A LOVERS’ TALE

A LOVERS’ TALE

BY MAURICE HEWLETT

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS NEW YORK : : : : : : 1915

Copyright, 1915, by CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Published March, 1915

CHAPTER I THE BROTHERS IN MIDFIRTH

INTO Midfirth runs the Mell river through mudflats and marl to mix green water with the salt waves. On either side the land is rich and wet, giving fine pasture, and you can hardly see the snow peaks beyond the fells from which Mell comes down cold and green and clear. There on the brae stood Melstead, and there it stands yet. Once it was the house of Ogmund and his wife Dalla; but he died before the tale begins, which begins with Dalla, a widow and blind, and her two grown sons—Thorgils and Cormac.

[2]Dalla had been a fine girl when she married Ogmund, as he himself was a fine man, who had been a fighter and a Viking in his day. Between them they had this couple of fine sons, of whom Thorgils, the elder, favoured his father, but had little of his quality. A broad-shouldered, fair-haired, sleepy young man he was now, steady at his work, and in his ways mild and quiet. He thought twice before he spoke, and therefore seldom spoke at all. If everybody did that, the world would be a peaceful place and much work done in it; but it would be very dull. Cormac took after his mother in looks, being vivid black and white. His hair was jet-black and curled freely, his face was very high in colour, that ran off to white in his forehead and neck. His eyes were light grey and rather fierce. He was a wild young man, but very friendly after the bout. He had no idea how strong he was; but his brother knew, though they were very good [3]friends for all that. He had a keen eye for the flight of a bird or the play of a fish, knew the weather by the smell of it, and

could sing and make verses. Sometimes he made verses because he had been moved; sometimes he was moved because he had made verses; and often he did not know which way it had been with him. Although he had no notion of setting up for a poet, he thought about himself and his sensations a good deal, and had found out already that he did not greatly care to do anything unless he could watch himself doing it, and watch the thing done as it suffered the doing. That’s a poet all over; but he didn’t know it. It gave him the conclusion, however, that he was very unlike his father, the Viking, to whom the killing of a man was not at all the same as the killing of a pig. But Cormac, who had never killed a man yet, fancied that, to him at least, there would be no essential difference. His father again (he had heard) had loved [4]many women, while he had loved never a one. But his father had been very jealous in his loves, and had killed almost as many men because they had intermeddled in his love-affairs. Now Cormac, thinking that over, felt very sure that he should

never be jealous if he were a lover. He theorised at large about it; he gave the subject a great deal of attention. Love-making must enhance a woman, he thought, even in the minds of her lovers. If she was beautiful, it was surely her due. If she was plain, it would provoke desire. What more lovely sight could the world offer a man than to see the woman he longed for the burning-point of the world’s longing? He kept these ideas to himself because he had nobody but his mother to whom he could have imparted them. She would have laughed at him and made him angry.

When this tale begins, Cormac was a full-grown man, strong for his age.

CHAPTER II THE WHALE

WHEN the whale came ashore at Watersness, Thorgils heard of it first. He went down to look at it, and found it was upon his land. It lay there, a mountain of distress, and the flies about it were as thick as a snowstorm. At home that night he spoke of it to his mother, and said that one of them must set to work cutting it up next day, or all would be spoiled. It was late autumn, very close, still, and hot, as it often is before the weather breaks up. Dalla said: “Cormac will never go to such a work. He hates to foul his hands.”

“Then I must do it myself,” said [6]Thorgils; “but I had been going on to the fells to round up the sheep. It is fully time.”

“Send Cormac after the sheep,” Dalla said, “and let Toste go with him, and send some of the hands.”

Just then Cormac came in. They heard him whistling outside in the dusk. He stayed there a good time whistling, singing scraps of songs, then came in and looked at them, scowling from under his black brows. He looked as if he had been expecting to find nobody and was annoyed by a sudden roomful of people. But they took no notice of him, and his face cleared. It was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. He threw his head up and laughed richly and snugly, as if to himself.

Dalla heard him. “What are you laughing at?”

“You,” he said, and she asked:

“Why so?”

[7]He came and kissed her. “Because I love you, I think.”

“That’s an odd reason,” she said, turning up her sightless face.

