Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women

by George MacDonald

  CHAPTER XXIII

  “High erected thought, seated in a heart of courtesy.” SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

  “A sweet attractive kinde of grace, A full assurance given by lookes, Continuall comfort in a face, The lineaments of Gospel bookes.” MATTHEW ROYDON, on Sir Philip Sidney.

  I had not gone far, for I had but just lost sight of the hated tower,when a voice of another sort, sounding near or far, as the treespermitted or intercepted its passage, reached me. It was a full, deep,manly voice, but withal clear and melodious. Now it burst on the earwith a sudden swell, and anon, dying away as suddenly, seemed to come tome across a great space. Nevertheless, it drew nearer; till, at last, Icould distinguish the words of the song, and get transient glimpses ofthe singer, between the columns of the trees. He came nearer, dawningupon me like a growing thought. He was a knight, armed from head toheel, mounted upon a strange-looking beast, whose form I could notunderstand. The words which I heard him sing were like these:

  Heart be stout, And eye be true; Good blade out! And ill shall rue.

  Courage, horse! Thou lackst no skill; Well thy force Hath matched my will.

  For the foe With fiery breath, At a blow, Is still in death.

  Gently, horse! Tread fearlessly; ‘Tis his corse That burdens thee.

  The sun’s eye Is fierce at noon; Thou and I Will rest full soon.

  And new strength New work will meet; Till, at length, Long rest is sweet.

  And now horse and rider had arrived near enough for me to see, fastenedby the long neck to the hinder part of the saddle, and trailing itshideous length on the ground behind, the body of a great dragon. It wasno wonder that, with such a drag at his heels, the horse could makebut slow progress, notwithstanding his evident dismay. The horrid,serpent-like head, with its black tongue, forked with red, hanging outof its jaws, dangled against the horse’s side. Its neck was covered withlong blue hair, its sides with scales of green and gold. Its back was ofcorrugated skin, of a purple hue. Its belly was similar in nature, butits colour was leaden, dashed with blotches of livid blue. Its skinny,bat-like wings and its tail were of a dull gray. It was strange to seehow so many gorgeous colours, so many curving lines, and such beautifulthings as wings and hair and scales, combined to form the horriblecreature, intense in ugliness.

  The knight was passing me with a salutation; but, as I walked towardshim, he reined up, and I stood by his stirrup. When I came near him, Isaw to my surprise and pleasure likewise, although a sudden pain, likea birth of fire, sprang up in my heart, that it was the knight of thesoiled armour, whom I knew before, and whom I had seen in the vision,with the lady of the marble. But I could have thrown my arms around him,because she loved him. This discovery only strengthened the resolutionI had formed, before I recognised him, of offering myself to the knight,to wait upon him as a squire, for he seemed to be unattended. I mademy request in as few words as possible. He hesitated for a moment, andlooked at me thoughtfully. I saw that he suspected who I was, but thathe continued uncertain of his suspicion. No doubt he was soon convincedof its truth; but all the time I was with him, not a word crossed hislips with reference to what he evidently concluded I wished to leaveunnoticed, if not to keep concealed.

  “Squire and knight should be friends,” said he: “can you take me by thehand?” And he held out the great gauntleted right hand. I grasped itwillingly and strongly. Not a word more was said. The knight gave thesign to his horse, which again began his slow march, and I walked besideand a little behind.

  We had not gone very far before we arrived at a little cottage; fromwhich, as we drew near, a woman rushed out with the cry:

  “My child! my child! have you found my child?”

  “I have found her,” replied the knight, “but she is sorely hurt. I wasforced to leave her with the hermit, as I returned. You will find herthere, and I think she will get better. You see I have brought youa present. This wretch will not hurt you again.” And he undid thecreature’s neck, and flung the frightful burden down by the cottagedoor.

  The woman was now almost out of sight in the wood; but the husband stoodat the door, with speechless thanks in his face.

  “You must bury the monster,” said the knight. “If I had arrived a momentlater, I should have been too late. But now you need not fear, for sucha creature as this very rarely appears, in the same part, twice during alifetime.”

  “Will you not dismount and rest you, Sir Knight?” said the peasant, whohad, by this time, recovered himself a little.

  “That I will, thankfully,” said he; and, dismounting, he gave the reinsto me, and told me to unbridle the horse, and lead him into the shade.“You need not tie him up,” he added; “he will not run away.”

