The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays Part 65

(HALLGERD'S _women are huddled together and clasping each other._)

ODDNY What can these women be who sleep like horses, Standing up in the darkness? What will they do?

GUNNAR Ye wail like ravens and have no human thoughts.

What do ye seek? What will ye here with us?

BIARTEY (_as all three cower suddenly_) Succour upon this terrible journeying.

We have a message for a man in the West, Sent by an old man sitting in the East.

We are spent, our feet are moving wounds, our bodies Dream of themselves and seem to trail behind us Because we went unfed down in the mountains.

Feed us and shelter us beneath your roof, And put us over the Markfleet, over the channels.

We are weak old women: we are beseeching you.

GUNNAR You may bide here this night, but on the morrow You shall go over, for tramping shameless women Carry too many tales from stead to stead-- And sometimes heavier gear than breath and lies.

These women will tell the mistress all I grant you; Get to the fire until she shall return.

BIARTEY Thou art a merciful man and we shall thank thee.

(GUNNAR _goes out again to the left. The old women approach the young ones gradually._) Little ones, do not doubt us. Could we hurt you?

Because we are ugly must we be bewitched?

STEINVOR Nay, but bewitch us.

BIARTEY Not in a litten house: Not ere the hour when night turns on itself And shakes the silence: not while ye wake together.

Sweet voice, tell us, was that verily Gunnar?

STEINVOR Arrh--do not touch me, unclean flyer-by-night: Have ye birds' feet to match such bat-webbed fingers?

BIARTEY I am only a cowed curst woman who walks with death; I will crouch here. Tell us, was it Gunnar?

ODDNY Yea, Gunnar surely. Is he not big enough To fit the songs about him?

BIARTEY He is a man.

Why will his manhood urge him to be dead?

We walk about the whole old land at night, We enter many dales and many halls: And everywhere is talk of Gunnar's greatness, His slayings and his fate outside the law.

The last ship has not gone: why will he tarry?

ODDNY He chose a ship, but men who rode with him Say that his horse threw him upon the sh.o.r.e, His face toward the Lithe and his own fields; As he arose he trembled at what he gazed on (_Although those men saw nothing pa.s.s or meet them_) And said ... What said he, girls?

ASTRID "Fair is the Lithe: I never thought it was so far, so fair.

Its corn is white, its meadows green after mowing.

I will ride home again and never leave it."

ODDNY 'Tis an unlikely tale: he never said it.

No one could mind such things in such an hour.

Plainly he saw his fetch come down the sands, And knew he need not seek another country And take that with him to walk upon the deck In night and storm.

GUDFINN He, he, he! No man speaks thus.

JOFRID No man, no man: he must be doomed somewhere.

BIARTEY Doomed and fey, my sisters.... We are too old, Yet I'd not marvel if we outlasted him.

Sisters, that is a fair fierce girl who spins....

My fair fierce girl, you could fight--but can you ride?

Would you not shout to be riding in a storm?

Ah--h, girls learnt riding well when I was a girl, And foam rides on the breakers as I was taught....

My fair fierce girl, tell me your n.o.ble name.

ODDNY My name is Oddny.

BIARTEY Oddny, when you are old Would you not be proud to be no man's purse-string, But wild and wandering and friends with the earth?

Wander with us and learn to be old yet living.

We'd win fine food with you to beg for us.

STEINVOR Despised, cast out, unclean, and loose men's night-bird.

ODDNY When I am old I shall be some man's friend, And hold him when the darkness comes....

BIARTEY And mumble by the fire and blink....

Good Oddny, let me spin for you awhile, That Gunnar's house may profit by his guesting: Come, trust me with your distaff....

ODDNY Are there spells Wrought on a distaff?

STEINVOR Only by the Norns, And they'll not sit with human folk to-night.

ODDNY Then you may spin all night for what I care; But let the yarn run clean from knots and snarls, Or I shall have the blame when you are gone.

BIARTEY (_taking the distaff_) Trust well the aged knowledge of my hands; Thin and thin do I spin, and the thread draws finer.

(_She sings as she spins._)

They go by three.

And the moon shivers; The tired waves flee, The hidden rivers Also flee.

I take three strands; There is one for her, One for my hands, And one to stir For another's hands.

I twine them thinner, The dead wool doubts; The outer is inner, The core slips out....

(HALLGERD _reenters by the dais door, holding a pair of shears._)

HALLGERD What are these women, Oddny? Who let them in?

BIARTEY (_who spins through all that follows_) Lady, the man of fame who is your man Gave us his peace to-night, and that of his house.

We are blown beggars tramping about the land, Denied a home for our evil and vagrant hearts; We sought this shelter when the first dew soaked us, And should have perished by the giant hound But Gunnar fought it with his eyes and saved us.

That is a strange hound, with a man's mind in it.

HALLGERD (_seating herself in the high-seat_) It is an Irish hound, from that strange soil Where men by day walk with unearthly eyes And cross the veils of the air, and are not men But fierce abstractions eating their own hearts Impatiently and seeing too much to be joyful.

If Gunnar welcomed ye, ye may remain.

BIARTEY She is a fair free lady, is she not?