Uther and Igraine/Book 4/11

XI

AN indefinite melancholy overshadowed the world. Autumn breathed in the wind; the year was rushing red-bosomed to its doom.

On the summit of a wood-crowned hill, rising like a pyramid above moor and forest, two men stood silent under the shadow of an oak. In the distance the sea glimmered, and by a rock upon the hillside, armed knights, a knot of spears, shone like spirit sentinels athwart the west. Mists were creeping up the valleys as the sun went down into the sea. A few stars, dim and comfortless, gleamed out like souls still tortured by the platitudes of Time. An inevitable pessimism seemed to challenge the universe, taking for its parable the weird afterglow in the west.

Deep in the woods a voice was singing, wild and solitary in the gathering gloom. Like the cry of a ghost, it seemed to set the silence quivering, the leaves quaking with a windless awe. The men who looked towards the sea heard it, a song that echoed in the heart like woe.

"Sire, there is yet hope."

"Life grows dim, and dreams elapse in fire."

Merlin pointed into the darkening woods. His eyes shone crystal bright, and there was a great radiance upon his face.

"Sire, trust thine own heart, and the god in thee. Through superstition thou hast been brought nigh unto death and to despair. Trust not in priestcraft, grapple God unto thy soul. The laws of men are carven upon stone, the laws of heaven upon the heart. Be strong. From henceforth scorn mere words. Trample custom in the dust. Trust thyself, and the god in thy heart."

The distant voice had sunk into silence. Uther listened for it with hand aloft.

"Yonder--heaven calls," he said.

"Go, sire."

"I must be near her--through the night."

"And lo!--the moon stands full upon the hills. You shall bless me yet."

Dim were the woods that autumn evening, dim and deep with an ecstasy of gloom. Stars flickered in the heavens; the moon came, and broidered the trees with silver flame. A primæval calm lay heavy upon the bosom of the night. The spectral branches of the trees were rigid and prayerful towards the sky.

Uther had left Merlin gazing out upon the shimmering sea. The voice called him from the woods with plaintive peals of song. The man followed, holding to a grass-grown track that curled purposeless into the gloom. Moonlight and shadow were alternate upon his armour. Hope and despair were mimicked upon his face. His soul leapt voiceless and inarticulate into the darkened shrine of prayer.

The voice came to him clearer in the forest calm. The gulf had narrowed, the words flew as over the waters of death. They were pure, yet reasonless, passionate, yet void, words barbed with an utter pathos that wounded desire.

For an hour the King followed in the woods, drawing ever nearer, waxing great with prayer. Anon the voice failed him by a little stream that quivered dimly through the grass. A stillness that was ghostly held the woods. The moonlight seemed to shudder on the trees. A stupendous stupor weighed upon the world.

A hollow glade opened sudden in the woods, a white gulf in the forest's gloom. Water shone there, a mere, rush-ringed, and full of mysterious shadows, girded by the bronzed foliage of stately beeches. Moss grew thick about the roots; dead leaves covered the grass.

The man knelt in a patch of bracken, and looked out over the glade. A figure went to and fro by the water's brim, a figure pale in the moonlight, with a glimmering flash of unloosed hair. The man kneeling in the bracken pressed his hands over his breast ; his face seemed to start out of the gloom like the face of one who struggles in the sea, submerged, yet desperate.

Uther saw the woman halt beside the mere. He saw her bend, take water in her palms, and dash it in her face. Standing in the moonlight she smoothed her hair between her fingers, her hands shining white against the dark bosom of her dress. She seemed to murmur to herself the while, words wistful and full of woe. Once she thrust her hands to the sky and cried, "Pelleas! Pelleas!" The man kneeling in the shadow quivered like a wind-shaken reed.

The moon climbed higher, and the woman by the mere spread her cloak upon a patch of heather, and laid herself thereon. Not a sound ravaged the silence; the woods were mute, the air rippleless as the steel-surfaced water. An hour passed. The figure on the heather lay still as an effigy upon a tomb. The man in the bracken cast one look at the stars, crossed himself, and crept out into the moonlight.