  When I returned, after obeying his orders, and entered the cottage, Isaw the knight seated, without his helmet, and talking most familiarlywith the simple host. I stood at the open door for a moment, and, gazingat him, inwardly justified the white lady in preferring him to me. Anobler countenance I never saw. Loving-kindness beamed from every lineof his face. It seemed as if he would repay himself for the late arduouscombat, by indulging in all the gentleness of a womanly heart. But whenthe talk ceased for a moment, he seemed to fall into a reverie. Then theexquisite curves of the upper lip vanished. The lip was lengthened andcompressed at the same moment. You could have told that, within thelips, the teeth were firmly closed. The whole face grew stern anddetermined, all but fierce; only the eyes burned on like a holysacrifice, uplift on a granite rock.

  The woman entered, with her mangled child in her arms. She was paleas her little burden. She gazed, with a wild love and despairingtenderness, on the still, all but dead face, white and clear from lossof blood and terror.

  The knight rose. The light that had been confined to his eyes, now shonefrom his whole countenance. He took the little thing in his arms, and,with the mother’s help, undressed her, and looked to her wounds. Thetears flowed down his face as he did so. With tender hands he bound themup, kissed the pale cheek, and gave her back to her mother. When he wenthome, all his tale would be of the grief and joy of the parents; whileto me, who had looked on, the gracious countenance of the armed man,beaming from the panoply of steel, over the seemingly dead child, whilethe powerful hands turned it and shifted it, and bound it, if possibleeven more gently than the mother’s, formed the centre of the story.

  After we had partaken of the best they could give us, the knight tookhis leave, with a few parting instructions to the mother as to how sheshould treat the child.

  I brought the knight his steed, held the stirrup while he mounted, andthen followed him through the wood. The horse, delighted to be freeof his hideous load, bounded beneath the weight of man and armour, andcould hardly be restrained from galloping on. But the knight made himtime his powers to mine, and so we went on for an hour or two. Thenthe knight dismounted, and compelled me to get into the saddle, saying:“Knight and squire must share the labour.”

  Holding by the stirrup, he walked along by my side, heavily clad as hewas, with apparent ease. As we went, he led a conversation, in which Itook what humble part my sense of my condition would permit me.

  “Somehow or other,” said he, “notwithstanding the beauty of this countryof Faerie, in which we are, there is much that is wrong in it. If thereare great splendours, there are corresponding horrors; heights anddepths; beautiful women and awful fiends; noble men and weaklings. Alla man has to do, is to better what he can. And if he will settle itwith himself, that even renown and success are in themselves of no greatvalue, and be content to be defeated, if so be that the fault is nothis; and so go to his work with a cool brain and a strong will, hewill get it done; and fare none the worse
in the end, that he was notburdened with provision and precaution.”

  “But he will not always come off well,” I ventured to say.

  “Perhaps not,” rejoined the knight, “in the individual act; but theresult of his lifetime will content him.”

  “So it will fare with you, doubtless,” thought I; “but for me---”

  Venturing to resume the conversation after a pause, I said,hesitatingly:

  “May I ask for what the little beggar-girl wanted your aid, when shecame to your castle to find you?”

  He looked at me for a moment in silence, and then said--

  “I cannot help wondering how you know of that; but there is somethingabout you quite strange enough to entitle you to the privilege of thecountry; namely, to go unquestioned. I, however, being only a man, suchas you see me, am ready to tell you anything you like to ask me, as faras I can. The little beggar-girl came into the hall where I was sitting,and told me a very curious story, which I can only recollect veryvaguely, it was so peculiar. What I can recall is, that she was sent togather wings. As soon as she had gathered a pair of wings for herself,she was to fly away, she said, to the country she came from; but wherethat was, she could give no information.

  “She said she had to beg her wings from the butterflies and moths; andwherever she begged, no one refused her. But she needed a great many ofthe wings of butterflies and moths to make a pair for her; and so shehad to wander about day after day, looking for butterflies, and nightafter night, looking for moths; and then she begged for their wings. Butthe day before, she had come into a part of the forest, she said, wherethere were multitudes of splendid butterflies flitting about, with wingswhich were just fit to make the eyes in the shoulders of hers; and sheknew she could have as many of them as she liked for the asking; but assoon as she began to beg, there came a great creature right up to her,and threw her down, and walked over her. When she got up, she sawthe wood was full of these beings stalking about, and seeming to havenothing to do with each other. As soon as ever she began to beg, one ofthem walked over her; till at last in dismay, and in growing horror ofthe senseless creatures, she had run away to look for somebody to helpher. I asked her what they were like. She said, like great men, made ofwood, without knee-or elbow-joints, and without any noses or mouths oreyes in their faces. I laughed at the little maiden, thinking she wasmaking child’s game of me; but, although she burst out laughing too, shepersisted in asserting the truth of her story.”

