The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories Read online

  The Kith of the Elf Folk

  Chapter I

  The north wind was blowing, and red and golden the last days ofAutumn were streaming hence. Solemn and cold over the marshes arosethe evening.

  It became very still.

  Then the last pigeon went home to the trees on the dry land in thedistance, whose shapes already had taken upon themselves a mysteryin the haze.

  Then all was still again.

  As the light faded and the haze deepened, mystery crept nearer fromevery side.

  Then the green plover came in crying, and all alighted.

  And again it became still, save when one of the plover arose and flewa little way uttering the cry of the waste. And hushed and silentbecame the earth, expecting the first star. Then the duck came in,and the widgeon, company by company: and all the light of day fadedout of the sky saving one red band of light. Across the lightappeared, black and huge, the wings of a flock of geese beating upwind to the marshes. These, too, went down among the rushes.

  Then the stars appeared and shone in the stillness, and there wassilence in the great spaces of the night.

  Suddenly the bells of the cathedral in the marshes broke out,calling to evensong.

  Eight centuries ago on the edge of the marsh men had built the hugecathedral, or it may have been seven centuries ago, or perhapsnine--it was all one to the Wild Things.

  So evensong was held, and candles lighted, and the lights throughthe windows shone red and green in the water, and the sound of theorgan went roaring over the marshes. But from the deep and perilousplaces, edged with bright mosses, the Wild Things came leaping up todance on the reflection of the stars, and over their heads as theydanced the marsh-lights rose and fell.

  The Wild Things are somewhat human in appearance, only all brownof skin and barely two feet high. Their ears are pointed like thesquirrel's, only far larger, and they leap to prodigious heights.They live all day under deep pools in the loneliest marshes, but atnight they come up and dance. Each Wild Thing has over its head amarsh-light, which moves as the Wild Thing moves; they have nosouls, and cannot die, and are of the kith of the Elf-folk.

  All night they dance over the marshes, treading upon the reflectionof the stars (for the bare surface of the water will not hold themby itself); but when the stars begin to pale, they sink down one byone into the pools of their home. Or if they tarry longer, sittingupon the rushes, their bodies fade from view as the marsh-fires palein the light, and by daylight none may see the Wild Things of thekith of the Elf-folk. Neither may any see them even at night unlessthey were born, as I was, in the hour of dusk, just at the momentwhen the first star appears.

  Now, on the night that I tell of, a little Wild Thing had gonedrifting over the waste, till it came right up to the walls of thecathedral and danced upon the images of the coloured saints as theylay in the water among the reflection of the stars. And as it leapedin its fantastic dance, it saw through the painted windows to wherethe people prayed, and heard the organ roaring over the marshes. Thesound of the organ roared over the marshes, but the song and prayersof the people streamed up from the cathedral's highest tower likethin gold chains, and reached to Paradise, and up and down them wentthe angels from Paradise to the people, and from the people toParadise again.

  Then something akin to discontent troubled the Wild Thing for thefirst time since the making of the marshes; and the soft grey oozeand the chill of the deep water seemed to be not enough, nor thefirst arrival from northwards of the tumultuous geese, nor the wildrejoicing of the wings of the wildfowl when every feather sings, northe wonder of the calm ice that comes when the snipe depart andbeards the rushes with frost and clothes the hushed waste with amysterious haze where the sun goes red and low, nor even the danceof the Wild Things in the marvellous night; and the little WildThing longed to have a soul, and to go and worship God.

  And when evensong was over and the lights were out, it went backcrying to its kith.

  But on the next night, as soon as the images of the stars appearedin the water, it went leaping away from star to star to the farthestedge of the marshlands, where a great wood grew where dwelt theOldest of the Wild Things.

  And it found the Oldest of Wild Things sitting under a tree,sheltering itself from the moon.

  And the little Wild Thing said: 'I want to have a soul to worshipGod, and to know the meaning of music, and to see the inner beautyof the marshlands and to imagine Paradise.'

  And the Oldest of the Wild Things said to it: 'What have we to dowith God? We are only Wild Things, and of the kith of the Elf-folk.'

  But it only answered, 'I want to have a soul.'

