‘They’ll be here in a few minutes,’ they said; ‘somebody go and bring the children down;’ and within a very little while subdued noises were heard outside, and the lifting of the latch of the yard gate. The children were in their nightgowns, hardly fully awake; a low voice outside was heard giving orders; and then there arose on the night the carol.
‘Hush!’ they said to the wondering children; ‘listen! . . . ’
It was the Cherry Tree Carol that rose outside, of how sweet Mary, the Queen of Galilee, besought Joseph to pluck the cherries for her Babe, and Joseph refused; and the voices of the singers, that had begun hesitatingly, grew strong and loud and free.
‘ . . . and Joseph wouldn’t pluck the cherries,’ somebody was whispering to the tiny Angela . . .
Mary said to Cherry Tree,
‘Bow down to my knee,
That I may pluck cherries
For my Babe and me.’
the carollers sang; and ‘Now listen, darling’, the one who held Angela murmured . . .
The uppermost spray then
Bowed down to her knee;
‘Thus you may see, Joseph,
These cherries are for me.’
‘O, eat your cherries, Mary,
Give them your Babe now;
O, eat your cherries, Mary,
That grew upon the bough.’
The little Angela, within the arms that held her, murmured, ‘It’s the gipsies, isn’t it, mother?’
‘No, darling. The gipsies have gone. It’s the carol-singers, singing because Jesus was born.’
‘But, mother . . . it is the gipsies, isn’t it? . . . ’Cos look . . . ’
‘Look where?’
‘At Aunt Rachel, mother . . . The gipsy woman wouldn’t go without her little baby, would she?’
‘No, she wouldn’t do that.’
‘Then has she lent it to Aunt Rachel, like I lend my new toys sometimes?’
The mother glanced across at Aunt Rachel, and then gathered the night-gowned figure more closely.
‘The darling’s only half awake,’ she murmured . . . ‘Poor Aunt Rachel’s sleepy too . . . ’
Aunt Rachel, her head dropped, her hands lightly folded as if about some shape that none saw but herself, her face again ineffable with that sweet and peaceful smile, was once more rocking softly in her chair.
Dear Dryad
1
It all began so long ago that even the girl’s name is forgotten; but you can still see her type as she moved up the steep oak-wood on that far-off April morning – dense milky skin, hair of raw Pictish red, and light and wary eyes under the whitey-gold glint of her brows. Today, as then, that skin freckles lightly over the bridge of the nose, but scarcely takes the sunburn; and, if a sleeve happens to come apart or a brooch to slip, no vein shows through that thick whiteness.
The brooch that fastened the girl’s single woollen garment was of jet, and the garment’s blue was neither quite that of the bluebells that dimmed the tangled glades, nor yet the springtime blue of the sky against which the oaks raised their crewelwork of colour. The wide sleeves fell almost to her knee, and the plaited hair that made red runnels down her growing breasts were tied at the tips with little laces of the same skin that covered her feet.
She was not aware that she had climbed up into the oak-wood that long-ago morning to worship. She did not know what worship was – or rather she did not know what it was not to worship. These things were not her concern, but that of those Wisers and Elders of her tribe, who, because it was their business to attend to them, neither drove the burnt-wood share through the earth nor hunted nor fought with the bronze-headed hammers and axes. These Elders themselves seemed to the girl to resemble ancient oaks, mysterious, reverend, apart, white with frost and hoary with the hue of mistletoe. Their lore was rooted in the years as the trees had their deep footing in the hills. She herself, by comparison with them, was no more than a bird that nested for a brief space in their boughs, a passing winged thing, nearly as quickly gone as the arrowy young bracken that thrust up its pale green shoots at her feet.
And yet she was conscious that morning of a knowledge that those ancient ones had not. They knew nothing of those tender preparations within herself, those first makings-ready, of which her mother had warned her. These it was that had brought her up into the high oak-wood.
And not all the oaks, but her own special, dedicated oak, had called her, as already in her short life it had called her twice before.
Naturally she remembered nothing whatever of the first time it had called her. Her mother had undertaken that service for her, carrying her, a tiny bundle rolled up in a cloak. When the cloak had been put aside, the brain within the little red knob had comprehended nothing, the little fixed eyes (darker then) had seen nothing, and the weakly-moving mite of a hand had continued to fumble for the nipple.
So, when she had been not more than a few days old, she had been passed with ceremony over the oak’s bough, and had then been borne off in the cloak again.
But her second visit to the oak she remembered quite clearly. Once more her mother had accompanied her, helping her by the hand up the steep slopes, in and out, among the undergrowth that had stood as high as herself. It had been explained to her that this second visit was a Confirmation of the former occasion, and that henceforward she was to know for herself her own oak from other oaks, as her oak would know her from all other maids, and be specially hers. A dozen other maids she knew also had oaks, specially theirs. The world was a place full of hostile and inimical things, particularly (her mother said) for maids, and it was well to have so powerful a friend as an oak for one’s protector and refuge and home.
