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) 📕

been bitter enough, for all that ye see me smooth of skin and well-liking of body.  I have been the bed-thrall of one of the chieftains of the Dusky Men, at whose house many of their great men would assemble, so that ye may ask me whatso ye will; as I have heard much talk and may call it to mind.  Now if ye ask me whether I have fled because of the shame that I, a free woman p. 213come of free folk, should be a mere thrall in the bed of the foes of my kin, and with no price paid for me, I must needs say it is not so; since over long have we of the Dale been thralls to be ashamed of such a matter.  And again, if ye deem that I have fled because I have been burdened with grievous toil and been driven thereto by the whip, ye may look on my hands and my body and ye will see that I have toiled little therewith: nor again did I flee because I could not endure a few stripes now and again; for such usage do thralls look for, even when they are delicately kept for the sake of the fairness of their bodies, and this they may well endure; yea also, and the mere fear of death by torment now and again.  But before me lay death both assured and horrible; so I took mine own counsel, and told none for fear of bewrayal, save him who guarded me; and that was this man; who fled not from fear, but from love of me, and to him I have given all that I might give.  So we got out of the house and down the Dale by night and cloud, and hid for one whole day in the Dale itself, where I trembled and feared, so that I deemed I should die of fear; but this man was well pleased with my company, and with the lack of toil and beating even for the day.  And in the night again we fled and reached the wild-wood before dawn, and well-nigh fell into the hands of those who were hunting us, and had outgone us the day before, as we lay hid.  Well, what is to say?  They saw us not, else had we not been here, but scattered piece-meal over the land.  This carle knew the passes of the wood, because he had followed his master therein, who was a great hunter in the wastes, contrary to the wont of these men, and he had lain a night on the burg yonder; therefore he brought me thither, because he knew that thereabout was plenty of prey easy to take, and he had a bow with him; and there we fell in with others of our folk who had fled before, and with Dallach; who e’en now told us what was hard to believe, that there was a fair young man like one of the Gods leading a band of goodly warriors, and seeking for us to bring us into a peaceful and happy land; and this man would p. 214not have gone with him because he feared that he might fall into thralldom of other folk, who would take me away from him; but for me, I said I would go in any case, for I was weary of the wood and its roughness and toil, and that if I had a new master he would scarcely be worse than my old one was at his best, and him I could endure.  So I went, and glad and glad I am, whatever ye will do with me.  And now will I answer whatso ye may ask of me.’

She laid her limbs together daintily and looked fondly on Face-of-god, and the carle scowled at her somewhat at first, but presently, as he watched her, his face smoothed itself out of its wrinkles.

But Face-of-god pondered a little while, and then asked the woman if she had heard any words to remember of late days concerning the affairs of the Dusky Men and their intent; and he said:

‘I pray thee, sister, be truthful in thine answer, for somewhat lieth on it.’

She said: ‘How could I speak aught but the sooth to thee, O lovely lord?  The last word spoken hereof I mind me well: for my master had been mishandling me, and I was sullen to him after the smart, and he mocked and jeered me, and said: Ye women deem we cannot do without you, but ye are fools, and know nothing; we are going to conquer a new land where the women are plenty, and far fairer than ye be; and we shall leave you to fare afield like the other thralls, or work in the digging of silver; and belike ye wot what that meaneth.  Also he said that they would leave us to the new tribe of their folk, far wilder than they, whom they looked for in the Dale in about a moon’s wearing; so that they needs must seek to other lands.  Also this same talk would we hear whenever it pleased any of them to mock us their bed-thralls.  Now, my sweet lord, this is nought but the very sooth.’

Again spake Face-of-god after a while:

‘Tell me, sister, hast thou heard of any of the Dusky Men being slain in the wood?’

p. 215‘Yea,’ she said, and turned pale therewith and caught her breath as one choking; but said in a little while:

‘This alone was it hard for me to tell thee amongst all the I griefs I have borne, whereof I might have told thee many tales, and will do one day if thou wilt suffer it; but fear makes this hard for me.  For in very sooth this was the cause of my fleeing, that my master was brought in slain by an arrow in the wood; and he was to be borne to bale and burned in three days’ wearing; and we three bed-thralls of his, and three of the best of the men-thralls, were to be burned quick on his bale-fire after sore torments; therefore I fled, and hid a knife in my bosom, that I might not be taken alive; but sweet was life to me, and belike I should not have smitten myself.’

And she wept sore for pity of herself before them all.  But Face-of-god said:

‘Knowest thou, sister, by whom the man was slain?’

‘Nay,’ she said, still sobbing; ‘but I heard nought thereof, nor had I noted it in my terror.  The death of others, who were slain before him, and the loss of many, we knew not how, made them more bitterly cruel with us.’

