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) 📕

a well-knit trim-faced Dalesman clad bravely in holiday raiment, girt with a goodly sword, bearing a bright steel helm on his head, in his hand a long spear with a gay red and white shaft done about with copper bands.  He looked merry and proud of his wain-load, and the woman was smiling kindly on him from out of her scarlet and fur; but now she turned a weary happy face on Gold-mane, for they knew him, as did all men of the Dale.

So he stopped when they met, for the goodman had already stayed his slow beasts, and the goodwife had risen a little on her cushions to greet him, yet slowly and but a little, for she was great with child, and not far from her time.  That knew Gold-mane well, and what was toward, and why the goodman wore his fine clothes, and why the wain was decked with oak-boughs and the yoke-beasts with their best gilded bells and copper-adorned harness.  For it was a custom with many of the kindreds that the goodwife should fare to her father’s house to lie in with her first babe, and the day of her coming home was made a great feast in the house.  So then Face-of-god cried out: ‘Hail to thee, O Warcliff!  Shrewd is the wind this morning, and thou dost well to heed it carefully, this thine orchard, this thy garden, this thy p. 28fair apple-tree!  To a good hall thou wendest, and the Wine of Increase shall be sweet there this even.’

Then smiled Warcliff all across his face, and the goodwife hung her head and reddened.  Said the goodman: ‘Wilt thou not be with us, son of the Alderman, as surely thy father shall be?’

‘Nay,’ said Face-of-god, ‘though I were fain of it: my own matters carry me away.’

‘What matters?’ said Warcliff; ‘perchance thou art for the cities this autumn?’

Face-of-god answered somewhat stiffly: ‘Nay, I am not;’ and then more kindly, and smiling, ‘All roads lead not down to the Plain, friend.’

‘What road then farest thou away from us?’ said the goodwife.

‘The way of my will,’ he answered.

‘And what way is that?’ said she; ‘take heed, lest I get a longing to know.  For then must thou needs tell me, or deal with the carle there beside thee.’

‘Nay, goodwife,’ said Face-of-god, ‘let not that longing take thee; for on that matter I am even as wise as thou.  Now good speed to thee and to the new-comer!’

Therewith he went close up to the wain, and reached out his hand to her, and she gave him hers and he kissed it, and so went his ways smiling kindly on them.  Then the carle cried to his kine, and they bent down their heads to the yoke; and presently, as he walked on, he heard the rumble of the wain mingling with the tinkling of their bells, which in a little while became measured and musical, and sounded above the creaking of the axles and the rattle of the gear and the roll of the great wheels over the road: and so it grew thinner and thinner till it all died away behind him.

He was now come to where the river turned away from the sheer rock-wall, which was not so high there as in most other places, as there had been in old time long screes from the cliff, which had now grown together, with the waxing of herbs and the p. 29washing down of the earth on to them, and made a steady slope or low hill going down riverward.  Over this the road lifted itself above the level of the meadows, keeping a little way from the cliffs, while on the other side its bank was somewhat broken and steep here and there.  As Face-of-god came up to one of these broken places, the sun rose over the eastern pass, and the meadows grew golden with its long beams.  He lingered, and looked back under his hand, and as he did so heard the voices and laughter of women coming up from the slope below him, and presently a young woman came struggling up the broken bank with hand and knee, and cast herself down on the roadside turf laughing and panting.  She was a long-limbed light-made woman, dark-faced and black-haired: amidst her laughter she looked up and saw Gold-mane, who had stopped at once when he saw her; she held out her hands to him, and said lightly, though her face flushed withal:

‘Come hither, thou, and help the others to climb the bank; for they are beaten in the race, and now must they do after my will; that was the forfeit.’

He went up to her, and took her hands and kissed them, as was the custom of the Dale, and said:

‘Hail to thee, Long-coat! who be they, and whither away this morning early?’

She looked hard at him, and fondly belike, as she answered slowly: ‘They be the two maidens of my father’s house, whom thou knowest; and our errand, all three of us, is to Burgstead, the Feast of the Wine of Increase which shall be drunk this even.’

As she spake came another woman half up the bank, to whom went Face-of-god, and, taking her hands, drew her up while she laughed merrily in his face: he saluted her as he had Long-coat, and then with a laugh turned about to wait for the third; who came indeed, but after a little while, for she had abided, hearing their voices.  Her also Gold-mane drew up, and kissed p. 30her hands, and she lay on the grass by Long-coat, but the second maiden stood up beside the young man.  She was white-skinned and golden-haired, a very fair damsel, whereas the last-comer was but comely, as were well-nigh all the women of the Dale.

Said Face-of-god, looking on the three: ‘How comes it, maidens, that ye are but in your kirtles this sharp autumn morning? or where have ye left your gowns or your cloaks?’

For indeed they were clad but in close-fitting blue kirtles of fine wool, embroidered about the hems with gold and coloured threads.

