Story and Song of Black Roderick | Page 8

reply, And
came all quickly to his call, Through brake and brier so high._
_And every man who saw her there Went down upon his knee; Behind
her came Earl Roderick, All pitiful to see._
_And in his trembling hand the helm From his uncovered brow; And
"Oh," he said, "to love her well, And know it only now!"_
_So he did walk while she did ride Through all the town away, For
greater than Earl Roderick She did become that day._
Now have I said how the heart of the Black Earl woke to love, and then
was humbled, as the ancient crone had foretold; but of his sorrowful
years, his desperate danger of eternal loss and his after-salvation, must I
likewise tell, if the story would be pitiful in the ending.
Therefore shall I lay my harp aside, and so go back in my telling.
And I bid thee remember how the little pale bride was wont to sit upon
the mountain and watch the far lights in her father's home quench
themselves one by one.
So now of how she died shall I tell thee, and of what came to her in her
passing, lest thou thinkest so innocent a child had laid violent hands
upon her life, who only had met death through the breaking of her
heart.
Here sat she on the mountain, and the wild things spoke of her in her
silence. The red weasel, the bee, and the bramble, and many others,
moved to watch her. Well have they known her in her young joyfulness;
here had she made the place she loved best--the high brow of the hill
where she sat as a child and watched--on the one side the far-off city
and the white towers that held the wonder-knight of her dreams. Here
had she sat and seen the gleam of his spear as he went with his hunters
through the valley; and here, too, had her mother come to tell her of her
betrothal, so she had nigh fainted in her happiness, in looking upon the
white tower that was to be her home.
Here had she learned the sweet language of the birds and flowers, and
they, too, had partaken of her joys; but of her sorrows they would not

understand, for our joys and our laughter, are they not as the singing of
the bird and the dancing of the fly, who weep only when they meet
death? In our griefs do we not stand alone, who have in our hearts the
fierce desires of love and all the tragedies of despair?
Now, as the young bride turned her slow feet up the mountain, down
where her glad feet had turned as a maid, she sat her there by the lake.
The little creatures she was wont to love and understand gathered about
her and wondered at her state.
"She hath returned," said the red weasel; "see where she sitteth, her
head upon her hand. I slew a young bird at her feet, and she spake no
word, nor did she care."
"It is not she," said a linnet, swaying on a safe spray, "for had it been
she her anger would have slain thee."
"It is she," said the red weasel, laughing in his throat; "but her eyes are
hidden by her fingers, and she cannot see."
"It is not she," said a brown wren. "Her cheek was full and rosy and her
song loud. This one sitteth all mute and pale."
"It is she," said the red weasel, "who sitteth upon the mountain, her face
hidden between her hands. She sitteth in silence, and who can tell her
thoughts? She hath been to the great city."
"It is a small place," hummed a honey-bee. "Once, long ago, she raised
her white palm between her eyes and its smoke. 'See,' she laughed, 'my
little hand can cover it.'"
"It is so great," said the red weasel, "that those who leave the
mountains for love of it return to us no more."
"Yet she hath returned," said a lone lark hanging in the sky, "and I
myself have sung beside her ear."
"She came, yet she came not," said the red weasel. "What did she
answer when thou saidst that I had slain thy mate?"
"She sighed, 'Thou singest a gay song, O bird!'" hummed a golden
beetle. "My grief! that she cannot understand."
"She is lost to us indeed!" said a honeysuckle swaying in the wind, "for
she trod me beneath her feet when I held my sweet blossoms for her
lips."
"And she tore me aside," cried the wild bramble, "when I did but reach
towards her for embrace."
"She will know thee no more," said the red weasel; "she hath been to

the great city."
"She laid