The girl had a feeling that her mother ought to have been with her this morning also, but she no longer knew where her mother was. That was by no means an unusual thing. People, mothers included, did mysteriously come and go, seemed to be here one day and then never seen again. The men who carried the brighthandled weapons often went out and did not come back again, and the cattle, too, came and went. She hardly wondered what had become of her mother. That was the way things were, so what was the good of asking questions?
She knew from tradition the observances her oak required of her. She must give something to the tree, and she must take something from the tree, and if one took and gave something very near and close to either, that too was an excellent thing. One was then (the Wisers and Elders said) part of the tree, as the tree was part of one’s self. And, though one died or were carried off, to the tree one would always return.
So, a long time ago, with the sunlight coming and going on the Pictish hair as she climbed, she moved in search of her oak.
She found it in the middle of its own little glade, among thorn and dark holly and the foolish birch that nobody worshipped. It was young and slender, like herself, but, young as it was, already a slip of ivy had grown up since her last visit and had wound itself round its trunk. That must be seen to at once. Oaks must be served if they were to serve you in return,
She did not intend to offer the oak her first blood. Long ago as all this was, it was not so long ago as all that. In those older days still the tree had had to be gashed, and so that it might understand that a friend of flesh was there and not only an enemy of bronze or stone, certain words that the girl did not know had had to be spoken. Now, the gift of a shoestring or a garment or some small possession sufficed. Walking among the oaks you frequently saw these gifts hanging from the branches, and they were never removed or disturbed. Everything else in life might change – mothers be seen no more, the men go out with the bright-handled weapons and never return, the cattle be driven off and the stockaded patch be possessed by strange folk – but the oaks and the offerings always remained.
The girl sat down under the tree and began to loosen the laces that tippe
d her plaits of hair. The glowing strands fell apart, and a toss of her head brought them all about her like a bush of burning sumach. Another toss flung the bush back again, showing the whole of the round white brow, and then her fingers began to seize wisp after wisp and to prick them violently out. Her brow was drawn with pain and her mouth was awry, but presently she had garnered a small hank. One end of this she took between her teeth, and her fingers moved as she wove a plait. All this time she was unaware that a pair of bright eyes watched her from across the glade. They were the eyes of a dark young man clad in skins. With one hand he put aside the hazels in order to watch the girl, and in the other was the smooth stone he used as a club.
Then, her gift for the oak ready, came the oak’s gift to her. She rose, and inserted her fingers round the stem of ivy that was trying to throttle the tree. The branches rustled and waked, a couple of birds flew away, but the stem parted, and the ivy-leaves came down in a glossy shower about her head and shoulders.
Sitting down again, she took a length of the ivy-stem and began to unravel it; for the stem of ivy, as you know, is made up of a close-spiralled twisting of narrow ribbons. These made a loose heap about her, as the shavings curl from the mouth of a carpenter’s plane. These also she chose and plaited. Then, her garters made, she drew up her blue garment and fastened them about the swathings that crossed her legs.
Nothing had grown closer to the oak than the ivy, and nothing was received nearer to herself. The end of the garters secured, she drew down her dress again and rose. As she reached upwards with the braid of her own red hair in her hand, suddenly, magnificently, the wide sleeve of blue fell clear away from her arm. She reached, as it were, to the oak’s strong shoulder that veinless milk-white bough of herself. She fastened to the tree that twist plucked living from her own head.
Then it was that the young man, who had advanced stealthily half-way across the glade, with a rush was upon her; and at the same moment, from away across the valley at the wood’s bottom, there floated a sudden light, uproar and clamour.
She uttered no scream. In that moment of rush and shock it came swiftly upon her what had happened. As that faint harsh clamour from below reached her ears she knew all at once what had become of her mother. An old recollection re-possessed her, of women and children hurriedly rushed with the cattle into the stockade, of men hastily catching up those shiny-handled weapons, and then of a hideous tumult of running and shouting and blows. She seemed again to be fearfully peeping through a chink in the stockade, to see the men of her own tribe forced back, and then a darkness as her mother, rushing to her, had caught her up in a garment. Then a rough scuffle and nothing more – nothing but that final glimpse, of the marauders pouring away over the shoulder of the hill again, driving the cattle before them, fire and smoke all about her, and, dimly through it all, the wild screaming creature flung over a man’s shoulder, who had cried out for her babe in vain.
Yes, that (she realised now) was what had happened to her mother.
She could only pant in the young man’s close embrace and look up into his sparkling eyes. Because he was causing her pain there was hatred in her look, and she bared her teeth for a moment as he raised his stone in menace. But the gleam died down as the stone did not descend. The wary eyes, pale as silver through her dishevelled mane of red, continued to move from his fierce eyes to the stone and back again.
But not for a moment did she upbraid her oak that it had betrayed her. How should she be betrayed, when this was the way things were? Had they not always been so? Had not her own sire borne off her mother in exactly the same way, and kept her until a stronger had taken her away from him? True, there had been a difference. The girl knew there was a difference, though she could not have explained what it was. Her father had taken his lodas goch, his red woman, to be his comfort, to share his meat by day and his litter by night. He had fished and hunted and built for her, and had never beaten her except when she had displeased him. But not so his conqueror. He had carried away a mere toiling-thing, a weaver of the blue cloth, a follower of the wood-yoked oxen, a tender of the little corn-patch. But the girl supposed that that, too, was the way of things. No doubt in time to come it would be her own lot too. It was no good asking of her oak more than her oak could give. Should not oaks, that lived so long in the world, know the way of the world?