“No, it’s not,” he said; “it’s a very good reason. Whenever I come upon something I love, and find it, all closed in and ready to my hand, it tickles me. I laugh and think to myself, ‘There’s that pretty thing, snug against when I want it.’ And then I go away and do what I’ve got to do, and remember that it’s there all the time.”

His hand was stroking her face, and she moved about to get the feel of it. She was very pleased. “Your brother here thinks you a madman; but I understand you,” she said.

“So does he, when he wants me,” said Cormac, and sat down to his supper.

“I shall want you in the morning,” Thorgils said after much reflection, and told him about the whale. Cormac made a sour face.

[8]But he took a long draught before he spoke, and then he said: “That will be a dirty business, Thorgils. Can’t you give me one more to my liking? You know I do ill what I have no taste for.”

Thorgils said: “Well, you can round up the sheep on the fells if you please. It matters little to me. These things have to be done. There’s snow coming when the wind changes. It is banking in the north-west even now.”

This was a long speech for Thorgils, who had no more to say after it, and soon went to bed. Cormac sat up, telling his mother tales or listening to her stories of his father when he had been seafaring in Ireland; and before he himself went to bed he must needs go out of doors again. There was a full moon shining in splendour over the firth, and the sky was wonderfully clear. You could see over the fells to the white cap of Eiriks-jökul gleaming in the Southern sky like a dome. Below that, and three [9]days’ journey short of it, were the fells where the sheep lay, and Cormac must be betimes in the morning. He would go with Toste, who was the Melstead reeve and worked the dogs.

But though he shortened his night by it, Cormac nevertheless walked about the shore under the glory of the moon; and many a verse he made and sang to himself as he looked over the full, flowing water or marked the ducks bobbing about like a fisherman’s floats in the broad path of light.

CHAPTER III CORMAC GOES TO NUPSDALE

THEY rode out at sunrise, Cormac and Toste, with the dogs and house-carles, and worked all day fetching in the sheep. It was hard work; and the dusk came down early and found them still at it. Toste, who knew where they were, said that it would be well to put into Nupsdale-stead for the night. “They’ll feed us well, and we shall hear some good talk,” he said.

Cormac said it was all one to him where he stayed. He was ready to sleep out on the fell, or go home, as Toste pleased.

Toste was for Nupsdale-stead. He knew the master of the house, and was known of [11]him. “They will make you welcome, too,” he told Cormac, “and you’ll see the finest girl in the country, I believe.”

“Who’s that, then?” says Cormac.

“Why, Stangerd, Thorkel’s daughter of Tongue. She’s been fostered there these four years, and was like a spoiled hawk when I saw her last, three years back, I daresay. She will be of a likeable age by now—sixteen years old or thereabouts. A handful, I’ll warrant her—a breaker of hearts.”

“We’ll go to Nupsdale-stead,” Cormac said. “I should like to see her.”

Toste went on with his meditations aloud. “A burning girl—a big girl. She’ll set you afire. There’ll be a pair of you.”

Cormac laughed, and threw his head up. Then they went on through the acres to the homestead, which was a spacious place well sheltered from the wind; and soon they heard the dogs give tongue from the roof, and soon it was their business to fight [12]them off, and keep their own from dismemberment.

They were well received in the hall, where they found a company sitting at drink, a good fire, and a table where there would be supper by and by. Cormac looked about for the finest girl in the country; but there were no women in the hall: a son of the house served the newcomers with drink. At the further end was the high seat with two great pillars carved with the heads of Odin and Thor; and on each side of that curtains were hung so that there could be a passage all round.

Presently, as they sat listening to the talk, Toste gave Cormac a nudge, and when he got his attention, looked towards those curtains.

Cormac nodded. “I know,” he said. “There are two of them there.”

Behind the curtains were two pairs of bare feet shining in the light from the fire, [13]and a hand stirred the folds, as if to keep them together.

Cormac watched them for a little, then began to sing softly, as if to himself:

Then the white feet drew back; but presently Cormac saw another thing—or Toste did and showed it to Cormac. The heads upon the high seat pillars had had empty eyes; but now the eyes of Thor were agleam.

“She is looking at you,” said Toste.

Cormac nodded.

“She has bright eyes. The fire plays with them.”

