Then I drew over me a rich, heavy, purple cloth that was beside me; and, lying still, knew, by the sound of the waters, that my little bark was fleeting rapidly onwards. Finding, however, none of that stormy motion which the sea had manifested when I beheld it from the sh.o.r.e, I opened my eyes; and, looking first up, saw above me the deep violet sky of a warm southern night; and then, lifting my head, saw that I was sailing fast upon a summer sea, in the last border of a southern twilight. The aureole of the sun yet shot the extreme faint tips of its longest rays above the horizon-waves, and withdrew them not. It was a perpetual twilight. The stars, great and earnest, like children's eyes, bent down lovingly towards the waters; and the reflected stars within seemed to float up, as if longing to meet their embraces. But when I looked down, a new wonder met my view. For, vaguely revealed beneath the wave, I floated above my whole Past. The fields of my childhood flitted by; the halls of my youthful labours; the streets of great cities where I had dwelt; and the a.s.semblies of men and women wherein I had wearied myself seeking for rest. But so indistinct were the visions, that sometimes I thought I was sailing on a shallow sea, and that strange rocks and forests of sea-plants beguiled my eye, sufficiently to be transformed, by the magic of the phantasy, into well-known objects and regions. Yet, at times, a beloved form seemed to lie close beneath me in sleep; and the eyelids would tremble as if about to forsake the conscious eye; and the arms would heave upwards, as if in dreams they sought for a satisfying presence. But these motions might come only from the heaving of the waters between those forms and me. Soon I fell asleep, overcome with fatigue and delight. In dreams of unspeakable joy--of restored friendships; of revived embraces; of love which said it had never died; of faces that had vanished long ago, yet said with smiling lips that they knew nothing of the grave; of pardons implored, and granted with such bursting floods of love, that I was almost glad I had sinned--thus I pa.s.sed through this wondrous twilight. I awoke with the feeling that I had been kissed and loved to my heart's content; and found that my boat was floating motionless by the gra.s.sy sh.o.r.e of a little island.

CHAPTER XIX

"In still rest, in changeless simplicity, I bear, uninterrupted, the consciousness of the whole of Humanity within me."--SCHLEIERMACHERS, Monologen.

"... such a sweetness, such a grace, In all thy speech appear, That what to th'eye a beauteous face, That thy tongue is to the ear."

--COWLEY.

The water was deep to the very edge; and I sprang from the little boat upon a soft gra.s.sy turf. The island seemed rich with a profusion of all gra.s.ses and low flowers. All delicate lowly things were most plentiful; but no trees rose skywards, not even a bush overtopped the tall gra.s.ses, except in one place near the cottage I am about to describe, where a few plants of the gum-cistus, which drops every night all the blossoms that the day brings forth, formed a kind of natural arbour. The whole island lay open to the sky and sea. It rose nowhere more than a few feet above the level of the waters, which flowed deep all around its border. Here there seemed to be neither tide nor storm. A sense of persistent calm and fulness arose in the mind at the sight of the slow, pulse-like rise and fall of the deep, clear, unrippled waters against the bank of the island, for sh.o.r.e it could hardly be called, being so much more like the edge of a full, solemn river. As I walked over the gra.s.s towards the cottage, which stood at a little distance from the bank, all the flowers of childhood looked at me with perfect child-eyes out of the gra.s.s. My heart, softened by the dreams through which it had pa.s.sed, overflowed in a sad, tender love towards them. They looked to me like children impregnably fortified in a helpless confidence. The sun stood half-way down the western sky, shining very soft and golden; and there grew a second world of shadows amidst the world of gra.s.ses and wild flowers.

The cottage was square, with low walls, and a high pyramidal roof thatched with long reeds, of which the withered blossoms hung over all the eaves. It is noticeable that most of the buildings I saw in Fairy Land were cottages. There was no path to a door, nor, indeed, was there any track worn by footsteps in the island.

The cottage rose right out of the smooth turf. It had no windows that I could see; but there was a door in the centre of the side facing me, up to which I went. I knocked, and the sweetest voice I had ever heard said, "Come in." I entered. A bright fire was burning on a hearth in the centre of the earthern floor, and the smoke found its way out at an opening in the centre of the pyramidal roof. Over the fire hung a little pot, and over the pot bent a woman-face, the most wonderful, I thought, that I had ever beheld. For it was older than any countenance I had ever looked upon. There was not a spot in which a wrinkle could lie, where a wrinkle lay not. And the skin was ancient and brown, like old parchment.

The woman's form was tall and spare: and when she stood up to welcome me, I saw that she was straight as an arrow. Could that voice of sweetness have issued from those lips of age? Mild as they were, could they be the portals whence flowed such melody? But the moment I saw her eyes, I no longer wondered at her voice: they were absolutely young--those of a woman of five-and-twenty, large, and of a clear gray.