  Then the Oldest of the Wild Things said: 'I have no soul to giveyou; but if you got a soul, one day you would have to die, and ifyou knew the meaning of music you would learn the meaning of sorrow,and it is better to be a Wild Thing and not to die.'

  So it went weeping away.

  But they that were kin to the Elf-folk were sorry for the littleWild Thing; and though the Wild Things cannot sorrow long, having nosouls to sorrow with, yet they felt for awhile a soreness wheretheir souls should be, when they saw the grief of their comrade.

  So the kith of the Elf-folk went abroad by night to make a soul forthe little Wild Thing. And they went over the marshes till they cameto the high fields among the flowers and grasses. And there theygathered a large piece of gossamer that the spider had laid bytwilight; and the dew was on it.

  Into this dew had shone all the lights of the long banks of theribbed sky, as all the colours changed in the restful spaces ofevening. And over it the marvellous night had gleamed with all itsstars.

  Then the Wild Things went with their dew-bespangled gossamer down tothe edge of their home. And there they gathered a piece of the greymist that lies by night over the marshlands. And into it they putthe melody of the waste that is borne up and down the marshes in theevening on the wings of the golden plover. And they put into it, too,the mournful song that the reeds are compelled to sing before thepresence of the arrogant North Wind. Then each of the Wild Thingsgave some treasured memory of the old marshes, 'For we can spareit,' they said. And to all this they added a few images of the starsthat they gathered out of the water. Still the soul that the kith ofthe Elf-folk were making had no life.

  Then they put into it the low voices of two lovers that went walkingin the night, wandering late alone. And after that they waited forthe dawn. And the queenly dawn appeared, and the marsh-lights of theWild Things paled in the glare, and their bodies faded from view;and still they waited by the marsh's edge. And to them waiting cameover field and marsh, from the ground and out of the sky, the myriadsong of the birds.

  This, too, the Wild Things put into the piece of haze that they hadgathered in the marshlands, and wrapped it all up in theirdew-bespangled gossamer. Then the soul lived.

  And there it lay inthe hands of the Wild Things no larger than a hedgehog; and wonderfullights were in it, green and blue; and they changed ceaselessly,going round and round, and in the grey midst of it was a purpleflare.

  And the next night they came to the little Wild Thing andshowed her the gleaming soul. And they said to her: 'If you musthave a soul and go and worship God, and become a mortal and die,place this to your left breast a little above the heart, and it willenter and you will become a human. But if you take it you can neverbe rid of it to become immortal again unless you pluck it out andgive it to another; and we will not take it, and most of the humanshave a soul already. And if you cannot find a human without a soulyou will one day die, and your soul cannot go to Paradise, becauseit was only made in the marshes.'

  Far away the little Wild Thing sawthe cathedral windows alight for evensong, and the song of thepeople mounting up to Paradise, and all the angels going up anddown. So it bid farewell with tears and thanks to the Wild Things ofthe kith of Elf-folk, and went leaping away towards the green dryland, holding the soul in its hands.

  And the Wild Things were sorry that
it had gone, but could not besorry long, because they had no souls.

  At the marsh's edge the little Wild Thing gazed for some momentsover the water to where the marsh-fires were leaping up and down,and then pressed the soul against its left breast a little above theheart.

  Instantly it became a young and beautiful woman, who was cold andfrightened. She clad herself somehow with bundles of reeds, and wenttowards the lights of a house that stood close by. And she pushedopen the door and entered, and found a farmer and a farmer's wifesitting over their supper.

  And the farmer's wife took the little Wild Thing with the soul ofthe marshes up to her room, and clothed her and braided her hair,and brought her down again, and gave her the first food that she hadever eaten. Then the farmer's wife asked many questions.

  'Where have you come from?' she said.

  'Over the marshes.'

  'From what direction?' said the farmer's wife.

  'South,' said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.

  'But none can come over the marshes from the south,' said thefarmer's wife.

  'No, they can't do that,' said the farmer.

  'I lived in the marshes.'

  'Who are you?' asked the farmer's wife.

  'I am a Wild Thing, and have found a soul in the marshes, and we arekin to the Elf-folk.'

