The World of Romance

e winter fire talking and telling tales

ur river, had only just been formed; for it used to stand above the river in a great cliff, tunnelled by a cave about midway between t

plored that cave, either from covetousness (expecting to find gold therein ), or from that love of wonders which most young men have, but fear kept them back. Within the memory of man, however,

, to prevent him, stabbed him in the shoulder, so that he was obliged to keep his bed for long;

r another, a certain story has grown up in my heart, which I will tell you something of; a story which no living creature ever told me, th

oke again presently. “And I have fancied sometimes, that in some way, how I know not, I am mixed up with the strange story I am going to tell you.” Again he c

there dwelt in that house an old grey man, who was lord of that estate, his only daughter, and a young man, a kind of distant cousin of the house, whom the lord had brought up from a boy, as he was the orphan of a kinsman who had fallen in combat in his quarrel. Now, as the young knight and the young lady were both beautiful and brave, and loved beauty and good things ardently, it was natural enough that they should discover

his time liked less than ever, yet the bare sight of her made him yearn for her full heart, which he was not to have yet; so he caught her by the hand, and tried to draw her down to him, but she let her hand lie loose in his, and did not answer the pressure in which his heart flowed to hers; then he arose and stood before her, face to face, but she drew back a little, yet he kissed her on the mouth and said, though a rising in his throat a

sake, which is really a higher love, Ella, love of God, I trust I would risk life, nay honour, even if not willingly, yet cheerfully at least.’ ‘Still duty, duty,’ she said; ‘you lay, Lawrence, as many people do, most stress on the point where you are weakest; moreover, those knights who in time past have done wild, mad things merely at their ladies’ word, scarcely did so for duty; for they owed their lives to their country surely, to th

think that two friends even could live together on such terms, but for lovers — ah! Ella, Ella, why do you look so at me? on this day, almost the last, we shall be together for long; Ella, your face is changed, your eyes — O Christ! help her and me, help her, good Lord.’ ‘Lawrence,’ she said, speaking quickly and in jerks, ‘dare you, for my sake, sleep this night in the cavern of the red pike? for I say to you that, faithful or

your knightly sword.’ He hesitated, wavered, turned, and in

k me, and never leave that quest, even if it end not but with death.’ ‘Lawrence, how your heart beats! poor heart! are you afraid that I shall hesitate to promise to perform that which is the only thing I could do? I know I am not worthy to be with you, yet I must be with you in body or soul, or body and soul will die.’ They sat silent, and th

hat chamber facing the east, hard by the garden of lilies; and the sun fell from his noontide light gradually, lengthening the shadows, and when he sank below the sky-line all the sky was faint, tender, crimson on a ground of blue; the crimson faded too, and the moon began to rise, but when her golden rim first showed over the wooded hills, Lawrence aro

on very slowly rose, till it shone through the rose-covered trellises,

od there in the porch, and round by the corners of the eaves of it looked down towards her and the inside of the porch two serpent-dragons, carved in stone; and on their scales, and about their leering eyes, grew the yellow lichen; she shuddered as she saw them stare at her, and drew closer toward the h

ep, he yet shrank somewhat from the shadows of the yews; his long brown hair flowing downward, swayed w

oat, but turned before he was quite lost in them, and waved his ungauntletted hand; then she heard the challenge of the warder, the falling of the drawbridge, the swing of the heavy wicket-gate on

fretting her heart away; so when night came and the moon, she arrayed herself in that sam

t at first that she would have to go back again, cross over the bridge, and so get to it; but, glancing down on the river j

the grass grew green, and the flowers sprung fair right up to the foot of the bare barren rock; it was cut in many steps till it reached the cave, which was overhung by creepers and matted grass; the stream swept the boat downwards, and Ella, her heart beating so as almos

two:— never, the people say. I wonder what their love has grown to now; ah! the

him, a soldier as it seemed, black-bearded, with wild grey e

les, cried out —“Never? old Hugh, it is not so. — Speak! I cannot tell you how it

I, but I— Ah! the time is long past over.” So he was silent, and sank his head on his breast, though his

Suddenly he sprang up, and in a voice that was a solemn chant, began: “In full daylight, long ago, on a slumberously-wrathful, thunderous afternoon of summer;”— then across his chant ran the old man’s shrill voice: “On an O

n shrill voice, his long b

th much watching; yet I think even without those same desolate lonely watchings her face would still have been pale. She was not beautiful, her face being somewhat peevish-looking; apt, she seemed, to be made angry by trifles, and, even on her errand of

een smitten through the body with a sword by certain robbers, so that he had narrowly escaped death. Huge of frame, with stern suffer