Wrinkles had beset them all about; the eyelids themselves were old, and heavy, and worn; but the eyes were very incarnations of soft light. She held out her hand to me, and the voice of sweetness again greeted me, with the single word, "Welcome." She set an old wooden chair for me, near the fire, and went on with her cooking. A wondrous sense of refuge and repose came upon me. I felt like a boy who has got home from school, miles across the hills, through a heavy storm of wind and snow. Almost, as I gazed on her, I sprang from my seat to kiss those old lips. And when, having finished her cooking, she brought some of the dish she had prepared, and set it on a little table by me, covered with a snow-white cloth, I could not help laying my head on her bosom, and bursting into happy tears. She put her arms round me, saying, "Poor child; poor child!"

As I continued to weep, she gently disengaged herself, and, taking a spoon, put some of the food (I did not know what it was) to my lips, entreating me most endearingly to swallow it. To please her, I made an effort, and succeeded. She went on feeding me like a baby, with one arm round me, till I looked up in her face and smiled: then she gave me the spoon and told me to eat, for it would do me good. I obeyed her, and found myself wonderfully refreshed. Then she drew near the fire an old-fashioned couch that was in the cottage, and making me lie down upon it, sat at my feet, and began to sing. Amazing store of old ballads rippled from her lips, over the pebbles of ancient tunes; and the voice that sang was sweet as the voice of a tuneful maiden that singeth ever from very fulness of song. The songs were almost all sad, but with a sound of comfort. One I can faintly recall. It was something like this:

Sir Aglovaile through the churchyard rode; SING, ALL ALONE I LIE: Little recked he where'er he yode, ALL ALONE, UP IN THE SKY.

Swerved his courser, and plunged with fear ALL ALONE I LIE: His cry might have wakened the dead men near, ALL ALONE, UP IN THE SKY.

The very dead that lay at his feet, Lapt in the mouldy winding-sheet.

But he curbed him and spurred him, until he stood Still in his place, like a horse of wood,

With nostrils uplift, and eyes wide and wan; But the sweat in streams from his fetlocks ran.

A ghost grew out of the shadowy air, And sat in the midst of her moony hair.

In her gleamy hair she sat and wept; In the dreamful moon they lay and slept;

The shadows above, and the bodies below, Lay and slept in the moonbeams slow.

And she sang, like the moan of an autumn wind Over the stubble left behind:

Alas, how easily things go wrong!

A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again.

Alas, how hardly things go right!

'Tis hard to watch on a summer night, For the sigh will come and the kiss will stay, And the summer night is a winter day.

"Oh, lovely ghosts my heart is woes To see thee weeping and wailing so.

Oh, lovely ghost," said the fearless knight, "Can the sword of a warrior set it right?

Or prayer of bedesman, praying mild, As a cup of water a feverish child,

Sooth thee at last, in dreamless mood To sleep the sleep a dead lady should?

Thine eyes they fill me with longing sore, As if I had known thee for evermore.

Oh, lovely ghost, I could leave the day To sit with thee in the moon away

If thou wouldst trust me, and lay thy head To rest on a bosom that is not dead."

The lady sprang up with a strange ghost-cry, And she flung her white ghost-arms on high:

And she laughed a laugh that was not gay, And it lengthened out till it died away;

And the dead beneath turned and moaned, And the yew-trees above they shuddered and groaned.

"Will he love me twice with a love that is vain?

Will he kill the poor ghost yet again?

I thought thou wert good; but I said, and wept: 'Can I have dreamed who have not slept?'

And I knew, alas! or ever I would, Whether I dreamed, or thou wert good.

When my baby died, my brain grew wild.

I awoke, and found I was with my child."

"If thou art the ghost of my Adelaide, How is it? Thou wert but a village maid,

And thou seemest an angel lady white, Though thin, and wan, and past delight."

The lady smiled a flickering smile, And she pressed her temples hard the while.

"Thou seest that Death for a woman can Do more than knighthood for a man."

"But show me the child thou callest mine, Is she out to-night in the ghost's sunshine?"

"In St. Peter's Church she is playing on, At hide-and-seek, with Apostle John.

When the moonbeams right through the window go, Where the twelve are standing in glorious show,

She says the rest of them do not stir, But one comes down to play with her.

Then I can go where I list, and weep, For good St. John my child will keep."

"Thy beauty filleth the very air, Never saw I a woman so fair."

"Come, if thou darest, and sit by my side; But do not touch me, or woe will betide.

Alas, I am weak: I might well know This gladness betokens some further woe.