Chapter XXIV: The Night in the Wood

Cormac’s ship _Raven_ had a fair way over the Floe, and made Skaganess on one tack. But past the Ness they were as good as in the open sea; the wind freshened and blew from the south-east. They thought it well to stand inshore, and found smooth water at once, and plenty of it. Drängey showed up before the night fell, and as they were in strange waters, they decided to seek a haven there for the night. They found a good harbour with a sandy bottom on the west of the island and lay as snug as fish in the sea.

Next day they crossed the frith and coasted up the further shore. The mountains come right down to the sea on that shore, and the lower slopes of them are covered with wood. Cormac sat on deck looking at this magic country of rocks and thin, grey stems. The sunlight was like mist between them, and above they were blushing with the rising sap.

Then, on a sudden, as he looked his heart stood still. He saw a woman in a blue cloak riding through the trees. Her head was bare, and her hair shone like gold. He went white, and stared with his eyes. His lips moved, but no sound came from them.

Then he called Thorgils his brother. “Thorgils,” he said, “yonder woman riding there is Stangerd. She is alone. Shape your course closer in, and be ready to cast anchor.”

“Why,” said Thorgils, “what are you about?”

“I am going to see Stangerd,” Cormac said.

“And what then?”

“I don’t know yet. We shall see.”

“Will you make trouble for us and her?”

“I don’t know. It will be to do that, or to end the trouble. Alter our course, I say.”

Thorgils did as he was told. The water was as clear as glass on a bottom of hard, white sand. They stood to within a spear’s throw of the shore. Stangerd, if it was she, had seen the ship, and had reined up her grey horse in a clearing in the wood. She was looking at them. Thorgils now saw that it was Stangerd sure enough. They heaved the anchor overboard, and the _Raven_ brought up, but before she was fast, Cormac was in the water to his middle.

Stangerd did not move from where she was, but the light in her eyes answered the light in his, and her flushed face to his face.

He came directly to her through the trees, and stood beside her. His hand rested on the horse’s mane, but he did not touch her.

She spoke first. “You have come then.”

“I saw you--so I came.”

Her eyes engulfed him. But she was not smiling. She was too deeply satisfied for any outward sign. She consumed her happiness within. Nothing in her life had ever pleased her so much as this.

Cormac said, “What is this? Where are you going? Do you live here? Where is your husband?”

Then she laughed. “A string of questions! I live at Fleet, which is not far from here. I was lonely at home, so I came out. Thorwald is away, brushing his nose somewhere.”

Cormac said, “Let him be. We haven’t much time. But we have to-day.”

“You are for Norway?” she asked him. His eyes were upon her.

“I am for you at this hour--and the ship is fast. Come with me for a little. You are not afraid?”

She said seriously, “No, I’m not afraid. I’ll walk with you.”

He stood beside her, and took her down from the horse. When he had her in his arms he held her for a moment, and she made sure that he was going to kiss her. But he did not. He held her for a moment, and then put her down. Both of them were very red, and both out of breath. They began to walk slowly through the wood. Cormac led her horse.

There was no wind. The sun was hot, and the sky blue. The sea lay glittering without a ripple. The ground was dry underfoot, and the stems of the birch-trees were silver-grey. It was good to be alive and young on such a day. Cormac and Stangerd walked slowly side by side, with very little to say, but each very conscious of the other. They spoke seldom, and in low voices. The hour of great desire seemed to be past. He did not talk of love to her; but great love was in everything he said and hushed every tone of his voice.

At noon, being out of sight of the ship and, so far as could be seen, quite alone together in the world, they sat and shared some bread which Stangerd had with her. After that Stangerd said that she was sleepy, and lay down with her head on Cormac’s lap, and his cloak over her. He himself sat quite still, looking out over the sea, sometimes with great tenderness at her unconscious form gently stirring in sleep. He thought to himself that it would be very easy to suffer if she was always as innocent as that. When the evil moments came upon him, he said to himself, let him remember her as she lay there soft and pure, nothing but the most lovely thing in the world. Let him forget that she must lie in another man’s arms and put her arms round another man’s neck, and do him a wrong thereby. Even as he urged himself to forget that he remembered it, and felt his blood boil. He startled violently with the pain, and she awoke, and looked up, smiling lazily with her blue eyes.

