VI
_Care-charming Sleep ... ... sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince!_
--JOHN FLETCHER.
Away with a blink of his queer green eye over his shoulder hesauntered by a devious path out of the dell. Forgetful of thorn andbrier, trickery and wantonness, we clambered down after him, out ofthe moonlight, into a dark, clear alley, soundless and solitary amidthese enchanted woods.
As I have said already, another air than that of night was abroad inthe green-grey shadows of the woods. Yet between the lofty andheavy-hooded pines scarce a beam of dawn pierced downward.
Wider swept the avenue, but ever dusky and utterly silent. Deeper mosscouched here; unfallen moondrops glistened; mistletoe palely sproutedfrom the gnarled boughs. Nor could I discern, though I searched closeenough, elder or ash tree or bitter rue. We journeyed softly on till Ilost all count of time, lost, too, all guidance; for as a flower fallshad vanished Mustardseed.
Far away and ever increasing in volume I heard the trembling crash ofsome great water falling. What narrow isles of sky were visiblebetween the branches lay sunless and still. Yet already, on a mantledpool we journeyed softly by, the waterlily was unfolding, the swanafloat in beauty.
In a dim, still light we at last slowly descended out of the darkerglade into a garden of grey terraces and flowerless walks. EvenRosinante seemed perturbed by the stillness and solitude of this wildgarden. She trod with cautious foot and peering eye the green,rainworn paths, that led us down presently to where beneath the vaultof its trees a river flowed.
Surely I could not be mistaken that here a voice was singing as if outof the black water-deeps, so clear and hollow were the notes. I burstthrough the knotted stalks of the ivy, and stooping like some poortravesty of Narcissus, with shaded face pierced down deep--deep intoeyes not my own, but violet and unendurable and strange--eyes of theliving water-sprite drawing my wits from me, stilling my heart, till Iwas very near plunging into that crystal oblivion, to be fishesevermore.
But my fingers still grasped my friend's kind elf-locks, and hergoose-nose brooded beside mine upon that water of undivulged delight.Out of the restless silence of the stream floated this long-drawnsinging:
Pilgrim forget; in this dark tide Sinks the salt tear to peace at last; Here undeluding dreams abide, All sorrow past.
Nods the wild ivy on her stem; The voiceless bird broods on the bough; The silence and the song of them Untroubled now.
Free that poor captive's flutterings, That struggles in thy tired eyes, Solace its discontented wings, Quiet its cries!
Knells now the dewdrop to its fall, The sad wind sleeps no more to rove; Rest, for my arms ambrosial Ache for thy love!
I cannot think how one so meekened with hunger as I, resisted thatwater-troubled hair, eyes that yet haunt me, that heart-alluringvoice.
"No, no," I said faintly, and the words of Anthea came unbidden tomind, "to sleep--oh! who would forget? You plead merely with some olddream of me--not _all_ me, you know. Gold is but witchcraft. And asfor sorrow--spread me a magical table in this nettle-garden, I'llleave all melancholy!"
I must indeed have been exhausted to chop logic with a water-witch. Aswell argue with minnows, entreat the rustling of ivy-leaves. It wasRosinante, wearying, I suppose, of the reflection of her own mildcountenance, that drew me back from dream and disaster. She turnedwith arched neck seeking a more wholesome pasture than these deepmosses.
Leaving her then to her own devices, and yet hearkening after thevoice of the charmer, I came out again into the garden, and perceivedbefore me a dark palace with one lofty tower.
It seemed strange I had not seen the tower at my first coming intothis wilderness. It stood with clustered summit and stoopinggargoyles, appealing as it were to fear, in utter silence.
Though I knew it must be day, there was scarcely more than a greentwilight around me, ever deepening, until at last I could but dimlydiscern the upper windows of the palace, and all sound waned but theroar of distant falling water.
Then it was I found that I was not alone in the garden. Two littleleaden children stood in an attitude of listening on either side ofthe carved porch of the palace, and between them a figure that seemedto be watching me intently.
I looked and looked again--saw the green-grey folds, the tawny locks,the mistletoe, the unearthly eyes of this unstirring figure, yet, whenI advanced but one strenuous pace, saw nought--only the little leadenboys and the porch between them.