  Talking it over afterwards, the farmer and his wife agreed that shemust be a gipsy who had been lost, and that she was queer withhunger and exposure.

  So that night the little Wild Thing slept in the farmer's house, buther new soul stayed awake the whole night long dreaming of thebeauty of the marshes.

  As soon as dawn came over the waste and shone on the farmer's house,she looked from the window towards the glittering waters, and sawthe inner beauty of the marsh. For the Wild Things only love themarsh and know its haunts, but now she perceived the mystery of itsdistances and the glamour of its perilous pools, with their fair anddeadly mosses, and felt the marvel of the North Wind who comesdominant out of unknown icy lands, and the wonder of that ebb andflow of life when the wildfowl whirl in at evening to the marshlandsand at dawn pass out to sea. And she knew that over her head abovethe farmer's house stretched wide Paradise, where perhaps God wasnow imagining a sunrise while angels played low on lutes, and thesun came rising up on the world below to gladden fields and marsh.

  And all that heaven thought, the marsh thought too; for the blue ofthe marsh was as the blue of heaven, and the great cloud shapes inheaven became the shapes in the marsh, and through each ranmomentary rivers of purple, errant between banks of gold. And thestalwart army of reeds appeared out of the gloom with all theirpennons waving as far as the eye could see. And from another windowshe saw the vast cathedral gathering its ponderous strengthtogether, and lifting it up in towers out of the marshlands.

  She said, 'I will never, never leave the marsh.'

  An hour later she dressed with great difficulty and went down to eatthe second meal of her life. The farmer and his wife were kindlyfolk, and taught her how to eat.

  'I suppose the gipsies don't have knives and forks,' one said to theother afterwards.

  After breakfast the farmer went and saw the Dean, who lived near hiscathedral, and presently returned and brought back to the Dean'shouse the little Wild Thing with the new soul.

  'This is the lady,' said the farmer. 'This is Dean Murnith.' Then hewent away.

  'Ah,' said the Dean, 'I understand you were lost the other night inthe marshes. It was a terrible night to be lost in the marshes.'

  'I love the marshes,' said the little Wild Thing with the new soul.

  'Indeed! How old are you?' said the Dean.

  'I don't know,' she answered.

  'You must know about how old you are,' he said.

  'Oh, about ninety,' she said, 'or more.'

  'Ninety years!' exclaimed the Dean.

  'No, ninety centuries,' she said; 'I am as old as the marshes.'

  Then she told her story--how she had longed to be a human and go andworship God, and have a soul and see the beauty of the world, andhow all the Wild Things had made her a soul of gossamer and mist andmusic and strange memories.

  'But if this is true,' said Dean Murnith, 'this is very wrong. Godcannot have intended you to have a soul.

  'What is your name?'

  'I have no name,' she answered.

  'We must find a Christian name and a surname for you. What would youlike to be called?'

  'Song of the Rushes,' she said.

  'That won't do at all,' said the Dean.

  'Then I would like to be called Terrible North Wind, or Star in theWaters,' she said.

  'No, no, no,' said Dean Murnith; 'that is quite impossible. We couldcall you Miss Rush if you like. How would Mary Rush do? Perhaps youhad better have another name--say Mary Jane Rush.'

  So the little Wild Thing with the soul of the marshes took the namesthat were offered her, and became Mary Jane Rush.

  'And we must find something for you to do,' said Dean Murnith.'Meanwhile we can give you a room here.'

  'I don't want to do anything,' replied Mary Jane; 'I want to worshipGod in the cathedral and live beside the marshes.'

  Then Mrs. Murnith came in, and for the rest of that day Mary Janestayed at the house of the Dean.

  And there with her new soul sheperceived the beauty of the world; for it came grey and level outof misty distances, and widened into grassy fields and ploughlandsright up to the edge of an old gabled town; and solitary in thefields far off an ancient windmill stood, and his honest hand-madesails went round and round in the free East Anglian winds. Close by,the gabled houses leaned out over the streets, planted fair uponsturdy timbers that grew in the olden time, all glorying amongthemselves upon their beauty. And out of them, buttress by buttress,growing and going upwards, aspiring tower by tower, rose thecathedral.

