Henry Brocken Part 6

Here they reclined just as sorcerous sleep had overtaken them. But how dimmed, how fallen! For Time that could not change the sleeper had changed with quiet skill all else. Tarnished, dusty, withered, overtaken, yellowed, and confounded lay banquet and cloth-of-gold, flagon, cup, fine linen, table, and stool. But in all the ruin, like buds of springtime in a bare wood, or jewels in ashes, slumbered youth and beauty and bravery and delight.

I lifted my eyes to the King. The gold of his divinity was fallen, his splendour quenched; but life's dark scrutiny from his face was gone.

He made no stir at our light, slumbered untreasoned on. The lids of his Queen were lightlier sealed, only withheld beauty as a cloud the sky it hides. His courtiers flattered more elusively, being sincerely mute, and only a little red dust was all the wine left.

I seemed to hear their laughter clearer now that the jest was forgotten, and to admire better the pomp, and the mirth, and the grace, and the vanity, now that time had so far travelled from this little tumult once their triumph.

In a kind of furtive bravado, I paced the length of the long, thronged tables. Here sat a little prince that captivated me, dipping his fingers into his cup with a sidelong glance at his mother. There a high officer, I know not how magnificent and urgent when awake, slumbered with eyes wide open above his discouraged moustaches.

Simply for vanity of being awake in such a sleepy company, I strutted conceitedly to and fro. I bent deftly and pilfered a little c.o.c.kled cherry from between the very fingertips of her whose heart was doubtless like its--quite hard. And the bright lips never said a word.

I sat down, rather clownishly I felt, beside an aged and simpering chancellor that once had seemed wise, but now seemed innocent, nibbling a biscuit crisp as scandal. For after all the horn _would_ sound. Childhood had been quite sure of that--needed not even the author's testimony. They were alert to rise, scattering all dust, victors over Time and outrageous Fortune.

Almost with a cry of apprehension I perceived again the solitary Prince. But he merely smiled faintly. "You see, sir," he said, "how weary must a guardianship be of them who never tire. The snow falls, and the bright light falls on all these faces; yet not even my Lady Melancholy stirs a dark lid. And all these dog-days--" He glanced at his motionless hounds. They raised languidly their narrow heads, whimpering softly, as if beseeching of their master that long-delayed supper--haplessly me. "No, no, sirs," said the Prince, as if he had read their desire as easily as he whom it so much concerned. "Guard, guard, and hearken. This gentleman is not the Prince we await, Sallow; not the Prince, Safte! And now, sir,"--he turned again to me--"there is yet one other sleeper--she who hath brought so much quietude on a festive house."

We climbed the staircase where dim light lay so invitingly, and came presently to a little darker chamber. Green, blunt things had pushed and burst through the cas.e.m.e.nt. The air smelled faintly-sour of brier, and was as still as boughs of snow. There the not-unhappy Princess reclined before a looking-gla.s.s, whither I suppose she had run to view her own alarm when the sharp needle pierced her thumb. All alarm was stilled now on her face. She, one might think, of all that company of the sleepy, was the only one that dreamed. Her youthful lips lay a little asunder; the heavy beauty of her hair was parted on her forehead; her childish hands sidled together like leverets in her lap.

"Why!" I cried aloud, almost involuntarily, "she breathes!"

And at sound of my voice the hounds leapt back; and, on a traveller's oath, I verily believe, once, and how swiftly, and how fearfully and brightly, those childish lids unsealed their light as of lilac that lay behind, glanced briefly, fleetingly, on one who had ventured so far, and fell again to rest.

"And when," I cried harshly, "when will that laggard burst through this agelong silence? Here's dust enough for all to see. And all this ruin, this inhospitable peace!"

Prince Ennui glanced strangely at me.

"I a.s.sure you, O suddenly enkindled," he said in his suave, monotonous voice, "it is not for _my_ indifference he does not come. I would willingly sleep; these--my dear sister, all these old fineries and love-jinglers would as fain wake." He turned away his treacherous eyes from me. "Maybe the Lorelei hath snared him!..." he said, smiling.

I relished not at all the thought of sleeping in this mansion of sleep. Yet it seemed politic to refrain from giving offence to fangs apparently so eager to take it. Accordingly I followed this Ennui to a loftier chamber yet that he suggested for me.

Once there, however, and his soft footfall pa.s.sed away, I looked about me, first to find a means for keeping trespa.s.sers from coming in, and next to find a means for getting myself out.

