The Wood Beyond the World Page 2

  CHAPTER II: GOLDEN WALTER TAKES SHIP TO SAIL THE SEAS

  When Walter went down to the Katherine next morning, there was theskipper Geoffrey, who did him reverence, and made him all cheer, andshowed him his room aboard ship, and the plenteous goods which his fatherhad sent down to the quays already, such haste as he had made. Walterthanked his father's love in his heart, but otherwise took little heed tohis affairs, but wore away the time about the haven, gazing listlessly onthe ships that were making them ready outward, or unlading, and themariners and aliens coming and going: and all these were to him as thecurious images woven on a tapestry.

  At last when he had wellnigh come back again to the Katherine, he sawthere a tall ship, which he had scarce noted before, a ship all-boun,which had her boats out, and men sitting to the oars thereof ready to towher outwards when the hawser should be cast off, and by seeming hermariners were but abiding for some one or other to come aboard.

  So Walter stood idly watching the said ship, and as he looked, lo! folkpassing him toward the gangway. These were three; first came a dwarf,dark-brown of hue and hideous, with long arms and ears exceeding greatand dog-teeth that stuck out like the fangs of a wild beast. He was cladin a rich coat of yellow silk, and bare in his hand a crooked bow, andwas girt with a broad sax.

  After him came a maiden, young by seeming, of scarce twenty summers; fairof face as a flower; grey-eyed, brown-haired, with lips full and red,slim and gentle of body. Simple was her array, of a short and straitgreen gown, so that on her right ankle was clear to see an iron ring.

  Last of the three was a lady, tall and stately, so radiant of visage andglorious of raiment, that it were hard to say what like she was; forscarce might the eye gaze steady upon her exceeding beauty; yet mustevery son of Adam who found himself anigh her, lift up his eyes againafter he had dropped them, and look again on her, and yet again and yetagain. Even so did Walter, and as the three passed by him, it seemed tohim as if all the other folk there about had vanished and were nought;nor had he any vision before his eyes of any looking on them, savehimself alone. They went over the gangway into the ship, and he saw themgo along the deck till they came to the house on the poop, and entered itand were gone from his sight.

  There he stood staring, till little by little the thronging people of thequays came into his eye-shot again; then he saw how the hawser was castoff and the boats fell to tugging the big ship toward the harbour-mouthwith hale and how of men. Then the sail fell down from the yard and wassheeted home and filled with the fair wind as the ship's bows ran up onthe first green wave outside the haven. Even therewith the shipmen castabroad a banner, whereon was done in a green field a grim wolf ramping upagainst a maiden, and so went the ship upon her way.

  Walter stood awhile staring at her empty place where the waves ran intothe haven-mouth, and then turned aside and toward the Katherine; and atfirst he was minded to go ask shipmaster Geoffrey of what he knewconcerning the said ship and her alien wayfarers; but then it came intohis mind, that all this was but an imagination or dream of the day, andthat he were best to leave it untold to any. So therewith he went hisway from the water-side, and through the streets unto his father's house;but when he was but a little way thence, and the door was before him, him-seemed for a moment of time that he beheld those three coming out downthe steps of stone and into the street; to wit the dwarf, the maiden, andthe stately lady: but when he stood still to abide their coming, andlooked toward them, lo! there was nothing before him save the goodlyhouse of Bartholomew Golden, and three children and a cur dog playingabout the steps thereof, and about him were four or five passers-by goingabout their business. Then was he all confused in his mind, and knew notwhat to make of it, whether those whom he had seemed to see pass aboardship were but images of a dream, or children of Adam in very flesh.

  Howsoever, he entered the house, and found his father in the chamber, andfell to speech with him about their matters; but for all that he lovedhis father, and worshipped him as a wise and valiant man, yet at thathour he might not hearken the words of his mouth, so much was his mindentangled in the thought of those three, and they were ever before hiseyes, as if they had been painted on a table by the best of limners. Andof the two women he thought exceeding much, and cast no wyte upon himselffor running after the desire of strange women. For he said to himselfthat he desired not either of the twain; nay, he might not tell which ofthe twain, the maiden or the stately queen, were clearest to his eyes;but sore he desired to see both of them again, and to know what theywere.

  So wore the hours till the Wednesday morning, and it was time that heshould bid farewell to his father and get aboard ship; but his father ledhim down to the quays and on to the Katherine, and there Walter embracedhim, not without tears and forebodings; for his heart was full. Thenpresently the old man went aland; the gangway was unshipped, the hawserscast off; the oars of the towing-boats splashed in the dark water, thesail fell down from the yard, and was sheeted home, and out plunged theKatherine into the misty sea and rolled up the grey slopes, castingabroad her ancient withal, whereon was beaten the token of BartholomewGolden, to wit a B and a G to the right and the left, and thereabove across and a triangle rising from the midst.

  Walter stood on the stern and beheld, yet more with the mind of him thanwith his eyes; for it all seemed but the double of what the other shiphad done; and the thought of it as if the twain were as beads strung onone string and led away by it into the same place, and thence to go inthe like order, and so on again and again, and never to draw nigher toeach other.