These childish listeners, the straggling briers, the impenetrablethickets, the emerald gloaming, the marble stillness of the loftylichenous tower: I took courage. Could such things be in else thanElfland? And she who out of beauty and being vanishes and eludes, whatelse could she be than one of Elfland's denizens from whom a light andcredulous heart need fear nothing.
I trod like a shadow where the phantom had stood and opened the unuseddoor. I was about to pass into the deeper gloom of the house when ahound appeared and stood regarding me with shining eyes in the faintgloaming. He was presently joined by one as light-footed, butmilk-white and slimmer, and both turned their heads as if in questionof their master, who had followed close behind them.
This personage, because of the gloom, or the better to observe theintruder on his solitude, carried a lantern whose beams were reflectedupon himself, attired as he was from head to foot in the palestprimrose, but with a countenance yet paler.
There was no hint of enmity or alarm or astonishment in thecolourless eyes that were fixed composedly on mine, nothing butcourtesy in his low voice.
"Back, Safte!--back, Sallow!" he cried softly to his hounds; "is thisyour civility? Indeed, sir," he continued to me, "it was all I coulddo to dissuade the creatures from giving tongue when you firstappeared on the terrace of my solitary gardens. I heard too thewater-sprite: she only sings when footsteps stray upon the banks." Hesmiled wanly, and his nose seemed even sharper in his pale face, andhis yellow hair leaner about his shoulders. "I feared her voice mightprove too persuasive, and deprive me of the first strange face I haveseen these many decades gone."
I bowed and murmured an apology for my intrusion, just as I mightperhaps to some apparition of nightmare that over-stayed its welcome.
"I beseech you, sir," he replied, "say no more! It may be I deemed youat first a visitor perchance even more welcome--if it be possible,...yet I know not that either. My name is Ennui,"--he smiledagain--"Prince Ennui. You have, perchance, heard somewhere our sadstory. This is the perpetual silence wherein lies that once-happyprincess, my dear sister, Sleeping Beauty."
His voice seemed but an echo amongst the walls and arches of this oldhouse, and he spoke with a suave enunciation as if in an unfamiliartongue.
I replied that I had read the ever-lovely story of Sleeping Beauty,indeed knew it by heart, and assured him modestly that I had not theleast doubt of a happy ending--"that is, if the author be the leastauthority."
He narrowed his lids. "It is a tradition," he replied; "meanwhile, thethickets broaden."
Whereupon I begged him to explain how it chanced that among thatfestive and animated company I had read of, he alone had resisted thewicked godmother's spell.
He smiled distantly, and bowed me into the garden.
"That is a simple thing," he said.
Yet for the life of me I could not but doubt all he told me. He whocould pass spring on to spring, summer on to summer, in the company ofbeasts so sly and silent, so alert and fleet as these hounds of his,could not be quite the amiable prince he feigned to be. I began towish myself in homelier places.
It seems that on the morning of the fatal spindle, he had gonecoursing, with this Safte and Sallow and his horse named "Twilight,"and after wearying and heating himself at the sport, a little afternoon, leaving his attendants, had set out to return to the palacealone. But allured by the cool seclusion of a "lattice-arbour" in hispath, he had gone in, and then and there, "Twilight" beneath the
willows, his hounds at his feet, had fallen asleep.
Undisturbed, dreamless, "the unseemly hours sped light of foot." Heawoke again, between sunset and dark; the owl astir; "the silver gnatsyet netting the shadows," and so returned to the palace.
But the spell had fallen--king and courtier, queen and lady and pageand scullion, hawk and hound, slept a sleep past waking--"while I,roamed and roam yet in a solitary watch beyond all sleeping.Wherefore, sir, I only of the most hospitable house in these lands amawake to bid you welcome. But as for that, a few dwindling and harshfruits in my orchards, and the cold river water that my dogs lap withme, are all that is left to offer you. For I who never sleep am neverhungry, and they who never wake--I presume--never thirst. Would, sir,it were otherwise! After such long silence, then, conceive howstrangely falls your voice on ears that have heard only wingsfluttering, dismal water-songs, and the yelp and quarrel andnight-voice of unseen hosts in the forests."
He glanced at me with a mild austerity and again lowered his eyes. Icannot now but wonder how the rhythm of a voice so soft, somonotonous, could give such pleasure to the ear. I almost doubted myown eyes when I looked upon his yellow, on that unmoved, sad, mad,pale face.