It was a long and arduous, but not a perilous, descent from the window by the thick-grown greenery that c.u.mbered the walls. But I determined to wait awhile before venturing,--wait, too, till I could see plainly where Rosinante had made her night-quarters. By good fortune I discovered her beneath the greenish moon that hung amid mist above the forest, stretching a disconsolate neck at the waterside as if in search of the Lorelei.

When, as it seemed to me, it must be nearing dawn, though how the hours flitted so swiftly pa.s.sed my comprehension, I very cautiously climbed out of my narrow window and descended slowly to the lawns beneath. My foot had scarcely touched ground when ringing and menacing from some dark gallery of the palace above me broke out a distant baying.

Nothing shall persuade me to tell how fast I ran; how feverishly I haled poor Rosinante out of sleep, and pushed her down into the deeps of that coal-black stream; with what agility I clambered into the saddle.

Yet I could not help commiserating the while the faithful soul who floated beneath me. The stream was swift but noiseless, the water rather rare than cold, yet, despite all the philosophy beaming out of her maidenly eyes across the smooth surface of the tide, Rosinante must have preferred from the bottom of her heart dry land.

I, too, momentarily, when I discovered that we were speedily approaching the roaring fall whose reverberations I had heard long since.

Out of the emerald twilight we floated from beneath the overarching thickets. Pale beams were striking from the risen sun upon the gliding surface, and dwelt in splendour where danger sat charioted beneath a palely gorgeous bow. Yet I doubt if ever mortal man swept on to defeat at last so rapturously as I.

The gloomier trees had now withdrawn from the banks of the river. A pale morning sky over-canopied the shimmering forests. Here rose the solitary tower where Echo tarried for the Hornblower. And straight before us, across that level floor, beyond a tremulous cloud of foam and light and colour, lurked the unseen, the unimaginable, the ever-dreamed-of, Death.

Heedless of Lorelei, heedless of all save the beauty and terror and glory in which they rode, down swept snorting ship and master to doom.

The crystal water jargoned past my saddle. Sky, earth, and tower, like the panorama of a dream, wheeled around me. Light blinded me; clamour deafened me; foam and the pure wave and cold darkness whelmed over me.

We surged, paused, gazed, nodded, crashed:--and so an end to Ennui.

VII

_He loves to talk with marineres That come from a far countree._

--SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

How long my body was the sport of that foaming water I cannot tell.

But when I again opened my eyes, I found, first, that the sun was shining dazzling clear high above me, and, next, that the delightful noise of running water babbled close against my ear. I lay upon a strip of warm sward by the river's brink. Near by me grew some rank-smelling waterside plant, and overhead the air seemed peopled with larks.

I crawled, confused and aching, to the water, and dipped my head and hands into the cold rills. This soon refreshed me, for the sun had, it would seem, long been dwelling on that pa.s.sive corse of mine by the waterside and had parched it to the skin.

But it was some little while yet before my mind returned fully to what had pa.s.sed, and so to my loss.

I sat looking at the grey, noisy water, almost incredulous that Rosinante could be gone. It might be that the same hand as must have drawn myself from drowning had s.n.a.t.c.hed her bridle also out of Fate's grasp. Perhaps even now she was seeking her master by the greener pasture of the wide plains around me. Perhaps the far-off sea was her green sepulchre. But many waters cannot quench love. I faced, friendless and discomfited, a region as strange to me as the farther side of the moon.

Without more ado I rose, shook myself, and sadly began to go forward.

But I had taken only a few steps along the banks of the stream--for here was fresh water, at least--when a sound like distant thunder rolled over these flat, green lands towards me, increasing steadily in volume.

I stood, lost in wonder, and presently, at the distance, perhaps, of a little less than a mile, descried an innumerable herd of horses streaming across these level pastures, and at the extremity, it seemed, of a wide ellipse, that had brought them near, and now was galloping them away.

My heart beat a little faster at this extraordinary spectacle. And while I stood in uncertainty gazing after the retreating concourse, I perceived a figure running towards me, lifting his hands and crying out in a voice sonorous and inhuman. He was of a stature much above my own, yet so gross in shape and immense of head he seemed at first almost dwarfish. He came to a stand twenty paces or so from me, on the ridge of a gentle inclination, and gazed down on me with wild, bright eyes. Even at this distance I could perceive the almost colourless l.u.s.tre of his eyes beneath his thick locks of yellow hair. When he had taken his fill of me, he lifted his head again and cried out to me a few words of what certainly might be English, but was neither intelligible nor rea.s.suring.

