The Water of the Wondrous Isles, William Morris [bill gates best books txt] 📗

but thin-lipped. Quoth the poor-wife: No, no; it is of no use; nought such was she. Then Birdalone looked up and said eagerly: Yea, but it was her other shape belike: therein was she a tall woman, dark-haired, hook-nosed, and hawk-eyed, as if of thirty summers; a stark woman. Hast thou seen such? dost thou remember her?

The woman sprang up and cried out, and was like to have fallen, but Birdalone arose and held her in her arms and comforted her, and set her in her seat again and knelt before her; and presently the poor-wife came to herself and said: My child, thou sayest do I remember her; how shall I ever forget her? she was the thief who stole my child.

Therewith she slid from off her seat, and knelt by Birdalone, and stooped low down on the floor as if the tall maiden were but a little one, and she fell to kissing her and patting her, her face and her hands, and all about; and said, sobbing and yet smiling: Suffer me a little, my child, mine own lovely child! For in good sooth I am thy mother, and it is long since I have seen thee: but hearken, when I come quite to myself I shall pray thee not to leave me yet awhile, and I shall pray thee to love me.

Birdalone clipped and kissed her, and said: I love thee dearly, and never, never shall I leave thee.

Then they stood up, and the mother took Birdalone by the shoulders, and held her a little aloof, and devoured her with her eyes; and she said: Yea, thou hast grown tall, and belike wilt grow no taller: and how fair and lovely thou hast grown; and thou that wert born in a poor man’s house! no wonder that any should covet thee. And I, I wonder if ever I was as fair as thou art; forsooth many called me fair for a little while; and now behold me! Nay, child and darling, let not thy face grow downcast, for now shall I know nought more of fear and grief; and is it not like that I shall grow fairer of flesh, and shapelier, in the happy days we shall dwell together? And therewith she took her to her arms, and it seemed as if she might never have enough of clipping and embracing her; and she would look at Birdalone’s hands and her feet and her arms, and stroke them and caress them; and she wondered at her body, as if she had been a young mother eaten up with the love of her firstborn. And as for Birdalone, she was as glad of her mother as might be; and yet in her heart she wondered if perchance one of the fellowship might stray that way, and be partaker in her joy of this newfound dear friend; and she said, might it be Viridis; but in her inmost heart, though she told it not to herself, she longed that the Black Squire might find her out at last.

IV Of the Love of Gerard’s Sons and of Jacobus for Birdalone

Now dwelt Birdalone in rest and peace when she had been taken into the guild along with her mother, and they had taken the due apprentices to them; and they began to gather much of goods to them, for of fine broidery there was little done in the Five Crafts, and none at all that could be put beside their work, either for beauty of the draught of it, or for skill of handiwork. She declared unto all folk how that the poor-wife (who had to name Audrey) was her very mother, from whom she had been stolen in her youngest days; but she told none any tale of how she was stolen. And the twain dwelt together in the greatest loving-kindness; and it was with Audrey as she had forecast, that now her days were happy, and she living in all ease and content, that the goodliness of her youth came back to her, and she became a fair woman as for her years; and therewith it grew to be clear that the two were so much alike one to the other, that all might see that they were mother and daughter.

Gerard and his two sons she maintained yet as her men; and not only were they of much use to her in fetching and carrying, but also true it is that her beauty was so manifest, that she whiles needed a stout lad weaponed at her back when she was in the streets or amidst the throng of the market; and many were they, and whiles of the highest, who craved love of her, some with honour, and some with lack of it.

Of these, forsooth, were but two that anywise troubled her; and the most trouble was this, that she might not fail to see that the love of her had entered into the hearts of the two Gerardsons, Robert and Giles; so that times were when she deemed she must even send them away, but when it came to the point she had not the heart thereto; though none other remedy there seemed, so sorely as their souls were wounded by longing for her. It is not to be said that they ever spake to her thereof, or wittingly wearied her with signs of love; but they could not so easily cover it up but that it was ever before her eyes. But she suffered it all for friendship’s sake and for their true service, and in all friendliness did what she might to solace their grief. Forsooth so good and true she found that father-kind, and the young men so goodly and kind, that she said to herself, had she not another man lying in her heart, she might well have chosen one of those twain for her very speech-friend and true lover.

The second wooer that troubled her was the master,