I had no doubt of his dogs, however, and walked scarcely at easebeside him, while they, shadow-footed, closely followed us at heel.
"Prince Ennui" conducted me with shining lantern into a dense orchardthickly under-grown, marvellously green, with a small, hard fruit uponits branches, shaped like a medlar, of a crisp, sweet odour and,despite its hardness, a delicious taste. The interwoven twigs of thestooping trees were thickly nested; a veritable wilderness of moonlikeand starry flowers ran all to seed amid the nettles and nightshade ofthis green silence. And while I ate--for I was hungry enough--PrinceEnnui stood, his hand on Sallow's muzzle, lightly thridding the duskylabyrinths of the orchard with his faint green eyes.
Mine, too, were not less busy, but rather with its lord than with hisorchard. And the strange thought entered my mind, Was he in very deedthe incarnation of this solitude, this silence, this lawlessabundance? Somewhere, in the green heats of summer, had he come forth,taken shape, exalted himself? What but vegetable ichor coursed throughveins transparent as his? What but the swarming mysteries of thesethick woods lurked in his brain? As for his hounds, theirs was thesame stealth, the same symmetry, the same cold, secret unhumanity ashis. Creatures begotten of moonlight on silence they seemed to me,with instincts past my workaday wits to conceive.
And Rosinante! I laughed softly to think of her staid bones beside thephantom creature this prince had called up to me at mention of"Twilight."
I ate because I was ravenously hungry, but also because, while eating,I was better at my ease.
Suddenly out of the stillness, like an arrow, Safte was gone; and faraway beneath the motionless leaves a faint voice rang dwindling intosilence. I shuddered at my probable fate.
Prince Ennui glanced lightly. "When the magic horn at last resounds,"he said, "how strange a flight it will be! These thorny briersencroach ever nearer on my palace walls. I am a captive ever less atease. Summer by summer the sun rises shorn yet closer of his beams,and now the lingering transit of the moon is but from one wood by anarrow crystal arch to another. They will have me yet, sir. How wearywill the sleepy ones be of my uneasy footfall!"
And even as Safte slipped softly back to his watching mate, the patterand shrill menace of voices behind him hinted not all was concordbetween these hidden multitudes and their unseemly prince.
The master-stars shone earlier here; already sparkling above the towerwas a canopy of clearest darkness spread, while the leafy fringes ofthe sky glowed yet with changing fires.
We returned to the lawns before the palace porch, and, with hislantern in his hand, the Prince signed to me to go in. I was not alittle curious to view that enchanted household of which I had read sooften and with so much delight as a child.
In the banqueting-hall only the matted windows were visible in thelofty walls. Prince Ennui held his lantern on high, and by its flame,and the faint light that flowed in from above, I could presently see,distinct in gloom, as many sleepers as even Night could desire.
Here they reclined just as sorcerous sleep had overtaken them. But howdimmed, how fallen! For Time that could not change the sleeper hadchanged 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, likebuds of springtime in a bare wood, or jewels in ashes, slumbered youthand beauty and bravery and delight.
I lifted my eyes to the King. The gold of his divinity was fallen, hissplendour quenched; but life's dark scrutiny from his face was gone.He made no stir at our light, slumbered untreasoned on. The lids ofhis Queen were lightlier sealed, only withheld beauty as a cloud thesky it hides. His courtiers flattered more elusively, being sincerelymute, and only a little red dust was all the wine left.
I seemed to hear their laughter clearer now that the jest wasforgotten, and to admire better the pomp, and the mirth, and thegrace, and the vanity, now that time had so far travelled from thislittle tumult once their triumph.
In a kind of furtive bravado, I paced the length of the long, throngedtables. Here sat a little prince that captivated me, dipping hisfingers into his cup with a sidelong glance at his mother. There ahigh 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 struttedconceitedly to and fro. I bent deftly and pilfered a little cockledcherry from between the very fingertips of her whose heart wasdoubtless like its--quite hard. And the bright lips never said a word.I sat down, rather clownishly I felt, beside an aged and simperingchancellor 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 theauthor'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 solitaryPrince. But he merely smiled faintly. "You see, sir," he said, "howweary 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 LadyMelancholy stirs a dark lid. And all these dog-days--" He glanced athis motionless hounds. They raised languidly their narrow heads,whimpering softly, as if beseeching of their master that long-delayedsupper--haplessly me. "No, no, sirs," said the Prince, as if he hadread 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--"thereis yet one other sleeper--she who hath brought so much quietude on afestive house."
