II
_Still thou art blest compared wi' me!_
--ROBERT BURNS.
It is to be wondered at that in so bleak a wind I could possibly fallinto reverie. But the habit was rooted deep in me; Rosinante wasprosaic and trustworthy; the country for miles around familiar to meas the palm of my hand. Yet so deeply was I involved, and so steadilyhad we journeyed on, that when at last I lifted my eyes with a greatsigh that was almost a sob, I found myself in a place utterly unknownto me.
But more inexplicable yet, not only was the place strange, but, bysome incredible wizardry, Rosinante seemed to have carried me out of aMarch morning, blue and tumultuous and bleak, into the grey, sweetmist of a midsummer dawn.
I found that we were ambling languidly on across a green and levelmoor. Far away, whether of clouds or hills I could not yet tell, rosecold towers and pinnacles into the last darkness of night. Above us inthe twilight invisible larks climbed among the daybeams, singing asthey flew. A thick dew lay in beads on stick and stalk. We were alonewith the fresh wind of morning and the clear pillars of the East.
On I went, heedless, curious, marvelling; my only desire to pressforward to the goal whereto destiny was directing me. I suppose afterthis we had journeyed about an hour, and the risen sun was on theextreme verge of the gilded horizon, when I espied betwixt me and thedeep woods that lay in the distance a little child walking.
She, at any rate, was not a stranger to this moorland. Indeed,something in her carriage, in the grey cloak she wore, in her light,insistent step, in the old lantern she carried, in the shrill littlesong she or the wind seemed singing, for a moment half impelled me toturn aside. Even Rosinante pricked forward her ears, and stooped hergentle face to view more closely this light traveller. And she pawedthe ground with her great shoe, and gnawed her bit when I drew reinand leaned forward in the saddle to speak to the child.
"Is there any path here, little girl, that I may follow?" I said.
"No path at all," she answered.
"But how then do strangers find their way across the moor?" I said.
She debated with herself a moment. "Some by the stars, and some by themoon," she answered.
"By the moon!" I cried. "But at day, what then?"
"Oh, then, sir," she said, "they can see."
I could not help laughing at her demure little answers. "Why!" Iexclaimed, "what a worldly little woman! And what is your name?"
"They call me Lucy Gray," she said, looking up into my face. I thinkmy heart almost ceased to beat.
"Lucy Gray!" I repeated.
"Yes," she said most seriously, as if to herself, "in all this snow."
"'Snow,'" I said--"this is dewdrops shining, not snow."
She looked at me without flinching. "How else can mother see how I amlost?" she said.
"Why!" said I, "how else?" not knowing how to reach her bright belief."And what are those thick woods called over there?"
She shook her head. "There is no name," she said.
"But you have a name--Lucy Gray; and you started out--do youremember?--one winter's day at dusk, and wandered on and on, on andon, the snow falling in the dark, till--Do you remember?"
She stood quite still, her small, serious face full to the east,striving with far-off dreams. And a merry little smile passed over herlips. "That will be a long time since," she said, "and I must be offhome." And as if it had been but an apparition of my eyes that hadbeset and deluded me, she was gone; and I found myself sitting astridein the full brightness of the sun's first beams, alone.
What omen was this, then, that I should meet first a phantom on myjourney? One thing only was clear: Rosinante could trust to her fivewits better than I to mine. So leaving her to take what way shepleased, I rode on, till at length we approached the woods I haddescried. Presently we were jogging gently down into a deep and mistyvalley flanked by bracken and pines, from which issued into the crispair of morning a most delicious aromatic smell, that seemed at leastto prove this valley not far remote from Araby.
I do not think I was disturbed, though I confess to having been alittle amazed to see how profound this valley was into which we weredescending, yet how swiftly climbed the sun, as if to pace with us sothat we should not be in shadow, howsoever fast we journeyed. I wasastonished to see flowers of other seasons than summer by the wayside,and to hear in June, for no other month could bear such greenabundance, the thrush sing with a February voice. Here too, almost atmy right hand, perched a score or more of robins, bright-dyed,warbling elvishly in chorus as if the may-boughs whereon they sat werewhite with hoarfrost and not buds. Birds also unknown to me in voiceand feather I saw, and little creatures in fur, timid yet not wild;fruits, even, dangled from the trees, as if, like the bramble, blossomand seed could live here together and prosper.
Yet why should I be distracted by these things, thought I. Iremembered Maundeville and Hithlodaye, Sindbad and Gulliver, and manyanother citizen of Thule, and was reassured. A man must either believewhat he sees, or see what he believes; I know no other course. Why,too, should I mistrust the bounty of the present merely for thescarcity of the past? Not I!
I rode on, and it seemed had advanced but a few miles before the sunstood overhead, and it was noon. We were growing weary, I think, ofsheer delight: Rosinante, with her mild face beneath its dark forelockgazing this side, that side, at the uncustomary landscape; and I everpeering forward beneath my hat in eagerness to descry some livingcreature a little bigger than these conies and squirrels, to prove meyet in lands inhabited. But the sun was wheeling headlong, and thestillness of late afternoon on the woods, when, dusty and parched andheavy, we came to a break in the thick foliage, and presently to agreen gate embowered in box.