  “‘Only come, knight, come and see; I will lead you.’

  “So I armed myself, to be ready for anything that might happen, andfollowed the child; for, though I could make nothing of her story, Icould see she was a little human being in need of some help or other. Asshe walked before me, I looked attentively at her. Whether or not it wasfrom being so often knocked down and walked over, I could not tell, buther clothes were very much torn, and in several places her white skinwas peeping through. I thought she was hump-backed; but on looking moreclosely, I saw, through the tatters of her frock--do not laugh at me--abunch on each shoulder, of the most gorgeous colours. Looking yet moreclosely, I saw that they were of the shape of folded wings, and weremade of all kinds of butterfly-wings and moth-wings, crowded togetherlike the feathers on the individual butterfly pinion; but, like them,most beautifully arranged, and producing a perfect harmony of colour andshade. I could now more easily believe the rest of her story; especiallyas I saw, every now and then, a certain heaving motion in the wings,as if they longed to be uplifted and outspread. But beneath her scantygarments complete wings could not be concealed, and indeed, from her ownstory, they were yet unfinished.

  “After walking for two or three hours (how the little girl found herway, I could not imagine), we came to a part of the forest, the veryair of which was quivering with the motions of multitudes of resplendentbutterflies; as gorgeous in colour, as if the eyes of peacocks’ feathershad taken to flight, but of infinite variety of hue and form, only thatthe appearance of some kind of eye on each wing predominated. ‘Therethey are, there they are!’ cried the child, in a tone of victory mingledwith terror. Except for this tone, I should have thought she referredto the butterflies, for I could see nothing else. But at that momentan enormous butterfly, whose wings had great eyes of blue surrounded byconfused cloudy heaps of more dingy colouring, just like a break inthe clouds on a stormy day towards evening, settled near us. The childinstantly began murmuring: ‘Butterfly, butterfly, give me your wings’;when, the moment after, she fell to the ground, and began crying as ifhurt. I drew my sword and heaved a great blow in the direction inwhich the child had fallen. It struck something, and instantly the mostgrotesque imitation of a man became visible. You see this Fairy Land isfull of oddities and all sorts of incredibly ridiculous things, which aman is compelled to meet and treat as real existences, although all thetime he feels foolish for doing so. This being, if being it could becalled, was like a block of wood roughly hewn into the mere outlinesof a man; and hardly so, for it had but head, body, legs, and arms--thehead without a face, and the limbs utterly formless. I had hewn off oneof its legs, but the two portions moved on as best they could, quiteindependent of each other; so that I had done no good. I ran afterit, and clove it in twain from the head downwards; but it could not beconvinced that its vocation was not to walk over people; for, as soon asthe little girl began her begging again, all three parts came bustlingup; and if I had not interposed my weight between her and them, shewould have been trampled again under them. I saw that something elsemust be done. If the wood was full of the creatures, it would be anendless work to chop them so small that they could do no injury; andthen, besides, the parts would be so numerous, that the butterflieswould be in danger from the drift of flying chips. I served this oneso, however; and then told the girl to beg again, and point out thedirection in which one was coming. I was glad to find, however, thatI could now see him myself, and wondered how they could have beeninvisible before. I would not allow him to walk over the child; butwhile I kept him off, and she began begging again, another appeared; andit was all I could do, from the weight of my armour, to protect her fromthe stupid, persevering efforts of the two. But suddenly the right planoccurred to me. I tripped one of them up, and, taking him by the legs,set him up on his head, with his heels against a tree. I was delightedto find he could not move. Meantime the poor child was walked over bythe other, but it was for the last time. Whenever one appeared, Ifollowed the same plan--tripped him up and set him on his head; and sothe little beggar was able to gather her wings without any trouble,which occupation she continued for several hours in my company.”

  “What became of her?” I asked.

  “I took her home with me to my castle, and she told me all her story;but it seemed to me, all the time, as if I were hearing a child talk inits sleep. I could not arrange her story in my mind at all, although itseemed to leave hers in some certain order of its own. My wife---”

  Here the knight checked himself, and said no more. Neither did I urgethe conversation farther.

