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

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So he took her hand and led her along, and asked her by the way concerning her armour and weapons, and of the fashion of battle, and she told him thereof what she would.

Thus came they to the place where erst had been the cot under the ruin of the great ancient house; but now was gone all that ruin and the great grey walls, though the cot was left; and all about it were low bowers built of small wood and thatched undeftly. But the lad smiled when he saw it, as if the sight thereof made him happy; and he said: All these have we made since I have dwelt here, and no other home have I known.

And he led her into the cot, and set her down to eat and to drink, and through the open door she could see the children swarming, and they that were nighest thrusting each other this way and that to catch a sight of her.

Now she said: Fair child, how gattest thou this victual if there be no older folk to help you? Said he: We dig the ground and sow it, and the wheat comes up, and we reap it in harvest, and make bread of it; and we have goats and kine, and we milk them, and turn the milk with a little blue flower, which is fair to see. And there are in this isle little hills where the grapes grow plenty; and some we eat and some we dry for store. Lo thou, such be our ways for victual. But tell me, said he, thou sayest old, and I know not the word; art thou old? She laughed: Not very, said she, yet older than thou.

Said the lad: Thou art fair and dear to look on, and thy voice is sweet; wilt thou not abide with us, and teach us what it is to be old? Nay, said she, I may not, for I have an errand which driveth me on; wherefore I must be gone within this hour.

Forsooth, she was growing eager now to be done with her journey and come to the House under the Wood, whatever should befall her there. Moreover she deemed it would not be restful to her to abide among all these restless children, with their ceaseless crying and yelping: if rest she might, she would rest, she deemed, in the Isle of Increase Unsought, if there were no ill things abiding there.

Wherefore now she arose, when she had sat hearkening the sound of the lad’s prattle for a while, for as to the sense thereof she might not heed it overmuch. The youngling would not leave her, but led her, holding her hand, down to her ferry again; she kissed him in thanks for his meat, and he reddened thereat but said nought. All the whole rout of little ones had followed her down to the water, and now they stood, as thick as bees on a honeycomb, on the bank, to watch her departure. But if they were keen to see her doings before, how much keener were they when it came to the baring of her arm and the smearing of the Sending Boat. To be short, so keen were they, and pushed and shoved each other so sturdily, that more than one or two fell into the water, and Birdalone was frighted lest they should drown; but they swam like ducks, and got on to the land when they would, which was not so very soon, for some of them hung unto the gunwale of the boat, and hove their faces up to look over into it, and left not hold till the ferry was fairly under weigh and beginning to quicken its speed.

So left Birdalone the isle, and nought befell her on the way to the Isle of Increase Unsought.

XIV The Sending Boat Disappeareth from the Isle of Increase Unsought, and Birdalone Seeketh to Escape Thence by Swimming

It was as before that Birdalone came to the shore of the isle while it was yet night; but the wizard keel was so loathsome to her, that she stepped out of it and laid her down on the land for what was left of the night; yet hard she found her bed, and neither grassy nor flowery.

For all that, she slept, for she was weary, and it was broad day and not very early when she awoke. She stood up trembling, for she foreboded evil, so near as she was to the dwelling of her old mistress; and she looked up to where in time past was the fair and wicked house, and saw that all was changed indeed; for no longer was the isle goodly with meadow and orchard and garden, but was waste and bare, and nought grew on it save thin and wiry grass, already seeding even ere June was born, and here and there hard and ugly herbs, with scarce aught that might be called a flower amongst them. Trees there were yet, but the most of them stark dead, and the best dying fast. No beasts she saw, nor fowl; nothing but lizards and beetles, and now and again a dry grey adder coiled up about a sunburned stone. But of great carrion flies, green and blue, were there a many, and whiles they buzzed about her head till she sickened with loathing of them. All this she found on her way as she went up toward the place where erst was the great perron. But when she came to the top there was no sign either of the stairs or the house, or aught that ever was builded; there was nought but the bare bent top, ungrassed, parched by wind, scorched by sun, washed by rain.

She wandered about the isle, to places where she had not been herself, but which she deemed she might have known by the telling of the Green Knight’s tale, had there been no