Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
The borders of the dark!
Through the branches glow,
From the roof above,
Star and diamond-sparks
Light for love.”
Scarcely had the last sounds floated away from the hearing of my own
ears, when I heard instead a low delicious laugh near me. It was not
the laugh of one who would not be heard, but the laugh of one who has
just received something long and patiently desired—a laugh that ends in
a low musical moan. I started, and, turning sideways, saw a dim white
figure seated beside an intertwining thicket of smaller trees and
underwood.
“It is my white lady!” I said, and flung myself on the ground beside
her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a glimpse of the
form which had broken its marble prison at my call.
“It is your white lady!” said the sweetest voice, in reply, sending a
thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all the love-charms
of the preceding day and evening had been tempering for this
culminating hour. Yet, if I would have confessed it, there was
something either in the sound of the voice, although it seemed
sweetness itself, or else in this yielding which awaited no gradation
of gentle approaches, that did not vibrate harmoniously with the beat
of my inward music. And likewise, when, taking her hand in mine, I drew
closer to her, looking for the beauty of her face, which, indeed, I
found too plenteously, a cold shiver ran through me; but “it is the
marble,” I said to myself, and heeded it not.
She withdrew her hand from mine, and after that would scarce allow me
to touch her. It seemed strange, after the fulness of her first
greeting, that she could not trust me to come close to her. Though her
words were those of a lover, she kept herself withdrawn as if a mile of
space interposed between us.
“Why did you run away from me when you woke in the cave?” I said.
“Did I?” she returned. “That was very unkind of me; but I did not know
better.”
“I wish I could see you. The night is very dark.”
“So it is. Come to my grotto. There is light there.”
“Have you another cave, then?”
“Come and see.”
But she did not move until I rose first, and then she was on her feet
before I could offer my hand to help her. She came close to my side,
and conducted me through the wood. But once or twice, when,
involuntarily almost, I was about to put my arm around her as we walked
on through the warm gloom, she sprang away several paces, always
keeping her face full towards me, and then stood looking at me,
slightly stooping, in the attitude of one who fears some half-seen
enemy. It was too dark to discern the expression of her face. Then she
would return and walk close beside me again, as if nothing had
happened. I thought this strange; but, besides that I had almost, as I
said before, given up the attempt to account for appearances in Fairy
Land, I judged that it would be very unfair to expect from one who had
slept so long and had been so suddenly awakened, a behaviour
correspondent to what I might unreflectingly look for. I knew not what
she might have been dreaming about. Besides, it was possible that,
while her words were free, her sense of touch might be exquisitely
delicate.
At length, after walking a long way in the woods, we arrived at another
thicket, through the intertexture of which was glimmering a pale rosy
light.
“Push aside the branches,” she said, “and make room for us to enter.”
I did as she told me.
“Go in,” she said; “I will follow you.”
I did as she desired, and found myself in a little cave, not very
unlike the marble cave. It was festooned and draperied with all kinds
of green that cling to shady rocks. In the furthest corner, half-hidden
in leaves, through which it glowed, mingling lovely shadows between
them, burned a bright rosy flame on a little earthen lamp. The lady
glided round by the wall from behind me, still keeping her face towards
me, and seated herself in the furthest corner, with her back to the
lamp, which she hid completely from my view. I then saw indeed a form
of perfect loveliness before me. Almost it seemed as if the light of
the rose-lamp shone through her (for it could not be reflected from
her); such a delicate shade of pink seemed to shadow what in itself
must be a marbly whiteness of hue. I discovered afterwards, however,
that there was one thing in it I did not like; which was, that the
white part of the eye was tinged with the same slight roseate hue as
the rest of the form. It is strange that I cannot recall her features;
but they, as well as her somewhat girlish figure, left on me simply and
only the impression of intense loveliness. I lay down at her feet, and
gazed up into her face as I lay. She began, and told me a strange tale,
which, likewise, I cannot recollect; but which, at every turn and every
pause, somehow or other fixed my eyes and thoughts upon her extreme
beauty; seeming always to culminate in something that had a relation,
revealed or hidden, but always operative, with her own loveliness. I
lay entranced. It was a tale which brings back a feeling as of snows
and tempests; torrents and water-sprites; lovers parted for long, and
meeting at last; with a gorgeous summer night to close up the whole. I
listened till she and I were blended with the tale; till she and I were
the whole history. And we had met at last in this same cave of
greenery, while the summer night hung round us heavy with love, and the
odours that crept through the silence from the sleeping woods were the
only signs of an outer world that invaded our solitude. What followed I
cannot clearly remember. The succeeding horror almost obliterated it. I
woke as a grey dawn stole into the cave. The damsel had disappeared;
but in the shrubbery, at the mouth of the cave, stood a strange
horrible object. It looked like an open coffin set up on one end; only
that the part for the head and neck was defined from the shoulder-part.
In fact, it was a rough representation of the human frame, only hollow,
as if made of decaying bark torn from a tree.
