CHAPTER III. THEY TALK OF DIVERS MATTERS IN THE HALL.
NOW Face-of-god, who is also called Gold-mane, rose up to meet thenew-comers, and each of them greeted him kindly, and the Bride kissed himon the cheek, and he her in likewise; and he looked kindly on her, andtook her hand, and went on up the hall to the daïs, following his fatherand the old man; as for him, he was of the kindred of the House, and wasfoster-father of Iron-face and of his sons both; and his name wasStone-face: a stark warrior had he been when he was young, and even nowhe could do a man’s work in the battlefield, and his understanding was asgood as that of a man in his prime. So went these and four others up onto 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 somefifty men and women who were deemed to be of the kindred and sat at theendlong tables.
So then the Alderman stood up and made the sign of the Hammer over themeat, the token of his craft and of his God. Then they fell to with goodhearts, for there was enough and to spare of meat and drink. There wasbread and flesh (though not Gold-mane’s venison), and leeks and roastedchestnuts of the grove, and red-cheeked apples of the garth, and honeyenough 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 gildedcopper bowls and in mazers girt and lipped with gold.
But when they were full of meat, and had drunken somewhat, they fell tospeech, and Iron-face spake aloud to his son, who had but been speakingsoftly 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’sflesh on a Thursday, though my son has lain abroad in the woods all nightto hunt for me.’
And therewith he smiled in the young man’s face; but Gold-mane reddenedand said: ‘So is it, kinsman, I can hit what I can see; but not what ishidden.’
Iron-face laughed and said: ‘Hast thou been to the Woodland-Carles? aretheir women fairer than our cousins?’
Face-of-god took up the Bride’s hand in his and kissed it and laid it tohis cheek; and then turned to his father and said: ‘Nay, father, I sawnot the Wood-carles, nor went to their abode; and on no day do I lustafter 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 bythen I came.’
‘Well, son,’ quoth Iron-face, for he was merry, ‘a roebuck is but alittle deer for such big men as are thou and I. But I rede thee take theBride along with thee the next time; and she shall seek whilest thousleepest, and hit when thou missest.’
Then Face-of-god smiled, but he frowned somewhat also, and he said: ‘Wellwere that, indeed! But if ye must needs drag a true tale out of me: thatroebuck I shot at the very edge of the wood nigh to the Mote-stead as Iwas 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 morningin 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 Ifelt in myself even so long as I was underneath the black boughs, andthere was none beside me and before me, and none to turn aback to: butwhen I came out again into the sunshine, and I saw the fair dale, and thehappy abode lying before me, and folk abroad in the meads merry in theeventide; then was I full fain of it, and loathed the wood as an emptything that had nought to give me; and lo you! all that I had been longingfor in the wood, was it not in this House and ready to my hand?—and thatis good meseemeth.’
Therewith he drank of the cup which the Bride put into his hand after shehad 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 myFathers, with the holy hearth sparkling and gleaming down there beforeme; 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 verycup: now it seems to me that amidst all this, the dark cold wood, whereinabide but the beasts and the Foes of the Gods, is bidding me to it anddrawing me thither. Narrow is the Dale and the World is wide; I would itwere dawn and daylight, that I might be afoot again.’
And he half rose up from his place. But his father bent his brow on himand said: ‘Kinsman, thou hast a long tongue for a half-trained whelp: norsee I whitherward thy mind is wandering, but if it be on the road of alad’s desire to go further and fare worse. Hearken then, I will offerthee somewhat! Soon shall the West-country merchants be here with theirwinter 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 thestrangers? To whom indeed thou shalt be nothing save a purse with a fewlumps of gold in it, or maybe a spear in the stranger’s band on thestricken field, or a bow on the wall of an alien city. This is a craftwhich thou mayst well learn, since thou shalt be a chieftain; a craftgood to learn, however grievous it be in the learning. And I myself havebeen there; for in my youth I desired sore to look on the world beyondthe mountains; so I went, and I filled my belly with the fruit of my owndesires, and a bitter meat was that; but now that it has passed throughme, and I yet alive, belike I am more of a grown man for having enduredits 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 andspearmen.’
‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘I thank thee, for it is well offered; but Iwill not go, for I have no lust for the Plain and its Cities; I love theDale 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, butspake not. Sooth to say her heart was sinking, as though she forebodedsome 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 thewild-wood better than most, and have done for these three-score and tenyears; to my cost. Now I perceive that thou longest for the wood and theinnermost of it; and wot ye what? This longing will at whiles entanglethe sons of our chieftains, though this Alderman that now is hath beenfree therefrom, which is well for him. For, time was this longing cameover me, and I went whither it led me: overlong it were to tell of allthat befell me because of it, and how my heart bled thereby. So sorrywere the tidings that came of it, that now meseemeth my heart should beof stone and not my face, had it not been for the love wherewith I haveloved the sons of the kindred. Therefore, son, it were not ill if yewent west away with the merchants this winter, and learned the dealingsof 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 andtheir whores and their runagates. But as for the wood and its wonders, Ihave done with it, save for hunting there along with others of the Folk.So let thy mind be at ease; and for the rest, I will do what the Aldermancommandeth, 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! Forsuch things are in the wood, yea and before ye come to its innermost, asmay well try the stoutest heart. Therein are Kobbolds, and Wights thatlove not men, things unto whom the grief of men is as the sound of thefiddle-bow unto us. And there abide the ghosts of those that may notrest; and there wander the dwarfs and the mountain-dwellers, the dealersin marvels, the givers of gifts that destroy Houses; the forgers of thecurse that clingeth and the murder that flitteth to and fro. Theremoreover are the lairs of Wights in the shapes of women, that draw ayoung man’s heart out of his body, and fill up the empty place withdesire never to be satisfied, that they may mock him therewith and wastehis manhood and destroy him. Nor say I much of the strong-thieves thatdwell there, since thou art a valiant sword; or of them who have beenmade Wolves of the Holy Places; o
r of the Murder-Carles, the remnants andoff-scourings of wicked and wretched Folks—men who think as much of thelife of a man as of the life of a fly. Yet happiest is the man whom theyshall tear in pieces, than he who shall live burdened by the curse of theFoes of the Gods.’
The housemaster looked on his son as the old carle spake, and a cloudgathered on his face a while; and when Stone-face had made an end hespake:
‘This is long and evil talk for the end of a merry day, O fosterer! Wiltthou not drink a draught, O Redesman, and then stand up and set thyfiddle-bow a-dancing, and cause it draw some fair words after it? For mycousin’s face hath grown sadder than a young maid’s should be, and myson’s eyes gleam with thoughts that are far away from us and abroad inthe wild-wood seeking marvels.’
Then arose a man of middle-age from the top of the endlong bench on theeast side of the hall: a man tall, thin and scant-haired, with a noselike an eagle’s neb: he reached out his hand for the bowl, and when theyhad 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 lovethat 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 mendrank, both carles and queens, with shouting and great joy. ThenRedesman put down the cup (for it had come into his hands again), andreached his hand to the wall behind him, and took down his fiddle hangingthere in its case, and drew it out and fell to tuning it, while the hallgrew silent to hearken: then he handled the bow and laid it on thestrings till they wailed and chuckled sweetly, and when the song was wellawake 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; For 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 thehall; and an old man arose and cried: ‘A cup to the memory of the Mightyof the Day of the Warding of the Ways.’ For you must know this song toldof 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 betwixtthe river and the cliffs, two furlongs from the gate of Burgstead. Sonow two weeks before Midsummer those maidens who were presently to bewedded 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 onthe highway from morn till even as though they were a guard to it. Andthey made merry there, singing songs and telling tales of times past: andat the sunsetting their grooms came to fetch them away to the Feast ofthe Eve of the Wedding.
While the song was a-singing Face-of-god took the Bride’s hand in his andcaressed it, and was soft and blithe with her; and she reddened andtrembled for pleasure, and called to mind wedding feasts that had been,and fair brides that she had seen thereat, and she forgot her fears andher heart was at peace again.
And Iron-face looked well-pleased on the two from time to time, andsmiled, but forbore words to them.
But up and down the hall men talked with one another about things longago betid: for their hearts were high and they desired deeds; but in thatfair Dale so happy were the years from day to day that there was butlittle to tell of. So deepened the night and waned, and Gold-mane andthe Bride still talked sweetly together, and at whiles kindly to theothers; 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 drankthereof and went their ways to bed.