Immediately he said to himself: “It is nothing, what she does with herself, or is done to. She is as incapable of wrong-doing as a tree or a flower. It is I who do wrong.”

“Why did you wake me?” she asked him, and he said, “A serpent stung me, and I started. But I have killed it.”

She laughed as she snuggled her cheek in her hand. “I don’t believe it. There are no serpents above ground in March.”

“There are always serpents above ground when a man walks the world,” said Cormac.

She thought of that for a while, and then she sat up and moved beside him, and took his arm. He would not look at her, but he listened acutely.

“You are unhappy at leaving me?” she said.

He replied at once, “No, I am not. That is what is so bad about it. If I were leaving you enchanted in this wood, to sleep until I come back--in a year, in two or ten years--I should go without a thought or a look back. But it is because I am leaving you in the power of another man that I grieve and fret. Therefore I know that I love you not well. Therefore I know that I must leave you.”

She lifted her eyebrows and opened her eyes wide. “Are all men like you? Do all men love women so?”

“I believe that they do,” Cormac said: “but I don’t want to be like other men. I want to love you as I love the sky and the wind on the hill. You are as beautiful as they are--indeed, more beautiful, for they only represent parts of you. They are your eyes and your breath. But there’s your fragrance, and your gait, and the flame of your golden hair; there are your brows, your chin, your bosom, your hands. And last of all, there is yourself, which makes men sing and go mad. When I first loved you I rejoiced in you; but afterwards I could not rejoice, because I wanted more than I could have. Sometimes I could have killed you for love, and that’s a terrible thing.”

She said, “Yes, that is terrible; but I will tell you this now, Cormac--that there have been times when I have wished you to kill me with love. No other man has ever made me wish that.”

Cormac gloomed and frowned over this saying, and did not speak for a time. Then he said, “Do women feel such things? Do they desire to give what a man desires to take? Is that possible?” He looked at Stangerd, but she had turned her head away, and when he touched her hand she moved it and got up.

“We must go,” she said. The sun was down behind the mountains, the air was colder, and dusk had begun to haunt the wood.

But Cormac must be answered. He made her face him, he made her look at him. She did it, but a storm lay gathering behind her eyes.

“Stangerd,” he said, “it is not too late.”

She flamed, she stamped her foot. “You fool,” she said fiercely, “it is too late. You have made me suffer horribly. I shall never forget it--and I will not forget it.”

He shut his eyes, rocked about. “A curse is upon me. A moment ago and I was happy, loving you as I should. But now I feel the fire again.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Let us go,” she said, “let us go. We have had a happy day.” She was quite close to him now, and put her face up to his as she spoke. She had no fear. He stooped and kissed her. His eyes were full of tears.

* * * * *

Then they went to look for her horse; but he had strayed, and they could not find him. It grew dark quickly, and it was necessary to do something. “What shall we do?” said Cormac. They walked on in silence together, and by and by a light showed up out of a hollow where the hill ran sharply down to a river and the sea-level.

“There’s a house down yonder,” Cormac said. “They will shelter us for the night. We had better go and ask them.”

She agreed to that, and took his arm. The way was very steep, and it was almost dark. Soon they heard the roaring of a force, and could make out the roof-line of a small house. And then a dog barked sharply, and ran out to meet them--a black and white dog.

A woman answered to their knocking, and asked them in. It was a poor house. She said that her sons were away at the fishing. There was room enough for them, but not much to eat.

“There’s a good bed for you,” she said, “for you can have mine. I’m a widow, worse luck!”

Cormac said at once, “You must give us two beds, mother. This is my sister.”

“You don’t favour each other much, by the looks of _you_,” she said. “You’re dark enough for an Irishman.”

