through the trees till we struck upon a path. He told me to followit, and, with a muttered “good morning” left me.