[14]Then he sang again:

Whether she heard him or not, her eyes remained shining in the empty sockets of Thor, and Cormac watched them. By and by the sockets showed empty; and not long after that, Stangerd and a companion came into the hall at the lower end and sat down together on a bench and looked guardedly at the company. Stangerd was a tall and big girl, with corn-coloured hair, very fine and abundant, and, as Toste said, she was fire-hued and bold-looking, with blue eyes. She was bold-looking, and had bold, free movements. Cormac looked at her, and spoke to himself. He looked and muttered, looked and muttered. Then he [15]broke out so that Toste could hear him, and others beside Toste. Stangerd herself could tell that he was talking verses, and be sure that they were about her. As for her friend, she revelled in it.

Cormac sang:

There he stopped, not because all men were considering him and his muttering and his fixt eyes, but because words failed him. He still looked at Stangerd, but could not see her for the fiery mist which enwrapt her.

[16]Toste said, “That’s a splendid girl, that girl of Thorkel’s. There won’t be such another in the country. Yet he would be a bold man who would wive her.”

“Why so?” Cormac asked him in a stare.

Toste said, “Look at the colour of her; look at her ease and boldness. She is the sort that will ask and have.”

Cormac said, “All that is as it may be. What she wants should be hers by right. She is good to look upon—and that is enough for me.”

“You seem to find her good,” said Toste, “and you may look your fill. You’ll never look her out of countenance. She’s a match for you.”

Cormac could see that the two girls were talking about him, for they looked sideways as they whispered together, but kept their faces turned away from him. He could not hear what they said.

Stangerd, it seemed, did not approve of [17]him very much, but the other girl praised him.

“A fine young man,” she said, “with a fine way of looking at you, without offence. He looks at you as if you were a flowering tree.”

Stangerd said, “He’s like a magpie—all black and white. And I dislike a curly-headed man.”

“He has good eyes, sweetheart,” said the other girl. “He misses nothing.”

Stangerd shrugged one of her shoulders. “Black eyes, he has. They are treacherous. They see much and show little.”

“They see you, my dear,” said the other, “and so much, at least, they show. If I am not a goose they show you a deal more than that.”

Stangerd felt their scrutiny, and endured it for a good while; but presently she began to blush, and then must move, complaining of the fierceness of the fire.

The men brought in the food for supper; and then, as the custom was, the women [18]of the house waited on the men, pouring them their drink. Cormac’s eyes followed Stangerd about from man to man. He said very little at table, but seemed as if he was bewitched. When she came to his side and stood above him to pour out the liquor, he did not look at her, but frowned at his platter. Nor did he watch her any more until she went out with her foster-mother and the other girls of the house.

He drank deeply from his horn, and then looked at Toste as he sang:

Toste said: “You are badly hit, I see.”

Cormac made no answer, and fixed his eyes upon the girl until she left the hall with her companion. The master of the house, who was fostering Stangerd and had observed the effect she had had, came over the hall and sat by his two guests. He pledged them, and encouraged Cormac to talk.

That was not at all hard, as the young man was excited, and had drunk enough [20]to loosen stiffer tongues than his own. He talked freely, but very well. Men gaped, then laughed at him, then laughed with him. Very often he broke naturally into verse; and soon his was the only voice you heard. His father, Ogmund the Viking, was his best theme; he had a way of picturing the scenes in which his life had been spent. Once, he said, Ogmund rowed up a broad English river in his long ship with a raven at the prow. His ship was called Raven. They rowed up between great banks of grass and mud until they came to a town lying on a sloping ground—a close-huddled town of red roofs, with a church overtopping all. They sacked the town, and had all the plunder to share—white women, children, cattle, flocks of sheep. They scorned the men and killed most of them. They drowned the headman by tying him to a stake in the channel at low tide. Cormac said that the sea came up at him solid, in a wall of brown water, curling [21]at the edge. It brimmed about his chin,

and then filled his mouth and his eyes. Then you saw it dimpling over the top of his head; and then, for a long time, the wave he made, swaying there, slanted over the flood from bank to bank. He made a song about the women whom the rovers shared among them, and held the company spell-bound.

Stangerd lay awake listening to Cormac’s singing.