  And she saw the people moving in the streets allleisurely and slow, and unseen among them, whispering to each other,unheard by living men and concerned only with bygone things, driftedthe ghosts of very long ago. And wherever the streets ran eastwards,wherever were gaps in the houses, always there broke into view thesight of the great marshes, like to some bar of music weird andstrange that haunts a melody, arising again and again, played on theviolin by one musician only, who plays no other bar, and he is swartand lank about the hair and bearded about the lips, and hismoustache droops long and low, and no one knows the land from whichhe comes.

  All these were good things for a new soul to see.

  Then the sun set over green fields and ploughland and the night cameup. One by one the merry lights of cheery lamp-lit windows tooktheir stations in the solemn night.

  Then the bells rang, far up in a cathedral tower,and their melody fell on the roofs of the old houses and poured overtheir eaves until the streets were full, and then flooded away overgreen fields and plough, till it came to the sturdy mill and broughtthe miller trudging to evensong, and far away eastwards and seawardsthe sound rang out over the remoter marshes. And it was all asyesterday to the old ghosts in the streets.

  Then the Dean's wife took Mary Jane to evening service, and she sawthree hundred candles filling all the aisle with light. But sturdypillars stood there in unlit vastnesses; great colonnades going awayinto the gloom, where evening and morning, year in year out, theydid their work in the dark, holding the cathedral roof aloft. And itwas stiller than the marshes are still when the ice has come and thewind that brought it has fallen.

  Suddenly into this stillness rushed the sound of the organ, roaring,and presently the people prayed and sang.

  No longer could Mary Janesee their prayers ascending like thin gold chains, for that was butan elfin fancy, but she imagined clear in her new soul the seraphspassing in the ways of Paradise, and the angels changing guard towatch the World by night.

  When the Dean had finished service, a young curate, Mr. Millings,went up into the pulpit.

  He spoke of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus: and Ma
ry Jane wasglad that there were rivers having such names, and heard with wonderof Nineveh, that great city, and many things strange and new.

  And the light of the candles shone on the curate's fair hair, andhis voice went ringing down the aisle, and Mary Jane rejoiced thathe was there.

  But when his voice stopped she felt a suddenloneliness, such as she had not felt since the making of themarshes; for the Wild Things never are lonely and never unhappy, butdance all night on the reflection of the stars, and having nosouls, desire nothing more.

  After the collection was made, before anyone moved to go, Mary Janewalked up the aisle to Mr. Millings.

  'I love you,' she said.

  Chapter II

  Nobody sympathised with Mary Jane.

  'So unfortunate for Mr. Millings,' every one said; 'such a promisingyoung man.'

  Mary Jane was sent away to a great manufacturing city of theMidlands, where work had been found for her in a cloth factory. Andthere was nothing in that town that was good for a soul to see. Forit did not know that beauty was to be desired; so it made manythings by machinery, and became hurried in all its ways, and boastedits superiority over other cities and became richer and richer, andthere was none to pity it.

  In this city Mary Jane had had lodgings found for her near thefactory.

  At six o'clock on those November mornings, about the time that, faraway from the city, the wildfowl rose up out of the calm marshes andpassed to the troubled spaces of the sea, at six o'clock the factoryuttered a prolonged howl and gathered the workers together, andthere they worked, saving two hours for food, the whole of thedaylit hours and into the dark till the bells tolled six again.

  There Mary Jane worked with other girls in a long dreary room, wheregiants sat pounding wool into a long thread-like strip with iron,rasping hands. And all day long they roared as they sat at theirsoulless work. But the work of Mary Jane was not with these, onlytheir roar was ever in her ears as their clattering iron limbs wentto and fro.

  Her work was to tend a creature smaller, but infinitely morecunning.

  It took the strip of wool that the giants had threshed, and whirledit round and round until it had twisted it into hard thin thread.Then it would make a clutch with fingers of steel at the thread thatit had gathered, and waddle away about five yards and come back withmore.

  It had mastered all the subtlety of skilled workers, and hadgradually displaced them; one thing only it could not do, it wasunable to pick up the ends if a piece of the thread broke, in orderto tie them together again. For this a human soul was required, andit was Mary Jane's business to pick up broken ends; and the momentshe placed them together the busy soulless creature tied them foritself.