Holding the scabbard of his sword, he skirted the mere with shimmering armour, went down upon his knees, and crawled slowly over the grass. Hours seemed to elapse before the black patch of heather spread crisp and dry beneath his hands. Breathing through dilating nostrils, he trembled like a craven who creeps to stab a sleeping friend. The moonlight showered vivid as with a supernatural glory. Tense anguish crowded the night with sound.

Two more paces, and he was close at the woman's side. The heather crackled beneath his knees. He held his breath, crept nearer, and knelt so near that he could have kissed the woman's face. Her head lay pillowed on her arm, her hair spread in a golden sheet beneath it. Her bosom moved with the rhythmic calm of dreamless sleep. Her lips were parted in a smile. One hand was hid in the dark folds of her robe.

Uther knelt with upturned face, his eyes shut to the sky. He seemed like one faint with pain; his lips moved as in prayer. A hundred inarticulate pleadings surged heavenwards from his heart.

Again he bowed himself and watched the woman as she slept. A strange calm fell for a season upon his face; his eyes never wavered from the white arm and the glimmering hair. Vast awe possessed him. He was like a child who broods tearless and amazed over the calm face of a dead mother.

Hours passed, and the man found no sustenance save in prayer. The unuttered yearnings of a world seemed molten in his soul. The moon waned; the stars grew dim. Sounds oracular were moving in the forest, the mysterious breathing of a thousand trees. Life ebbed and flowed with the sigh of a moon-stupored sea. Visions blazed in the night sky. The portals of heaven were open; the sound of harping fell like silver rain out of the clouds; the faces of saints shone radiant through purple gloom.

Hours passed, and neither sleeper nor watcher stirred. The night grew faint, the water flickered in the mere. The very stars seemed to gaze upon the destinies of two wearied souls. Death hid his countenance. Christ walked the earth.

A sudden sound of light, and the stirring of a wind. Far and faint came the quaver of a bird's note. Grey and mysterious stood the forest's spires. Light! Spears of amber darting in the east. A shudder seemed to shake the universe. The vault kindled. The sky grew great with gold.

It was the dawn.

Even as the light increased the man knelt and lifted up his face unto the heavens. Hope, glorious, seemed to fall sudden out of the east, a radiant faith begotten of spirit power. Banners of gold were streaming in the sky. The gloom elapsed. A vast expectancy hung solemn upon the red lips of the day.

Igraine sighed in her sleep. Her mouth quivered, her hair stirred sudden in the heather, tendrils of gold that shivered in the sun. Uther, kneeling, lifted up his hands with one long look to heaven. Prayer burnt upon his face. He strove, Jacob-like, with God.

A second sigh, and the long lashes quivered. The lips moved, the eyes opened.

"Igraine! Igraine!"

Sudden silence followed, a vast hush as of hope. The woman's eyes were searching silently the man's face. He bent and cowered over her like one who weeps. His hands touched her body, yet she did not stir.

"Igraine! Igraine!"

It was a hoarse, passionate cry that broke the golden stupor of the dawn. Sudden light leapt lustrous in the woman's eyes; her face shone radiant amid her hair.

"Pelleas!"

The man's arms circled her. She half crouched in his bosom, her face peering into his.

"Pelleas!"

"At last!"

A great shudder passed through her; her eyes grew big with fear.

"Speak!"

"Igraine."

"Gorlois?"

"Gorlois is dead."

Great silence held for a moment. The woman's head sank down upon the man's shoulder; madness had passed; her eyes were fixed on his with a wonderful earnestness, a splendid calm.

"Is this a dream?"

"It is the truth."

Presently she gave a great sigh, and looked strangely at the sun. Her voice came soft as music over water.

"I have dreamed a dream," she said "and all was dark and fearful. Death seemed near, and shadows, and things from hell. I knew not what I did, nor where I wandered, nor what strange stupor held my soul. All was dark about me, horrible midnight peopled with foul forms. It has passed; now, I behold the dawn:"

The man lifted up his voice and wept.

"My God! my God! out of hell hast thou brought my soul. Never again shall my vile lips blaspheme."

And Igraine comforted him.

"Shall I not be your wife?" she said.

THE END