We climbed the staircase where dim light lay so invitingly, and camepresently to a little darker chamber. Green, blunt things had pushedand burst through the casement. The air smelled faintly-sour of brier,and was as still as boughs of snow. There the not-unhappy Princessreclined before a looking-glass, whither I suppose she had run to viewher own alarm when the sharp needle pierced her thumb. All alarm wasstilled now on her face. She, one might think, of all that company ofthe sleepy, was the only one that dreamed. Her youthful lips lay alittle asunder; the heavy beauty of her hair was parted on herforehead; 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'soath, I verily believe, once, and how swiftly, and how fearfully andbrightly, those childish lids unsealed their light as of lilac thatlay behind, glanced briefly, fleetingly, on one who had ventured sofar, and fell again to rest.
"And when," I cried harshly, "when will that laggard burst throughthis agelong silence? Here's dust enough for all to see. And all thisruin, this inhospitable peace!"
Prince Ennui glanced strangely at me.
"I assure you,
O suddenly enkindled," he said in his suave, monotonousvoice, "it is not for _my_ indifference he does not come. I wouldwillingly sleep; these--my dear sister, all these old fineries andlove-jinglers would as fain wake." He turned away his treacherous eyesfrom me. "Maybe the Lorelei hath snared him!..." he said, smiling.
I relished not at all the thought of sleeping in this mansion ofsleep. Yet it seemed politic to refrain from giving offence to fangsapparently so eager to take it. Accordingly I followed this Ennui to aloftier chamber yet that he suggested for me.
Once there, however, and his soft footfall passed away, I looked aboutme, first to find a means for keeping trespassers from coming in, andnext to find a means for getting myself out.
It was a long and arduous, but not a perilous, descent from the windowby the thick-grown greenery that cumbered the walls. But I determinedto wait awhile before venturing,--wait, too, till I could see plainlywhere Rosinante had made her night-quarters. By good fortune Idiscovered her beneath the greenish moon that hung amid mist above theforest, stretching a disconsolate neck at the waterside as if insearch of the Lorelei.
When, as it seemed to me, it must be nearing dawn, though how thehours flitted so swiftly passed my comprehension, I very cautiouslyclimbed out of my narrow window and descended slowly to the lawnsbeneath. My foot had scarcely touched ground when ringing and menacingfrom some dark gallery of the palace above me broke out a distantbaying.
Nothing shall persuade me to tell how fast I ran; how feverishly Ihaled poor Rosinante out of sleep, and pushed her down into the deepsof that coal-black stream; with what agility I clambered into thesaddle.
Yet I could not help commiserating the while the faithful soul whofloated beneath me. The stream was swift but noiseless, the waterrather rare than cold, yet, despite all the philosophy beaming out ofher maidenly eyes across the smooth surface of the tide, Rosinantemust have preferred from the bottom of her heart dry land.
I, too, momentarily, when I discovered that we were speedilyapproaching the roaring fall whose reverberations I had heard longsince.
Out of the emerald twilight we floated from beneath the overarchingthickets. Pale beams were striking from the risen sun upon the glidingsurface, and dwelt in splendour where danger sat charioted beneath apalely gorgeous bow. Yet I doubt if ever mortal man swept on to defeatat last so rapturously as I.
The gloomier trees had now withdrawn from the banks of the river. Apale morning sky over-canopied the shimmering forests. Here rose thesolitary tower where Echo tarried for the Hornblower. And straightbefore us, across that level floor, beyond a tremulous cloud of foamand light and colour, lurked the unseen, the unimaginable, theever-dreamed-of, Death.
Heedless of Lorelei, heedless of all save the beauty and terror andglory in which they rode, down swept snorting ship and master to doom.
The crystal water jargoned past my saddle. Sky, earth, and tower, likethe panorama of a dream, wheeled around me. Light blinded me; clamourdeafened me; foam and the pure wave and cold darkness whelmed over me.We surged, paused, gazed, nodded, crashed:--and so an end to Ennui.