And again was she weeping; but Face-of-god said kindly to her: ‘Weep no more, sister, for now shall all thy troubles be over; I feel in my heart that we shall overcome these felons, and make an end of them, and there then is Burgdale for thee in its length and breadth, or thine own Dale to dwell in freely.’

‘Nay,’ she said, ‘never will I go back thither!’ and she turned round to him and kissed his feet, and then arose and turned a little toward her mate; and the carle caught her by the hand and led her away, and seemed glad so to do.

So once again they fell asleep in the woods, and again the next morning fared on their way early that they might come into Burgdale before nightfall.  When they stayed a while at noontide and ate, Face-of-god again had talk with the Runaways, and this time with those of Rose-dale, and he heard much the same story p. 216from them that he had heard before, told in divers ways, till his heart was sick with the hearing of it.

On this last day Face-of-god led his men well athwart the wood, so that he hit Wildlake’s Way without coming to Carl-stead; and he came down into the Dale some four hours after noon on a bright day of latter March.  At the ingate to the Dale he found watches set, the men whereof told him that the tidings were not right great.  Hall-face’s company had fallen in with a band of the Felons three score in number in the oak-wood nigh to Boars-bait, and had slain some and chased the rest, since they found it hard to follow them home as they ran for the tangled thicket: of the Burgdalers had two been slain and five hurt in this battle.

As for Red-coat’s company, they had fallen in with no foemen.

CHAPTER XXIX.  THEY BRING THE RUNAWAYS TO BURGSTEAD.

So now being out of the wood, they went peaceably and safely along the Portway, the Runaways mingling with the Dalesmen.  Strange showed amidst the health and wealth of the Dale the rags and misery and nakedness of the thralls, like a dream amidst the trim gaiety of spring; and whomsoever they met, or came up with on the road, whatso his business might be, could not refrain himself from following them, but mingled with the men-at-arms, and asked them of the tidings; and when they heard who these poor people were, even delivered thralls of the Foemen, they were glad at heart and cried out for joy; and many of the women, nay, of the men also, when they first came across that misery from out the heart of their own pleasant life, wept for pity and love of the poor folk, now at last set free, and blessed the swords that should do the like by the whole people.

They went slowly as men began to gather about them; yea, p. 217some of the good folk that lived hard by must needs fare home to their houses to fetch cakes and wine for the guests; and they made them sit down and rest on the green grass by the side of the Portway, and eat and drink to cheer their hearts; others, women and young swains, while they rested went down into the meadows and plucked of the spring flowers, and twined them hastily with deft and well-wont fingers into chaplets and garlands for their heads and bodies.  Thus indeed they covered their nakedness, till the lowering faces and weather-beaten skins of those hardly-entreated thralls looked grimly out from amidst the knots of cowslip and oxlip, and the branches of the milk-white blackthorn bloom, and the long trumpets of the daffodils, of the hue that wrappeth round the quill which the webster takes in hand when she would pleasure her soul with the sight of the yellow growing upon the dark green web.

So they went on again as the evening was waning, and when they were gotten within a furlong of the Gate, lo! there was come the minstrelsy, the pipe and the tabor, the fiddle and the harp, and the folk that had learned to sing the sweetest, both men and women, and Redesman at the head of them all.

Then fell the throng into an ordered company; first went the music, and then a score of Face-of-god’s warriors with drawn swords and uplifted spears; and then the flower-bedecked misery of the Runaways, men and women going together, gaunt, befouled, and hollow-eyed, with here and there a flushed cheek or gleaming eye, or tear-bedewed face, as the joy and triumph of the eve pierced through their wonted weariness of grief; then the rest of the warriors, and lastly the mingled crowd of Dalesfolk, tall men and fair women gaily arrayed, clean-faced, clear-skinned, and sleek-haired, with glancing eyes and ruddy lips.

And now Redesman turned about to the music and drew his bow across his fiddle, and the other bows ran out in concert, and the harps followed the story of them, and he lifted up his voice and sang the words of an old song, and all the singers joined him p. 218and blended their voices with his.  And these are some of the words which they sang:

Lo! here is Spring, and all we are living,
   We that were wan with Winter’s fear;
Reach out your hands to her hands that are giving,
   Lest ye lose her love and the light of the year.

Many a morn did we wake to sorrow,
   When low on the land the cloud-wrath lay;
Many an eve we feared to-morrow,
   The unbegun unfinished day.

Ah we—we hoped not, and thou wert tardy;
   Nought wert thou helping; nought we prayed.
Where was the eager heart, the hardy?
   Where was the sweet-voiced unafraid?

But now thou lovest, now thou leadest,
   Where is gone the grief of our minds?
What was the word of the tale, that thou heedest
   E’en as the breath of the bygone winds?

Green and green is thy garment growing
   Over thy blossoming limbs beneath;
Up o’er our feet rise the blades of thy sowing,
   Pierced are our