Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/202

 was a new day. At first he heeded them nought, but in the end he turned on them with an angry eye, yet spake mildly, and bade them get them home and eat and sleep. But leave me here, quoth he, that I may watch awhile lest aught of new befalleth; and I will come to Wethermel when my heart will suffer me. So they departed and left him; and there he stood, till himseemed he had been there a long, long time. Night grew black about him, and silence fell upon the cloven plain of the Dale, save that below him the speech of the eddies seemed to grow greater as other voices failed. Then arose the wind, and went through the long grass and talked in the crannies of the rock-wall of the Flood as the waters spake below; and none came anear, nor might he hearken any foot of man, only far-off voices from the steads of a barking dog or crowing cock or lowing cow.

At last, when the night was beginning to change amidst the depths of the darkness, himseemed he heard somewhat drawing anigh and coming up the bent on the western side, and he wotted not but it might be the unshod feet of men, and he lightly asked himself if the ghosts of the dead made any sound with their feet as they trod the puddled earth where a many had trodden before them; and so wild was his heart grown now, that he thought it no great marvel if those that they had laid to earth there should stand up and come before him in the night watches. Then he nocked an arrow on his bow