I stood my ground and stared him in the face, till I could see nothing but wind-blown yellow, and strange, brutal eyes. Then he advanced a little nearer. Whereupon I also raised my hand with a gesture like his own, and demanded loudly where I was, what was this place, and who was he. His very ears p.r.i.c.ked forward, he listened so intently. He came nearer yet, then stayed, tossed his head into the air, whirled the long leather thong he carried above his head, and, signing to me to follow, set off with so swift and easy a stride as would soon have carried him out of sight, had he not turned and perceived how slowly I could follow him.

He slackened his pace then, and, thus running, we came in sight at length of what appeared to be a vast wooden shed, or barn, with one rude chimney, and surrounded by a thick fence, or stockade, many feet high and apparently of immense strength and stability.

In the gateway of this fence stood the master of these solitudes, his eyes fixed strangely on my coming with an intense, I had almost said incredulous, interest. Nor did he cease so to regard me, while the creature that had conducted me thither, told, I suppose, where he had found me, and poured out with childish zeal his own amazement and delight. By this time, too, his voice had begun to lose its first strangeness, and to take a meaning for me. And I was presently fully persuaded he spoke a kind of English, and that not unpleasingly, with a liquid, shrill, voluminous ease. His master listened patiently awhile, but at last bade his servant be silent, and himself addressed me.

"I am informed, Yahoo," he said with peculiar deliberation, "that you have been borne down into my meadows by the river, and fetched out thence by my servant. Be aware, then, that all these lands from horizon to horizon are mine and my people's. I desire no tidings of what follies may be beyond my boundaries, no aid, and no amity. I admit no trespa.s.ser here and will bear with none. It appears, however, that your life has pa.s.sed beyond your own keeping: I may not, therefore, refuse you shelter and food, and to have you conducted in safety beyond my borders. Have the courtesy, then, to keep within shelter of these walls till the night be over. Else"--he gazed out across the verdant undulations--"else, Yahoo, I have no power to protect you."

He turned once more, and regarded me with a lofty yet tender recognition, as if, little though his speech might profess it, he very keenly desired my safety.

He then stepped aside and bade me rather sharply enter the gate before him. I tried to show none of the mistrust I felt at pa.s.sing out of these open lands into this repellent yard. I glanced at the shock-haired creature, alert, half-human, beside me; across the limitless savannah around me, echoing yet, it seemed, with the rumour of innumerable hoofs; and bowing, as it were, to odds, I went in.

On the other hand, I felt my host had been frank with me. If this was indeed the same Lemuel Gulliver whose repute my infancy had prized so well, I need have no fear of blood and treachery at his hands, however primitive and disgusting his household, or distorted his intellect might be. He who had proved no tyrant in Lilliput, nor quailed before the enormities of Brobdingnag, might abhor the sight of me; he would not play me false.

His servant, or whatsoever else he might be, I considered not quite so calmly. Yet even in _his_ broad countenance dwelt a something like bright honesty, less malice than simplicity.

Wherefore, I say, I ordered down my cowardice, and, looking both of them as squarely in the face as I knew how, pa.s.sed out of the open into the appalling yard of this wooden house.

I say "appalling," but without much reason. Perhaps it was the unseemly hugeness of its balks, the foul piles of skins, the mounds of refuse that lay about within; perhaps the all-pervading beastly stench, the bareness and filthiness under so gla.s.sy-clear and fierce a sun that revolted me. All man's seemliness and affection for the natural things of earth were absent. Here was only a brutal and bald order, as of an intelligence like that of the yellow-locked, swift-footed creature behind me. Perhaps also it was the mere unfamiliarity of much I saw there that estranged me. All lay in neglect, cracked and marred with rough usage,--coa.r.s.e strands of a kind of rope, strips of hide, gaping tubs, a huge and rusty brazier, and in one corner a great cage, many feet square and surmounted with an iron ring.

I know not. I almost desired Sallow at my side, and would to heaven Rosinante's nose lay in my palm.

Within the house a wood-fire burned in the sun, its smoke ascending to the roof, and flowing thence through a rude chimney. A pot steamed over the fire, burdening the air with a savour at first somewhat faint and disgusting,--perhaps because it was merely strange to me. The walls of this lofty room were of rough, substantial timber, bare and weatherproof; the floor was of the colour of earth, seemingly earth itself. A few rude stools, a bench, and a four-legged table stood beside the unshuttered window. And from this stretched the beauteous green of the gra.s.s-land or prairie beyond the stockade.

The house, then, was built on the summit of a gentle mound, and doubtless commanded from its upper window the extreme reaches of this sea of verdure.