  Thus we journeyed for several days, resting at night in such shelteras we could get; and when no better was to be had, lying in the forestunder some tree, on a couch of old leaves.

  I loved the knight more and more. I believe never squire served hismaster with more care and joyfulness than I. I tended his horse; Icleaned his armour; my skill in the craft enabled me to repair it whennecessary; I watched his needs; and was well repaid for all by the loveitself which I bore him.

  “This,” I said to myself, “is a true man. I will serve him, and give himall worship, seeing in him the imbodiment of what I would fain become.If I cannot be noble myself, I will yet be servant to his nobleness.” He, in return, soon showed me such signs of friendship and respect, asmade my heart glad; and I felt that, after all, mine would be no lostlife, if I might wait on him to the world’s end, although no smile buthis should greet me, and no one but him should say, “Well done! he wasa good servant!” at last. But I burned to do someth
ing more for him thanthe ordinary routine of a squire’s duty permitted.

  One afternoon, we began to observe an appearance of roads in the wood.Branches had been cut down, and openings made, where footsteps had wornno path below. These indications increased as we passed on, till, atlength, we came into a long, narrow avenue, formed by felling the treesin its line, as the remaining roots evidenced. At some little distance,on both hands, we observed signs of similar avenues, which appeared toconverge with ours, towards one spot. Along these we indistinctly sawseveral forms moving, which seemed, with ourselves, to approach thecommon centre. Our path brought us, at last, up to a wall of yew-trees,growing close together, and intertwining their branches so, that nothingcould be seen beyond it. An opening was cut in it like a door, and allthe wall was trimmed smooth and perpendicular. The knight dismounted,and waited till I had provided for his horse’s comfort; upon which weentered the place together.

  It was a great space, bare of trees, and enclosed by four walls of yew,similar to that through which we had entered. These trees grew to a verygreat height, and did not divide from each other till close to the top,where their summits formed a row of conical battlements all around thewalls. The space contained was a parallelogram of great length. Alongeach of the two longer sides of the interior, were ranged three ranksof men, in white robes, standing silent and solemn, each with a sword byhis side, although the rest of his costume and bearing was more priestlythan soldierly. For some distance inwards, the space between theseopposite rows was filled with a company of men and women and children,in holiday attire. The looks of all were directed inwards, towards thefurther end. Far beyond the crowd, in a long avenue, seeming to narrowin the distance, went the long rows of the white-robed men. On what theattention of the multitude was fixed, we could not tell, for the sun hadset before we arrived, and it was growing dark within. It grew darkerand darker. The multitude waited in silence. The stars began to shinedown into the enclosure, and they grew brighter and larger every moment.A wind arose, and swayed the pinnacles of the tree-tops; and made astrange sound, half like music, half like moaning, through the closebranches and leaves of the tree-walls. A young girl who stood beside me,clothed in the same dress as the priests, bowed her head, and grew palewith awe.

  The knight whispered to me, “How solemn it is! Surely they wait to hearthe voice of a prophet. There is something good near!”

  But I, though somewhat shaken by the feeling expressed by my master,yet had an unaccountable conviction that here was something bad. So Iresolved to be keenly on the watch for what should follow.

  Suddenly a great star, like a sun, appeared high in the air over thetemple, illuminating it throughout; and a great song arose from the menin white, which went rolling round and round the building, now recedingto the end, and now approaching, down the other side, the place where westood. For some of the singers were regularly ceasing, and the nextto them as regularly taking up the song, so that it crept onwards withgradations produced by changes which could not themselves be detected,for only a few of those who were singing ceased at the same moment. Thesong paused; and I saw a company of six of the white-robed men walk upthe centre of the human avenue, surrounding a youth gorgeously attiredbeneath his robe of white, and wearing a chaplet of flowers on hishead. I followed them closely, with my keenest observation; and, byaccompanying their slow progress with my eyes, I was able to perceivemore clearly what took place when they arrived at the other end. I knewthat my sight was so much more keen than that of most people, that I hadgood reason to suppose I should see more than the rest could, at such adistance. At the farther end a throne stood upon a platform, high abovethe heads of the surrounding priests. To this platform I saw the companybegin to ascend, apparently by an inclined plane or gentle slope. Thethrone itself was elevated again, on a kind of square pedestal, to thetop of which led a flight of steps. On the throne sat a majestic-lookingfigure, whose posture seemed to indicate a mixture of pride andbenignity, as he looked down on the multitude below. The companyascended to the foot of the throne, where they all kneeled for someminutes; then they rose and passed round to the side of the pedestalupon which the throne stood. Here they crowded close behind the youth,putting him in the foremost place, and one of them opened a door in thepedestal, for the youth to enter. I was sure I saw him shrink back, andthose crowding behind pushed him in. Then, again, arose a burst of songfrom the multitude in white, which lasted some time. When it ceased,a new company of seven commenced its march up the centre. As theyadvanced, I looked up at my master: his noble countenance was full ofreverence and awe. Incapable of evil himself, he could scarcely suspectit in another, much less in a multitude such as this, and surroundedwith such appearances of solemnity. I was certain it was the reallygrand accompaniments that overcame him; that the stars overhead, thedark towering tops of the yew-trees, and the wind that, like an unseenspirit, sighed through their branches, bowed his spirit to the belief,that in all these ceremonies lay some great mystical meaning which, hishumility told him, his ignorance prevented him from understanding.