  All here was ugly; even the green wool as it whirled round and roundwas neither the green of the grass nor yet the green of the rushes,but a sorry muddy green that befitted a sullen city under a murkysky.

  When she looked out over the roofs of the town, there too wasugliness; and well the houses knew it, for with hideous stuccothey aped in grotesque mimicry the pillars and temples of oldGreece, pretending to one another to be that which they were not.And emerging from these houses and going in, and seeing the pretenceof paint and stucco year after year until it all peeled away, thesouls of the poor owners of those houses sought to be other soulsuntil they grew weary of it.

  At evening Mary Jane went back to her lodgings. Only then, after thedark had fallen, could the soul of Mary Jane perceive any beauty inthat city, when the lamps were lit and here and there a star shonethrough the smoke. Then she would have gone abroad and beheld thenight, but this the old woman to whom she was confided would not lether do. And the days multiplied themselves by seven and becameweeks, and the weeks passed by, and all days were the same. And allthe while the soul of Mary Jane was crying for beautiful things, andfound not one, saving on Sundays, when she went to church, and leftit to find the city greyer than before.

  One day she decided that it was better to be a wild thing in thelovely marshes, than to have a soul that cried for beautiful thingsand found not one. From that day she determined to be rid of hersoul, so she told her story to one of the factory girls, and said toher:

  'The other girls are poorly clad and they do soulless work; surelysome of them have no souls and would take mine.'

  But the factory girl said to her: 'All the poor have souls. It isall they have.'

  Then Mary Jane watched the rich whenever she saw them, and vainlysought for some one without a soul.

  One day at the hour when themachines rested and the human beings that tended them rested too,the wind being at that time from the direction of the marshlands,the soul of Mary Jane lamented bitterly. Then, as she stood outsidethe factory gates, the soul irresistibly compelled her to sing, anda wild song came from her lips, hymning the marshlands. And into hersong came crying her yearning for home, and for the sound of theshout of the North Wind, masterful and proud, with his lovely ladythe Snow; and she sang of tales that the rushes murmured to oneanother, tales that the teal knew and the watchful heron. And overthe crowded streets her song went crying away, the song of wasteplaces and of wild free lands, full of wonder and magic, for she hadin her elf-made soul the song of the birds and the roar of the organin the marshes.

  At this moment Signor Thompsoni, the well-known English tenor,happened to go by with a friend. They stopped and listened; everyonestopped and listened.

  'There has been nothing like this in Europe in my time,' said SignorThompsoni.

  So a change came into the life of Mary Jane.

  People were written to,and finally it was arranged that she should take a leading part inthe Covent Garden Opera in a few weeks.

  So she went to London to learn.

  London and singing lessons werebetter than the City of the Midlands and those terrible machines.Yet still Mary Jane was not free to go and live as she liked by theedge of the marshlands, and she was still determined to be rid ofher soul, but could find no one that had not a soul of their own.

  One day she was told that the English people would not listen to heras Miss Rush, and was asked what more suitable name she would liketo be called by.

  'I would like to be called Terrible North Wind,' said Mary Jane, 'orSong of the Rushes.'

  When she was told that this was impossible and Signorina MariaRussiano was suggested, she acquiesced at once, as she hadacquiesced when they took her away from her curate; sheknew nothing of the ways of humans.

  At last the day of the Operacame round, and it was a cold day of the winter.

  And Signorina Russiano appeared on the stage before a crowded house.

  And Signorina Russiano sang.

  And into the song went all the longing of her soul, the soul thatcould not go to Paradise, but could only worship God and know themeaning of music, and the longing pervaded that Italian song as theinfinite mystery of the hills is borne along the sound of distantsheep-bells. Then in the souls that were in that crowded house aroselittle memories of a great while since that were quite quite dead,and lived awhile again during that marvellous song.

  And a strange chill went into the blood of all that listened, asthough they stood on the border of bleak marshes and the North Windblew.

  And some it moved to sorrow and some to regret, and some to anunearthly joy,--then suddenly the song went wailing away like thewinds of the winter from the marshlands when Spring appears from theSouth.

