Kabanata Kabanata 29 · WALTER STRAYS IN THE PASS AND IS SUNDERED FROM THE MAID

. WALTER STRAYS IN THE PASS AND IS SUNDERED FROM THE MAID

Morning came, and they arose and went on their ways, and went all day

till the sun was nigh set, and they were come up into the very pass; and

in the jaws thereof was an earthen howe. There the Maid bade them stay,

and she went up on to the howe, and stood there and spake to them, and

said: "O men of the Bear, I give you thanks for your following, and I

bless you, and promise you the increase of the earth. But now ye shall

turn aback, and leave me to go my ways; and my man with the iron sword

shall follow me. Now, maybe, I shall come amongst the Bear-folk again

before long, and yet again, and learn them wisdom; but for this time it

is enough. And I shall tell you that ye were best to hasten home

straightway to your houses in the downland dales, for the weather which I

have bidden for you is even now coming forth from the forge of storms in

the heart of the mountains. Now this last word I give you, that times

are changed since I wore the last shape of God that ye have seen,

wherefore a change I command you. If so be aliens come amongst you, I

will not that ye send them to me by the flint and the fire; rather,

unless they be baleful unto you, and worthy of an evil death, ye shall

suffer them to abide with you; ye shall make them become children of the

Bears, if they be goodly enough and worthy, and they shall be my children

as ye be; otherwise, if they be ill-favoured and weakling, let them live

and be thralls to you, but not join with you, man to woman. Now depart

ye with my blessing."

Therewith she came down from the mound, and went her ways up the pass so

lightly, that it was to Walter, standing amongst the Bears, as if she had

vanished away. But the men of that folk abode standing and worshipping

their God for a little while, and that while he durst not sunder him from

their company. But when they had blessed him and gone on their way

backward, he betook him in haste to following the Maid, thinking to find

her abiding him in some nook of the pass.

Howsoever, it was now twilight or more, and, for all his haste, dark

night overtook him, so that perforce he was stayed amidst the tangle of

the mountain ways. And, moreover, ere the night was grown old, the

weather came upon him on the back of a great south wind, so that the

mountain nooks rattled and roared, and there was the rain and the hail,

with thunder and lightning, monstrous and terrible, and all the huge

array of a summer storm. So he was driven at last to crouch under a big

rock and abide the day.

But not so were his troubles at an end. For under the said rock he fell

asleep, and when he awoke it was day indeed; but as to the pass, the way

thereby was blind with the driving rain and the lowering lift; so that,

though he struggled as well as he might against the storm and the tangle,

he made but little way.

And now once more the thought came on him, that the Maid was of the fays,

or of some race even mightier; and it came on him now not as erst, with

half fear and whole desire, but with a bitter oppression of dread, of

loss and misery; so that he began to fear that she had but won his love

to leave him and forget him for a new-comer, after the wont of fay-women,

as old tales tell.

Two days he battled thus with storm and blindness, and wanhope of his

life; for he was growing weak and fordone. But the third morning the

storm abated, though the rain yet fell heavily, and he could see his way

somewhat as well as feel it: withal he found that now his path was

leading him downwards. As it grew dusk, he came down into a grassy

valley with a stream running through it to the southward, and the rain

was now but little, coming down but in dashes from time to time. So he

crept down to the stream-side, and lay amongst the bushes there; and said

to himself, that on the morrow he would get him victual, so that he might

live to seek his Maiden through the wide world. He was of somewhat

better heart: but now that he was laid quiet, and had no more for that

present to trouble him about the way, the anguish of his loss fell upon

him the keener, and he might not refrain him from lamenting his dear

Maiden aloud, as one who deemed himself in the empty wilderness: and thus

he lamented for her sweetness and her loveliness, and the kindness of her

voice and her speech, and her mirth. Then he fell to crying out

concerning the beauty of her shaping, praising the parts of her body, as

her face, and her hands, and her shoulders, and her feet, and cursing the

evil fate which had sundered him from the friendliness of her, and the

peerless fashion of her.