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

home-plain, which Birdalone had never erst come into; and three eyots lay off it, green and tree-beset, whereto they swam out together. Then they went into the wood thereby in the heat of the afternoon, and so wore the day, that they deemed themselves belated, and lay there under a thorn-bush the night through.

Another day Birdalone took her mate over on to Green Eyot and Rock Eyot, and showed him all the places she was used to haunt. And they had their fishing-gear with them, and angled off the eyots a good part of the day, and had good catch, and swam back therewith merrily. And Birdalone laughed, and said that it seemed to her as if once again she were ransoming her skin of the witch-wife by that noble catch.

Diverse times also they fared into the wood, and thrice they lay out the night there in some woodlawn where was water; and on one of these times it happed that Arthur awoke in the grey dawn, and lay open-eyed but not moving for a little; and therewith he deemed he saw the gleam of war-gear in the thicket. So he kept as still as he might, but gat his sword out of its sheath without noise, and then leapt up suddenly, and sprang thitherward whereas he had seen that token, and again saw armour gleam and heard some man crashing through the underwood, for all was gone in one moment. So he woke up Birdalone, and they bended their bows both of them, and searched the thicket thereabouts heedfully, arrow on string, but found nought fiercer than a great sow and her farrow. So came the full day, and they gat them back to their meadows and their house; but thereafter were they warier in going about the woodland.

In all joyance then wore the days till the fifteenth, and in the morning early they went their ways to the Oak of Tryst, and had no need to call Habundia to them, for presently she came forth out of the thicket, with her gown gathered up into her girdle and bow in hand. But she cast it down and ran up to Birdalone, and kissed her and clipped her, and then she took a hand of Arthur and a hand of Birdalone, and held them both and said: My child, and thou dear knight, have ye still a longing to fall in with those friends of yours, and to run all risk of whatsoever contention and strife there may be betwixt you thereafter? Yea, certes, said Arthur; and even so said Birdalone. Well is that then, said the wood-wife; but now and for this time, ere I help you, I shall put a price upon my help, and this is the price, that ye swear to me never wholly to sunder from me; that once in the year at least, as long as ye be alive and wayworthy, ye come into the Forest of Evilshaw, and summon me by the burning of a hair of mine, that we may meet and be merry for a while, and part with the hope of meeting once more at least. And if ye will not pay the price, go in peace, and ye shall yet have my help in all other matters that may seem good unto you, but not in this of joining your fellowship together. How sayest thou, Birdalone, my child? How sayest thou, Black Squire, whom, as meseemeth, I have delivered from a fate worse than death, and have brought out of wretchedness into bliss?

Spake Birdalone: Had I dared, I would have bidden thee to swear to me even such an oath, to wit, that thou wouldst never wholly sunder thee from me. How then may I not swear this that thou biddest me, and that with all joy and trustiness?

Spake Arthur: Lady, had I no will to swear oath for thy sake, yet with a good will would I swear it for my truelove’s sake who loveth thee. Yet verily of mine own will would I swear it joyfully, were it for nought else save to pleasure thee, who hast done so kindly by me, and hath given me back my manhood and my love, which else I had miserably lost.

Spake the wood-wife: It is well again. Join hands then, and swear as I have bidden you by the love ye bear each other.

Even so they did, and then the wood-wife kissed them both and said: Now do I deem you earth’s very children and mine, and this desire of yours is good, and it shall be done if I may bring it about; yet therein the valiance and wisdom of you both may well be tried. For this have I found out by my messengers and others, that your friends are alive, all of them; and they have thought of you in their inmost hearts, and have long determined that they must needs go seek you if they are to live lives happy and worthy. Furthermore, their quest hath drawn them hither to Evilshaw (nor say I that I have been nothing therein), and they are even now in the wood. But ye shall know that peril encompasses them; for they fare but a few, and of those few be there two traitors who are minded to deliver them to the men of the Red Company, unto whom three women as fair as your she-friends were a prize indeed. Wherefore the Red Folk are dogging them, and will fall upon them when they find the occasion. But I shall see to it that the occasion shall be in time and place where they shall not be unholpen. Now what ye have to do for your parts, is to waylay the waylayers, and keep watch and ward anigh the road they must needs take, and to fall on when need is. But this again I shall see to, that your onset fail not.

But now ye may say: Since thou