  So it ended. And a great silence fell fog-like over all that house,breaking in upon the end of a chatty conversation that Cecilia,Countess of Birmingham, was enjoying with a friend.

  In the dead hush Signorina Russiano rushedfrom the stage; she appeared again running among the audience, anddashed up to Lady Birmingham.

  'Take my soul,' she said; 'it is a beautiful soul. It can worshipGod, and knows the meaning of music and can imagine Paradise. And ifyou go to the marshlands with it you will see beautiful things;there is an old town there built of lovely timbers, with ghosts inits streets.'


  Lady Birmingham stared. Everyone was standing up. 'See,' saidSignorina Russiano, 'it is a beautiful soul.'

  And she clutched at her leftbreast a little above the heart, and there was the soul shining inher hand, with the green and blue lights going round and round andthe purple flare in the midst.

  'Take it,' she said, 'and you will love all that is beautiful, andknow the four winds, each one by his name, and the songs of thebirds at dawn. I do not want it, because I am not free. Put it toyour left breast a little above the heart.'

  Still everybody wasstanding up, and Lady Birmingham felt uncomfortable.

  'Please offer it to some one else,' she said.

  'But they all have souls already,' said Signorina Russiano.

  And everybody went on standing up. And Lady Birmingham took the soulin her hand.

  'Perhaps it is lucky,' she said.

  She felt that she wanted to pray.

  She half-closed her eyes, and said '_Unberufen_'. Then she put thesoul to her left breast a little above the heart, and hoped that thepeople would sit down and the singer go away.

  Instantly a heap of clothes collapsed before her. For a moment, inthe shadow among the seats, those who were born in the dusk hourmight have seen a little brown thing leaping free from the clothes,then it sprang into the bright light of the hall, and becameinvisible to any human eye.

  It dashed about for a little, then found the door, and presently wasin the lamplit streets.

  To those that were born in the dusk hour it might have been seenleaping rapidly wherever the streets ran northwards and eastwards,disappearing from human sight as it passed under the lamps andappearing again beyond them with a marsh-light over its head.

  Once a dog perceived it and gave chase, and was left far behind.

  The cats of London, who are all born in the dusk hour, howledfearfully as it went by.

  Presently it came to the meaner streets, where the houses aresmaller. Then it went due north-eastwards, leaping from roof to roof.And so in a few minutes it came to more open spaces, and then to thedesolate lands, where market gardens grow, which are neither townnor country. Till at last the good black trees came into view, withtheir demoniac shapes in the night, and the grass was cold and wet,and the night-mist floated over it. And a great white owl came by,going up and down in the dark. And at all these things the littleWild Thing rejoiced elvishly.

  And it left London far behind it, reddening the sky, and coulddistinguish no longer its unlovely roar, but heard again the noisesof the night.

  And now it would come through a hamlet glowing and comfortable inthe night; and now to the dark, wet, open fields again; and many anowl it overtook as they drifted through the night, a people friendlyto the Elf-folk. Sometimes it crossed wide rivers, leaping from starto star; and, choosing its way as it went, to avoid the hard roughroads, came before midnight to the East Anglian lands.

  And it heardthere the shout of the North Wind, who was dominant and angry, as hedrove southwards his adventurous geese; while the rushes bent beforehim chaunting plaintively and low, like enslaved rowers of somefabulous trireme, bending and swinging under blows of the lash, andsinging all the while a doleful song.

  And it felt the good dank air that clothes by night the broad EastAnglian lands, and came again to some old perilous pool where thesoft green mosses grew, and there plunged downward and downward intothe dear dark water till it felt the homely ooze once more comingup between its toes. Thence, out of the lovely chill that is in theheart of the ooze, it arose renewed and rejoicing to dance upon theimage of the stars.

  I chanced to stand that night by the marsh's edge, forgetting in mymind the affairs of men; and I saw the marsh-fires come leaping upfrom all the perilous places. And they came up by flocks the wholenight long to the number of a great multitude, and danced awaytogether over the marshes.

  And I believe that there was a great rejoicing all that night amongthe kith of the Elf-folk.