  More convinced than before, that there was evil here, I could not endurethat my master should be deceived; that one like him, so pure and noble,should respect what, if my suspicions were true, was worse than theordinary deceptions of priestcraft. I could not tell how far he might beled to countenance, and otherwise support their doings, before he shouldfind cause to repent bitterly of his error. I watched the new processionyet more keenly, if possible, than the former. This time, the centralfigure was a girl; and, at the close, I observed, yet more indubitably,the shrinking back, and the crowding push. What happened to the victims,I never learned; but I had learned enough, and I could bear it nolonger. I stooped, and whispered to the young girl who stood by me, tolend me her white garment. I wanted it, that I might not be entirelyout of keeping with the solemnity, but might have at least this help topassing unquestioned. She looked up, half-amused and half-bewildered, asif doubting whether I was in earnest or not. But in her perplexity, shepermitted me to unfasten it, and slip it down from her shoulders.

  I easily got possession of it; and, sinking down on my knees in thecrowd, I rose apparently in the habit of one of the worshippers.

  Giving my battle-axe to the girl, to hold in pledge for the return ofher stole, for I wished to test the matter unarmed, and, if it was a manthat sat upon the throne, to attack him with hands bare, as I supposedhis must be, I made my way through the crowd to the front, while thesinging yet continued, desirous of reaching the platform while it wasunoccupied by any of the priests. I was permitted to walk up the longavenue of white robes unmolested, though I saw questioning looks in manyof the faces as I passed. I presume my coolness aided my passage; forI felt quite indifferent as to my own fate; not feeling, after thelate events of my history, that I was at all worth taking care of; andenjoying, perhaps, something of an evil satisfaction, in the revengeI was thus taking upon the self which had fooled me so long. When Iarrived on the platform, the song had just ceased, and I felt as if allwere looking towards me. But instead of kneeling at its foot, I walkedright up the stairs to the throne, laid hold of a great wooden imagethat seemed to sit upon it, and tried to hurl it from its seat. In thisI failed at first, for I found it firmly fixed. But in dread lest, thefirst shock of amazement passing away, the guards would rush upon mebefore I had effected my purpose, I strained with all my might; and,with a noise as of the cracking, and breaking, and tearing of rottenwood, something gave way, and I hurled the image down the steps. Itsdisplacement revealed a great hole in the throne, like the hollow of adecayed tree, going down apparently a great way. But I had no time toexamine it, for, as I looked into it, up out of it rushed a great brute,like a wolf, but twice the size, and tumbled me headlong with itself,down the steps of the throne. As we fell, however, I caught it by thethroat, and the moment we reached the platform, a struggle commenced, inwhich I soon got uppermost, with my hand upon its throat, and knee uponits heart. But now arose a wild cry of wrath and revenge and
rescue.A universal hiss of steel, as every sword was swept from its scabbard,seemed to tear the very air in shreds. I heard the rush of hundredstowards the platform on which I knelt. I only tightened my grasp of thebrute’s throat. His eyes were already starting from his head, and histongue was hanging out. My anxious hope was, that, even after they hadkilled me, they would be unable to undo my gripe of his throat, beforethe monster was past breathing. I therefore threw all my will, andforce, and purpose, into the grasping hand. I remember no blow. Afaintness came over me, and my consciousness departed.