They ate her meal and dry fish and sat by the fire for a little, and then the woman came in and said that the beds were ready. They were side by side, but a wooden partition ran up between them to within a foot of the rafters. Cormac, who thought that he should be awake all night, went to sleep almost immediately. It was Stangerd who kept watch, and tossed and turned the better part of the night.

* * * * *

In the morning Cormac got out of the house early and went up the hill to look for the horse. He found him without trouble, and brought him down to the farmhouse. Stangerd was waiting for him in the porch. She wished him good-morning with a smile and kind eyes. He took her in his arms and kissed her. The woman of the house, who was stirring her oatmeal, sniffed. “I never saw a man kiss his sister like that,” she said to herself.

* * * * *

They set out and climbed the hill into the woods. It was a fresh, mild morning of Spring, and the birds were busy everywhere at their nesting and courtship. The sea sparkled and the air quivered. Life was a good thing to look forward to, even if to look back was a bad thing.

Cormac found his singing voice again.

O land where the sea-eagle hovers,
O mountain-land and river flood.
Here is the wonder of the wood,
And here a tale of love and lovers.

What have I done? I’ve heard the note
Thrill’d by the wood-bird in the dark;
It set me soaring like a lark
That on his own song seems afloat.

But what have I done? I was blind
That thought I saw a fair maid pass
And stroke my cheek. That was no lass,
That spirit of the wandering wind.

What have I done? O silly hands,
That thought to hold and starve the fire,
And teach it leap to your desire
And burn within your puny bands!

What have I done, but love too high?
What have I done, but fall too far?
I set my longing on a star,
And there it burns, and here I lie.

And then he changed the time, and his voice had a jarring sound here and there, though the words were tender. Whiles, it croaked like a June nightingale’s.

Of Stangerd and her beauty, now,
What shall I sing? Was she in sooth
The Spirit few see but some may know,
Even as believ’d an ardent youth:
The Essence at the heart of things,
Which makes them things? substantial truth?
The secret rose of loveliness,
The very flicker in the wings
Of birds, the thrill of sweet distress
You get at heart, when a bird sings
At night? The fragrance, hue, impress,
The very life within the dress
That bodies beauty? Was all this
Chance-held in Stangerd’s blossomings
For Cormac’s vision and his bliss?
Was she so rare or he so tender?
He found her so by hit or miss.

There he stopped, and reined up the grey horse. He put his hand upon Stangerd’s knee, and held her eyes with his eyes while he sang again his last song.

And so he paid for his lachess,
Or, if you please, his soul-surrender;
For plain men saw--a piece of goods,
Just a fine girl, for all her splendour
Of form and favour, made of moods
And whim and hearty appetite,
Who liked her supper and was clear
What was and what was not her right.

And so two took her for delight,
And serv’d them of her aptitude
For work by day and play by night,
And found all well, and made good cheer;
And when their turn came round she dight
Their burial-clouts----

He stopped again abruptly, for he saw that Stangerd was crying.

“Shame upon me!” he said; “my love, forgive me, and let me go.”

She spoke through her tears. “You don’t know--you don’t know women. I am glad all men are not like you, because then all women would be as miserable as I am.”

He strained up to take her, but she would not let him. After a while she dried her eyes and spoke to him again.

“Go now,” she said. “There is your ship, and my way lies yonder.”

Far below them, truly enough, the _Raven_ lay swaying at her anchor. Beyond the Ness the sea sparkled and crisped.

Stangerd stooped from her saddle and met Cormac’s clouded face. Their lips met and stayed together for a while. Then she said good-bye and turned and rode through the wood. She had no tears in her eyes now, and carried her head high. The fire showed on her cheek-bones. She did not hurry her horse, but kept at a walking pace through the wood, and out on to the heath. Presently she saw Thorwald’s house-stead in the hollow of the hills. It looked grey in the shadow, for at this time of the year it did not get the sun till noon.

She rode down the hill and through the meadows to the garth. Her husband stood, a portly man, in the doorway, brushing his nose with his fine golden beard.

“I am glad to see you, wife,” he said.