CHAPTER IV CORMAC WILL NOT BUDGE

IN the morning Cormac went out of the house to the water-trough, and dipped his head half a dozen times; and that was the best of his washing. Then he goes back into the hall and finds it empty, but voices of women come upon him from beyond the curtains, and one of them is Stangerd’s. Straight as a hawk he goes thither, and finds the women’s room, and Stangerd there in her shift and petticoat, combing her long, yellow hair. He had never seen such hair in his life; it was gold in colour, and reached below her knees. Her arms and shoulders were very white, but her neck was burning, and so was her [23]face. He stood looking at her in the doorway. The girl whom he had seen overnight was with her—a pale, slim girl, with light grey eyes and a laughing mouth. Stangerd went on with her affair, but this girl, called Herdis, nudged her, and whispered:

“Here is the fine stranger from the shore.”

But Stangerd’s head was sideways to him, and her face averted.

Cormac said to her, “Will you lend me the comb?”

She looked up then, tossing her hair in a wave behind her. She looked very boldly, but her colour was high. She held him out the comb without saying anything, and began to rope her hair, that she might coil and pin it with a pin.

While Cormac was combing his hair, the girl Herdis stood between them, and said to him, “What do you think of her hair?”

Cormac said, “It is like the silk which the worms make, when it is fresh carded.”

“What hair were that for a man’s wife [24]to have!” said Herdis. “And her eyes—what say you?”

Cormac said, “They are like the sea when the sun is behind you as you stand wondering at it. They are bluer than the sky when you stand in a narrow valley and look up.”

Stangerd had a rope of her hair in her mouth, and was pinning a coil. She looked from Herdis to Cormac without fear or confusion. Then she took the hair from her mouth and said: “Have you not done valuing me?”

Herdis laughed. “My dear, we have not yet cast up the figures, nor even set them all.” Then to Cormac she said:

“Do you set a price upon her?”

Cormac, looking at Stangerd, said:

[25]Stangerd liked this song, and was more gentle in her ways. She looked at Cormac with interest.

“You are a skald,” she said. “I knew that yesterday. I heard you singing in the hall.”

“I sing when the words and music come to me,” said Cormac. “Last night there was no trouble about it. I felt very greatly, and so sang greatly.”

“I heard you,” she said, “but not the words. What did you sing about?”

“My dear,” said Herdis, “can you ask him that?”

“Why not,” said Stangerd, “since I wish to know?”

“He sang about you,” said Herdis.

Stangerd asked him fairly: “Is this true?”

“It is not true,” Cormac said, “in the way she means it. Your name did not come into the song I sang. But the summertime came into it, and the yellowing of [26]the corn-acres, and the stillness of the heat on summer mornings, and the hush of the noons, and the gentleness of the evenings; and the rising of the harvest moon, full and hot, and the brown intake she makes about her in the sky. All these things were in the song—but your name was not in it at all.”

Herdis took Stangerd’s arm, and the pair of them stood together before Cormac.

Stangerd asked him if he was going away that morning.

“How do I know?” he said. “It may be that I shall be here talking to you. It does not rest with me.”

Stangerd smiled. “Does it rest with me?”

“Yes,” said Cormac, “and with no other.”

“Here is one coming,” Stangerd said, “who may wish to have a word in it.”

Toste came into the room.

“It is time we were away, Cormac,” [27]said he. “We have many a fell to beat over.”

The eyes of Stangerd and Cormac met. Then Cormac said:

“It is written that I stay here this day. You will find me here when you come off the hill.”

“Now where do you get that written?” said Toste with a grin.

Cormac said, “It is written in the heart of Stangerd.”

“No, indeed,” said Stangerd, “I don’t read it there.”

“But he does,” said Herdis, and Toste said:

“A man can read his own runes, but not what is in the heart of a woman. Well, I wish you joy of your day; it will be better than mine.”

So then he went, and Cormac remained all day talking to Stangerd.

[28]In the evening Toste came back for him, and he must go.

Stangerd came to the door of the house with him. She did not wish him to go, but she said nothing about it. They stood together at the door without speaking. Stangerd leaned against the door-post, and Cormac was near her, but not touching her.

When Stangerd was moved her cheek-bones showed and the colour was fierce and high over them, as if she had been burned there. So they showed now. It grew dusk, but still Cormac could see those patches of red in her cheeks.

He said, “It grows late, and I must go after Toste. When shall I see you again?”

She said, “I am always here. You will see me when you come to look for me.”