Story and Song of Black Roderick | Page 3

herself for her betrothed.
What of her dream was there now? She was indeed the Earl's bride, but, alack! she was divorced from his heart and was naught to his days.
Never did she sit by his knee when he drew his chair by the fire, weary from the chase, nor lean beside him while he slept, to wonder at her happiness. Down the great halls she went, looking through the narrow windows on the outside world, as a brown moth flutters at the pane, weary of an imprisonment that had in its hold the breath of death.
Weary and pale grew she, and more morose and stern the Black Earl, and of their tragedy there seemed no end. But when a year had nigh passed, one rosy morning a servant-lass met Black Roderick as he came from his chamber, her eyes heavy with tears.
And of what she said I shall sing, lest thou grow weary of my prose:
_"Alas!" she said, "Earl Roderick, 'Tis well that you should know That each gray eve, lone wandering, My mistress dear doth go._
_"She comes with sorrow in her eyes Home in the dawning light; My lord, she is so weak and young To travel in the night."_
_Now stern grew Black Earl Roderick, But answered not at all; He took his hunting harness down That hung upon the wall._
_Then quickly went he to the chase, And slowly came he back, And there he met his old sweetheart, Who stood across his track._
So shall I tell how she, sighing and white of face, laid her soft hand upon his bridle-rein so he could not go from her. Her breath came out of her like the hissing of a trodden snake, poisoning the ear of the horseman.
"Bend to me thy proud head, Black Earl," quoth she, "for it shall be low enough soon. This is a tale I bring to thee of sorrow and shame. Bend me thy proud neck, Black Roderick, for the burden I must lay upon it shall bow thee as the snow does the mountain pine. Bend to me thine ear."
To him then she said:
"Where goeth your mistress?"
"What care I?" said the Black Earl, "since she be not thou."
"If she were I," said his lost love, "she would seek no other save thee alone."
"What sayest thou?" said the Black Earl, pale as death.
"Each night she goeth through the woods of Glenasmole to the hill of brown Kippure, and there lingereth until the dawn be chill."
"Who hath her love?" saith the Black Earl.
"A shepherd, or mayhap a swineherd--who knoweth?" quoth the serpent voice. "By no brave prince art thou supplanted."
At this the Black Earl struck his hand upon his breast.
"Lord pity me," quoth he, "that in my time should come the stain upon our honored house! My name, that was so white, shall now blush red. My proud ancestors will curse me from their tomb. Let thou go my rein, that I may seek this wanton and give her ready punishment."
So quick he drew the rein from her hand that she wellnigh stumbled. And like one bereft of mind he rode through the woods and up the hill seeking his false bride. High and low he searched, but no sign of his lost mistress did he discover. Out in the distance he saw the shining city of Baile-ata-Cliat, on the near wood side of which his gray towers stood. He could see the flag on its topmost turret waving in the breeze like a beckoning finger calling him back from his futile search. He turned him about, and on every side of him were the shadowy mountains watching him and appalling him with their mystery. Impatient he turned his eyes upon the ground; a bramble moving in the wind cast itself about his feet. He crushed it under his heel. A bee darting from one of the trodden flowers made a battle-cry, and bared her sting for his neck. He struck it down among the leaves; following its fall, his eyes, drawn by some other eyes, rested on a hollow by a stone. There he saw gazing at him the whiskered face of a red weasel, looking without pity, without fear.
"Evil beast!" said the Black Earl, glad to speak, for the silence of all the listening things who watched him made his heart beat with unwonted quickness, and he knew they were so many silent judges reading the evil of his soul. "Get thee gone," quoth the Black Earl. "Darest thou gaze upon me without fear?"
But the red weasel, resting at the doorway of his hole, did not blink a lid of his sharp eyes.
"Who art thou that evil should droop ashamed before thee?" said a voice, and the Black Earl turned as though a stone had struck him.
Now, when he looked east and west, no