It had arms, which were only slightly seamed, down from the
shoulder-blade by the elbow, as if the bark had healed again from the
cut of a knife. But the arms moved, and the hand and the fingers were
tearing asunder a long silky tress of hair. The thing turned round—it
had for a face and front those of my enchantress, but now of a pale
greenish hue in the light of the morning, and with dead lustreless
eyes. In the horror of the moment, another fear invaded me. I put my
hand to my waist, and found indeed that my girdle of beech-leaves was
gone. Hair again in her hands, she was tearing it fiercely. Once more,
as she turned, she laughed a low laugh, but now full of scorn and
derision; and then she said, as if to a companion with whom she had
been talking while I slept, “There he is; you can take him now.” I lay
still, petrified with dismay and fear; for I now saw another figure
beside her, which, although vague and indistinct, I yet recognised but
too well. It was the Ash-tree. My beauty was the Maid of the Alder! and
she was giving me, spoiled of my only availing defence, into the hands
of my awful foe. The Ash bent his Gorgon-head, and entered the cave. I
could not stir. He drew near me. His ghoul-eyes and his ghastly face
fascinated me. He came stooping, with the hideous hand outstretched,
like a beast of prey. I had given myself up to a death of unfathomable
horror, when, suddenly, and just as he was on the point of seizing me,
the dull, heavy blow of an axe echoed through the wood, followed by
others in quick repetition. The Ash shuddered and groaned, withdrew the
outstretched hand, retreated backwards to the mouth of the cave, then
turned and disappeared amongst the trees. The other walking Death
looked at me once, with a careless dislike on her beautifully moulded
features; then, heedless any more to conceal her hollow deformity,
turned her frightful back and likewise vanished amid the green
obscurity without. I lay and wept. The Maid of the Alder-tree had
befooled me—nearly slain me—in spite of all the warnings I had received
from those who knew my danger.
CHAPTER VII
“Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew sayes,
A little I am hurt, but yett not slaine;
I’le but lye downe and bleede awhile,
And then I’le rise and fight againe.”
BALLAD _of Sir Andrew Barton_.
But I could not remain where I was any longer, though the daylight was
hateful to me, and the thought of the great, innocent, bold sunrise
unendurable. Here there was no well to cool my face, smarting with the
bitterness of my own tears. Nor would I have washed in the well of that
grotto, had it flowed clear as the rivers of Paradise. I rose, and
feebly left the sepulchral cave. I took my way I knew not whither, but
still towards the sunrise. The birds were singing; but not for me. All
the creatures spoke a language of their own, with which I had nothing
to do, and to which I cared not to find the key any more.
I walked listlessly along. What distressed me most—more even than my
own folly—was the perplexing question, How can beauty and ugliness
dwell so near? Even with her altered complexion and her face of
dislike; disenchanted of the belief that clung around her; known for a
living, walking sepulchre, faithless, deluding, traitorous; I felt
notwithstanding all this, that she was beautiful. Upon this I pondered
with undiminished perplexity, though not without some gain. Then I
began to make surmises as to the mode of my deliverance; and concluded
that some hero, wandering in search of adventure, had heard how the
forest was infested; and, knowing it was useless to attack the evil
thing in person, had assailed with his battle-axe the body in which he
dwelt, and on which he was dependent for his power of mischief in the
wood. “Very likely,” I thought, “the repentant-knight, who warned me of
the evil which has befallen me, was busy retrieving his lost honour,
while I was sinking into the same sorrow with himself; and, hearing of
the dangerous and mysterious being, arrived at his tree in time to save
me from being dragged to its roots, and buried like carrion, to nourish
him for yet deeper insatiableness.” I found afterwards that my
conjecture was correct. I wondered how he had fared when his blows
recalled the Ash himself, and that too I learned afterwards.
I walked on the whole day, with intervals of rest, but without food;
for I could not have eaten, had any been offered me; till, in the
afternoon, I seemed to approach the outskirts of the forest, and at
length arrived at a farm-house. An unspeakable joy arose in my heart at
beholding an abode of human beings once more, and I hastened up to the
door, and knocked. A kind-looking, matronly woman, still handsome, made
her appearance; who, as soon as she saw me, said kindly, “Ah, my poor
boy, you have come from the wood! Were you in it last night?”
I should have ill endured, the day before, to be called _boy_; but now
the motherly kindness of the word went to my heart; and, like a boy
indeed, I burst into tears. She soothed me right gently; and, leading
me into a room, made me lie down on a settle, while she went to find me
some refreshment. She soon returned with food, but I could not eat. She
almost compelled me to swallow some wine, when I revived sufficiently
to be able to answer some of her questions. I told her the whole story.
“It is just as I feared,” she said; “but you are now for the night
beyond the reach of any of these dreadful creatures. It is no wonder
they could delude a child like you. But I must beg you, when my husband
comes in, not to say a word about these things; for he thinks me even
half crazy for believing anything of the sort. But I must believe my
senses, as he cannot believe beyond his, which give him no intimations