So, perhaps, things were not so very much amiss after all – unless this young man should raise the stone again –
She gazed at the stone where it lay in his hand.
A stone! Had he no better weapon than a stone?
He had twisted one hand through the glowing hair and had turned her head down the wood. She turned once to look again at her oak, and his glance followed hers. He saw her offering tied to the bough, and his eyes approved. It was right that she should pay her service in her season. It was a good lodas goch, of a whiteness that he liked, and strong and excellently grown. Also within that blue sleeve was the long arm with the hint of russet beneath it to put round him by and by. A very good lodas goch indeed, and very well met.
So he drove her down the wood, and at the bottom of it they came to a gap. From the gap she saw it to be as she had already known it would be – fire and smoke from the stockade and the women and cattle being driven away over the shoulder of the hill. Here and there a small skin-clad figure lay stretched out motionless on the hillside, but she knew that no weapons remained with them. Weapons were great riches, greater even than the red cattle and the red women, since with weapons a man could be sure of all the rest. Again she glanced covertly at the stone in the young man’s hand. For his own sake and for hers he ought to have a better weapon than that. Other maids might jeer at her, that her man should be armed only with a stone! She knew where an axe was hidden away in a secret place. All would depend on how he used her –
And, provided he did not menace her with the stone again – provided he fed and guarded her properly and pleased her in other ways – well, she might by and by show him where the axe was.
2
The important thing about the oak was that thenceforward it possessed something it had not possessed before. Not the twist of red Pictish hair – thread by thread the birds stole that to weave into their nests. Not relief from the strangling ivy – that grew bushy and thick again as the oak put on the years that packed its heart-wood ever closer. But something else, some dedication, some bespeaking, some far-off echo of worship, lingered thereafter hauntingly about its boughs. It waited, grew great, yet kept as it were a secret as if it attended some sign peculiarly its own. Away over on the hillside there rose, not a rude stockade, but a great castle of staring new stone, with grim machicolations and a drawbridge and a ponderous portcullis. Steel-capped men-at-arms, men with bows and pikes, tramped where the men with the polished axes had fought, and the clink of the armourer’s hammers was for ever sounding within its courtyards.
For men still fought for their possessions, and made war for the possessions of others.
Only, if they would possess a lady, they now went about the business after a different fashion, as you may read.
Up that part of the hillside where the oaks had been felled to provide beams for the castle, there moved on an early morning a tall youth of seventeen. He was of a gay and open countenance and an exercised carriage, and the things that youth sees still lingered in his musing blue eyes. His hands were large and brown and strong, and the throat that carried his small head was supple as a limb. His jacket and hose were of grass-green silk; at his girdle he wore a pouch and anlace, and in his hand he carried a paper with writing upon it. He glanced at this paper from time to time as he walked. But at any movement from unseen bird or beast he readily forgot the paper.
He had slept little that night, because of thinking upon horses and armour and courtesy and love; but who or what it was he was in love with he would have been hard put to it to tell you. True, he would have answe
red promptly enough that all his love was for the lady whose glove had lain all night under his pillow. And perhaps after all, ‘love’ is not the word. What is the word when a youth lies so, enriching the soft curtain of the darkness with his fancies as the ladies of the castle wrought their tapestries, with scenes of jousts and huntings and fabulous beasts and magical flowers? What is the enchanted word, when the glove under the pillow is not so much one lady’s glove as all the gloves of all the ladies in the world? And what is it when you write your verse to the Spirit of Beauty itself, but think you mean La Beale Alys?
La Beale Alys, who was not quite old enough to be this young squire’s mother, knew only too well what that wonderful word was. It was the word ‘Seventeen’.
For it was but natural that his first lady should be a mature lady, the wife of a grown and proved knight, and merry, half-mothering lady, and his own mother’s friend.
There was promise of a hot day, but the sun was still far from its height. Dazzlingly it flashed along the dewy glades, glittered on leaves as if the whole wood had been set with lark-traps. The spell of his verse-making was still upon the stripling, and his lids were a little lowered against the brightness.
Perhaps that was why he remained unaware that La Beale Alys also was abroad, watching him, but taking care to keep within the edge of the clearing lower down the hill.
She was a fresh and comely and bouncing lady, but red and black, red as a rose and black as a raven’s wing. There was still time and to spare before one need ask whether she would have been less comely had she been less carefully attired. A mesh of gold twist, with a red stone at each knot, confined her ebon hair. Black too were her brows, with a gold fillet uniting the twin cauls across them. Numerous tiny golden buttons fastened her tight sleeves of russet velvet from knuckle to elbow, and her full robe was gathered up out of the drench of dew, showing little red stones on her slender feet also. She lurked out of sight of the green-clad figure ahead, as if after all she had a mind to turn back.
The Dead of Night Page 51