The Roots of the Mountains<br />Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale, Their by William Morris (best authors to read txt) 📕

The man put forth his hands towards him as if praying him to forbear casting, and looked at him hard, and then came dripping from out the water, and seemed not greatly afeard; for he stooped down and picked up the trouts he had taken, and came towards Face-of-god stringing the last-caught one through the gills on to the withy whereon were the others: and Face-of-god saw that he was a goodly man of some thirty winters.

Then Face-of-god looked on him with friendly eyes and said:

‘Art thou a foemen? or wilt thou be helpful to us?’

He answered in the speech of the kindreds with the hoarse voice of a much weather-beaten man:

‘Thou seest, lord, that I am naked and unarmed.’

‘Yet may’st thou bewray us,’ said Face-of-god.  ‘What man art thou?’

Said the man: ‘I am the runaway thrall of evil men; I have fled from Rose-dale and the Dusky Men.  Hast thou the heart to hurt me?’

‘We are the foemen of the Dusky Men,’ said Face-of-God; ‘wilt thou help us against them?’

The man knit his brows and said: ‘Yea, if ye will give me your word not to suffer me to fall into their hands alive.  But whence art thou, to be so bold?’

p. 196Said Face-of-god: ‘We are of Burgdale; and I will swear to thee on the edge of the sword that thou shalt not fall alive into the hands of the Dusky Men.’

‘Of Burgdale have I heard,’ said the man; ‘and in sooth thou seemest not such a man as would bewray a hapless man.  But now had I best bring you to some lurking-place where ye shall not be easily found of these devils, who now oft-times scour the woods hereabout.’

Said Face-of-god: ‘Come first and see my fellows; and then if thou thinkest we have need to hide, it is well.’

So the man went side by side with him towards their lair, and as they went Gold-mane noted marks of stripes on his back and sides, and said: ‘Sorely hast thou been mishandled, poor man!’

Then the man turned on him and said somewhat fiercely: ‘Said I not that I had been a thrall of the Dusky Men? how then should I have escaped tormenting and scourging, if I had been with them for but three days?’

As he spake they came about a thorn-bush, and there were the Burgdale men down in the hollow; and the man said: ‘Are these thy fellows?  Call to mind that thou hast sworn by the edge of the sword not to hurt me.’

‘Poor man!’ said Face-of-god; ‘these are thy friends, unless thou bewrayest us.’

Then he cried aloud to his folk: ‘Here is now a good hap! this is a runaway thrall of the Dusky Men; of him shall we hear tidings; so cherish him all ye may.’

So the carles thronged about him and bestirred themselves to help him, and one gave him his surcoat for a kirtle, and another cast a cloak about him; and they brought him meat and drink, such as they had ready to hand: and the man looked as if he scarce believed in all this, but deemed himself to be in a dream.  But presently he turned to Face-of-god and said:

‘Now I see so many men and weapons I deem that ye have no need to skulk in caves to-night, though I know of good ones: p. 197yet shall ye do well not to light a fire till moon-setting; for the flame ye may lightly hide, but the smoke may be seen from far aloof.’

But they bade him to meat, and he needed no second bidding but ate lustily, and they gave him wine, and he drank a great draught and sighed as for joy.  Then he said in a trembling voice, as though he feared a naysay:

‘If ye are from Burgdale ye shall be faring back again presently; and I pray you to take me with you.’

Said Face-of-god: ‘Yea surely, friend, that will we do, and rejoice in thee.’

Then he drank another cup which Warcliff held out to him, and spake again: ‘Yet if ye would abide here till about noon to-morrow, or mayhappen a little later, I would bring other runaways to see you; and them also might ye take with you: ye may think when ye see them that ye shall have small gain of their company; for poor wretched folk they be, like to myself.  Yet since ye seek for tidings, herein might they do you more service than I; for amongst them are some who came out of the hapless Dale within this moon; and it is six months since I escaped.  Moreover, though they may look spent and outworn now, yet if ye give them a little rest, and feed them well, they shall yet do many a day’s work for you: and I tell you that if ye take them for thralls, and put collars on their necks, and use them no worse than a goodman useth his oxen and his asses, beating them not save when they are idle or at fault, it shall be to them as if they were come to heaven out of hell, and to such goodhap as they have not thought of, save in dreams, for many and many a day.  And thus I entreat you to do because ye seem to me to be happy and merciful men, who will not begrudge us this happiness.’

The carles of Burgdale listened eagerly to what he said, and they looked at him with great eyes and marvelled; and their hearts were moved with pity towards him; and Stone-face said:

p. 198‘Herein, O War-leader, need I give thee no rede, for thou mayst see clearly that all we deem that we should lose our manhood and become the dastards of the Warrior if we did not abide the coming of these poor men, and take them back to the Dale, and cherish them.’

‘Yea,’ said Wolf of Whitegarth, ‘and great thanks we owe to this man that he biddeth us this: for great will be the gain to us if we become so like the Gods that we may deliver the poor from misery.  Now must I needs think how they shall wonder when they come to Burgdale and find out how happy it is to dwell there.’