The last-comer laughed and said: ‘What ails thee, Gold-mane, to be so careful of us, as if thou wert our mother or our nurse?  Yet if thou must needs know, there hang our gowns on the thorn-bush down yonder; for we have been running a match and a forfeit; to wit, that she who was last on the highway should go down again and bring them up all three; and now that is my day’s work: but since thou art here, Alderman’s son, thou shalt go down instead of me and fetch them up.’

But he laughed merrily and outright, and said: ‘That will I not, for there be but twenty-four hours in the day, and what between eating and drinking and talking to fair maidens, I have enough to do in every one of them.  Wasteful are ye women, and simple is your forfeit.  Now will I, who am the Alderman’s son, give forth a doom, and will ordain that one of you fetch up the gowns yourselves, and that Long-coat be the one; for she is the fleetest-footed and ablest thereto.  Will ye take my doom? for later on I shall not be wiser.’

‘Yea,’ said the fair woman, ‘not because thou art the Alderman’s son, but because thou art the fairest man of the Dale, and mayst bid us poor souls what thou wilt.’

Face-of-god reddened at her words, and the speaker and the last-comer laughed; but Long-coat held her peace: she cast one very sober look on him, and then ran lightly down the bent; he drew near the edge of it, and watched her going; for her light-foot p. 31slimness was fair to look on: and he noted that when she was nigh the thorn-bush whereon hung the bright-broidered gowns, and deemed belike that she was not seen, she kissed both her hands where he had kissed them erst.

Thereat he drew aback and turned away shyly, scarce looking at the other twain, who smiled on him with somewhat jeering looks; but he bade them farewell and departed speedily; and if they spoke, it was but softly, for he heard their voices no more.

He went on under the sunlight which was now gilding the outstanding stones of the cliffs, and still his mind was set upon the Bride; and his meeting with the mother of the yet unborn baby, and with the three women with their freshness and fairness, did somehow turn his thought the more upon her, since she was the woman who was to be his amongst all women, for she was far fairer than any one of them; and through all manner of life and through all kinds of deeds would he be with her, and know more of her fairness and kindness than any other could: and him-seemed he could see pictures of her and of him amidst all these deeds and ways.

Now he went very swiftly; for he was eager, though he knew not for what, and he thought but little of the things on which his eyes fell.  He met none else on the road till he was come to Wildlake’s Way, though he saw folk enough down in the meadows; he was soon amidst the first of the trees, and without making any stay set his face east and somewhat north, that is, toward the slopes that led to the great mountains.  He said to himself aloud, as he wended the wood: ‘Strange! yestereven I thought much of the wood, and I set my mind on not going thither, and this morning I thought nothing of it, and here am I amidst its trees, and wending towards its innermost.’

His way was easy at first, because the wood for a little space was all of beech, so that there was no undergrowth, and he went lightly betwixt the tall grey and smooth boles; albeit his heart was nought so gay as it was in the dale amidst the sunshine.  After a while the beech-wood grew thinner, and at last gave out p. 32altogether, and he came into a space of rough broken ground with nought but a few scrubby oaks and thorn-bushes growing thereon here and there.  The sun was high in the heavens now, and shone brightly down on the waste, though there were a few white clouds high up above him.  The rabbits scuttled out of the grass before him; here and there he turned aside from a stone on which lay coiled an adder sunning itself; now and again both hart and hind bounded away from before him, or a sounder of wild swine ran grunting away toward closer covert.  But nought did he see but the common sights and sounds of the woodland; nor did he look for aught else, for he knew this part of the woodland indifferent well.

He held on over this treeless waste for an hour or more, when the ground began to be less rugged, and he came upon trees again, but thinly scattered, oak and ash and hornbeam not right great, with thickets of holly and blackthorn between them.  The set of the ground was still steadily up to the east and north-east, and he followed it as one who wendeth an assured way.  At last before him seemed to rise a wall of trees and thicket; but when he drew near to it, lo! an opening in a certain place, and a little path as if men were wont to thread the tangle of the wood thereby; though hitherto he had noted no slot of men, nor any sign of them, since he had plunged into the deep of the beech-wood.  He took the path as one who needs must, and went his ways as it led.  In sooth it was well-nigh blind, but he was a deft woodsman, and by means of it skirted many a close thicket that had otherwise stayed him.  So on he went, and though the boughs were close enough overhead, and the sun came through but in flecks, he judged that it was growing towards noon, and he wotted well that he was growing aweary.  For he had been long afoot, and the more part of the time on a rough way, or breasting a slope which was at whiles steep enough.

At last the track led him skirting about an exceeding close thicket into a small clearing, through which ran a little woodland p. 33rill amidst rushes and dead leaves: there was a low mound near the eastern side of this wood-lawn, as though there had been once a dwelling of man there, but no other sign or slot of man was there.

So Face-of-god made stay in that place, casting himself down beside the rill to rest him and eat and drink somewhat.  Whatever thoughts had been with him through the wood (and they been many) concerning his House and his name, and his father, and the journey he might make