; the sister came to him soon and kn

I struck dumb, nay, almost blinded by that change; for there — yes there, while no man but I wondered; there, instead of the unloving nurse, knelt a wonderfully beautiful maiden, clothed all in white, and with long golden hair down her back. Tenderly she gazed at the wounded man, as her hands were put about his head, lif

nd soul together again, Ella, love; how long

let us think only, for the time is short, and our bodies call up

ith a great sigh: ‘Farewell, Ella, for long,’—‘Farew

fresher than the air inside; the wind blows dead toward the west, coming from the stagnant marshes; the sea is like a stagnant pool too, you can scarce hear the sound of the long, low surge breaking.’ I turned from her and went up to the sick man, and said: ‘Sir Knight, in spi

that night I mi

feel the joy I felt then over again now, in all its intensity. How came it over the sea? first, far out to sea, so that it was only just visible under the red-gleaming moonlight, far out to sea, while the mists above grew troubled, and wavered, a long level bar of white; it grew nearer quickly, it gathered form, strange, misty, intricate form — the ravelled foam of the green sea; then oh! hurrah! I was wrapped in it

and there they pondered w

He ceased; then after a short silence said again: “And that was long ago, very long ago, I know no

us so mightily in that battle a few days back; now the very queen, the lady of the land, whom all men reverenced almost as the Virgin Mother, so kind and good and beautiful she was, was to crown him with flowers and gird a sword about him; after the ‘Te Deum’ had been sung for the victo

place whence the breeze had come, I became all at once aware of an appearance that told me why my heart stopped beating. Ah! there they were, those two whom before I had but seen in dreams by night, now before my waking eyes in broad daylight. One, a knight (for so he seemed), with long hair mingled with golden threads, flowing over his mail-coat, a

for a while, being in nowise shadowy, as I have heard men s

, and the maiden said, ‘Love, for this our last true meeting before the end of all

ams, in that moment of awe and great dread, of the old long-past days in that old church, of her who lay under the pavement of it; whose sweet voice once, once long ago, once only to me — yet I shall see her again.” He became silent as he said this, and no man cared to break in upon his th

across his brow, as if to

s very terrible,’ he said; ‘I could almost weep, old though I am, and grown cold with dwelling in the ivory house: O, Ella, if you only knew how cold it is there, in the starry nights when the north wind is stirring; and there is no fair colour there, nought but the white ivory, with one narrow line of gleaming gold over every window, and a fathom’s-breadth of burnished gold behind the throne. Ella, it was scarce wel

y turned again, and moved on side by side as before; nor said they any word to me, and yet I could not help following them, and we three moved on together, and soon I saw that my nature

t that those two had left me, and that my own right visible nature was returned; yet still did I feel strange, and as if I belonged not wholly to this earth. And I heard one say, in a low voice to his fellow, ‘See, sir Giles is

and, at the end of all the procession went slowly and majestically the stranger knight; a man of noble presence he was, calm, and graceful to look on; grandly he went amid the gleaming of their golden armour; himself clad in the rent mail and tattered s

sword in her left hand, with her right caught him by the wrist, when he would have knelt to her, and held him so, tremblingly, and cried out, ‘No, no, thou nob

rom it,’ (then she hung it round him), ‘and see this wreath of lilies and roses for thy head; lilies no whiter than thy pure heart, roses no tenderer than thy true love; and here, before all these my subjects, I fold thee, noblest, in my arms, so, so.’ Ay, truly it was strange enough! those two were together again; not the queen and the stranger knight, but the young-seeming knight and the maiden I had

to each other

ught but the stately stranger knight, descending, hand in hand, with the quee

e all this time, said, with eyes that dared not meet Giles’s, in a terrified half whisper, as though he meant not to speak, “How long?”

ar of the south-west wind; and it blew the

he house; so Hugh bowed his head to Osric, to signify that he

t his face, then blew it away again, and his face was blanched, even to his lips; but he

d struck against his face: beneath her veil her golden hair streamed out too, and with the veil, so that it touched his face now and then. She was very fair, but she did not look young either, because of her statue-like features. She spoke to him slowly and queenly; “I pray

hey gazed at her, sitting there and wondering at her beauty, which seemed to grow every minute; though she was plainly not young, oh no, but rather very,

c of her words flowed from her lips: “Friends, has one with the appearance of a youth come here lately; one with long brown hair, interwoven with threads of gold, flowing down from out his pol

at sigh rose up from her heart, and she said: “Then must I go awa

nd turned her glorious head round to thank the master of the house; and they, strangely enough

ore, yet through the roar of it they could a

into his face, so as to blind him, tresses of soft brown hair mingled with glittering threads of gold; and blinded so, he heard some one ask him musically, solemnly, if a lady with golden hair and white raiment was in that house; so Herman, not answeri

had described; the wavering flame of the light gleamed from his polished helmet, to

re somewhat shy of each other after their parting of a hundred years, in spite

s arms, and she came to him, and they were clasped together, her he

ing, for it was New-Year’s-eve; and still they clung

nto a heap of snow-white ashes. Then the four men kneeled down and prayed,

e tomb, and above it they caused to be carved their figures lying with cla

fair colours on it from the painted glass; till a sound of mu