‘Surely,’ said Face-of-god, ‘thus shall we do, whatever cometh of it.  But, friend of the wood, as to thralls, there be none such in the Dale, but therein are all men friends and neighbours, and even so shall ye be.’

And he fell a-musing, when he bethought him of how little he had known of sorrow.

But that man, when he beheld the happy faces of the Burgdalers, and hearkened to their friendly voices, and understood what they said, and he also was become strong with the meat and drink, he bowed his head adown and wept a long while; and they meddled not with him, till he turned again to them and said:

‘Since ye are in arms, and seem to be seeking your foemen, I suppose ye wot that these tyrants and man-quellers will fall upon you in Burgdale ere the summer is well worn.’

‘So much we deem indeed,’ said Face-of-god, ‘but we were fain to hear the certainty of it, and how thou knowest thereof.’

Said the man: ‘It was six moons ago that I fled, as I have told you; and even then it was the common talk amongst our masters that there were fair dales to the south which they would overrun.  Man would say to man: We were over many in Silver-dale, and we needed more thralls, because those we had were lessening, and especially the women; now are we more at ease p. 199in Rose-dale, though we have sent thralls to Silver-dale; but yet we can bear no more men from thence to eat up our stock from us: let them fare south to the happy dales, and conquer them, and we will go with them and help therein, whether we come back to Rose-dale or no.  Such talk did I hear then with mine own ears: but some of those whom I shall bring to you to-morrow shall know better what is doing, since they have fled from Rose-dale but a few days.  Moreover, there is a man and a woman who have fled from Silver-dale itself, and are but a month from it, journeying all the time save when they must needs hide; and these say that their masters have got to know the way to Burgdale, and are minded for it before the winter, as I said; and nought else but the ways thither do they desire to know, since they have no fear.’

By then was night come, and though the moon was high in heaven, and lighted all that waste, the Burgdalers must needs light a fire for cooking their meat, whatsoever that woodsman might say; moreover, the night was cold and somewhat frosty.  A little before they had come to that place they had shot a fat buck and some smaller deer, but of other meat they had no great store, though there was wine enough.  So they lit their fire in the thickest of the thorn-bush to hide it all they might, and thereat they cooked their venison and the trouts which the runaway had taken, and they fell to, and ate and drank and were merry, making much of that poor man till him-seemed he was gotten into the company of the kindest of the Gods.

But when they were full, Face-of-god spake to him, and asked him his name; and he named himself Dallach; but said he: ‘Lord, this is according to the naming of men in Rose-dale before we were enthralled: but now what names have thralls?  Also I am not altogether of the blood of them of Rose-dale, but of better and more warrior-like kin.’

Said Face-of-god: ‘Thou hast named Silver-dale; knowest thou it?’

p. 200Dallach answered: ‘I have never seen it.  It is far hence; in a week’s journey, making all diligence, and not being forced to hide and skulk like those runaways, ye shall come to the mouth thereof lying west, where its rock-walls fall off toward the plain.’

‘But,’ said Face-of-god, ‘is there no other way into that Dale?’

‘Nay, none that folk wot of,’ said Dallach, ‘except to bold cragsmen with their lives in their hands.’

‘Knowest thou aught of the affairs of Silver-dale?’ said Face-of-god.

Said Dallach: ‘Somewhat I know: we wot that but a few years ago there was a valiant folk dwelling therein, who were lords of the whole dale, and that they were vanquished by the Dusky Men: but whether they were all slain and enthralled we wot not; but we deem it otherwise.  As for me it is of their blood that I am partly come; for my father’s father came thence to settle in Rose-dale, and wedded a woman of the Dale, who was my father’s mother.’

‘When was it that ye fell under the Dusky Men?’ said Face-of-god.

Said Dallach: ‘It was five years ago.  They came into the Dale a great company, all in arms.’

‘Was there battle betwixt you?’ said Face-of-god.

‘Alas! not so,’ said Dallach.  ‘We were a happy folk there; but soft and delicate: for the Dale is exceeding fertile, and beareth wealth in abundance, both corn and oil and wine and fruit, and of beasts for man’s service the best that may be.  Would that there had been battle, and that I had died therein with those that had a heart to fight; and even so saith now every man, yea, every woman in the Dale.  But it was not so when the elders met in our Council-House on the day when the Dusky Men bade us pay them tribute and give them houses to dwell in and lands to live by.  Then had we weapons in our hands, but no hearts to use them.’

p. 201‘What befell then?’ said the goodman of Whitegarth.

Said Dallach: ‘Look ye to it, lords, that it befall not in Burgdale!  We gave them all they asked for, and deemed we had much left.  What befell, sayst thou?  We sat quiet; we went about our work in fear and trembling, for grim and hideous were they to look on.  At first they meddled not much with us, save to take from our houses what they would of meat and drink, or raiment, or plenishing.  And all this we deemed we might bear, and that we needed no more than to toil a little more each day so as to win somewhat more of wealth.  But soon we found that it would not be so; for they had no mind to till the teeming earth or work in the acres we had given them, or to sit at the loom, or hammer in the stithy, or do any manlike work; it was we that must do all that