Volume II Part 27 (1/2)
But the tongue of this errant knight would not be stayed; and his loud musical voice swept over the waters, evidently attracting her notice, and for the first time. She drew back her dark hair, gazing on them for a moment, when she suddenly disappeared. Harrington was sure she had sunk; but a jutting peninsula of sand was near enough to have deceived him, especially through the twilight, which now drew on rapidly.
”And thou hast spoken to her!” said he gravely; ”then be the answer thine!”
”A woman's answer were easier parried than a sword-thrust, methinks; and that I have hitherto escaped.”
”Let us be gone speedily. I like not yon angry star spying out our path through these wilds.”
”Thou didst use to laugh at my superst.i.tions; but thine own, I guess, are too chary to be meddled with.”
”Laugh at me an' thou wilt,” said Harrington: ”when Master Lilly cast my horoscope he bade me ever to eschew travel when Mars comes to his southing, conjunct with the Pleiades, at midnight--the hour of my birth. Last night, as I looked out from where I lay at Preston, methought the red warrior shot his spear athwart their soft scintillating light; and as I gazed, his ray seemed to ride half-way across the heavens. Again he is rising yonder.”
”And his meridian will happen at midnight?”
”Even so,” replied Harrington.
”Then gallop on. I'd rather make my supper with the fair dames at Lydiate than in a mermaid's hall.”
But their progress was a work of no slight difficulty, and even danger. Occasionally plunging to the knees in a deep bog, then wading to the girth in a hillock of sand and p.r.i.c.kly bent gra.s.s (the _Arundo arenaria_, so plentiful on these coasts), the horses were scarcely able to keep their footing--yet were they still urged on. Every step was expected to bring them within sight of some habitation.
”What is yonder glimmer to the left?” said Molyneux. ”If it be that hideous water again, it is verily pursuing us. I think I shall be afraid of water as long as I live.”
”As sure as Mahomet was a liar, and the Pope has excommunicated him from Paradise, 'tis the same still, torpid, dead-like sea we ought to have long since pa.s.sed.”
”Then have our demonstrations been in a circle, in place of a right line, and we are fairly on our way back again.”
Sure enough there was the same broad, still surface of the Meer, though on the contrary side, mocking day's last glimmer in the west.
The bewildered travellers came to a full pause. They took counsel together while they rested their beasts and their spur-rowels; but the result was by no means satisfactory. One by one came out the glorious throng above them, until the heavens grew light with living hosts, and the stars seemed to pierce the sight, so vivid was their brightness.
”Yonder is a light, thank Heaven!” cried Harrington.
”And it is approaching, thank your stars!” said his companion. ”I durst not stir to meet it, through these perilous paths, if our night's lodging depended on it.”
The bearer of this welcome discovery was a kind-hearted fisherman, who carried a blazing splinter of antediluvian firewood dug from the neighbouring bog; a useful subst.i.tute for more expensive materials.
It appeared they were at a considerable distance from the right path, or indeed from any path that could be travelled with safety, except by daylight. He invited them to a lodging in a lone hut on the borders of the lake, where he and his wife subsisted by eel-catching and other precarious pursuits. The simplicity and openness of his manner disarmed suspicion. The offer was accepted, and the benighted heroes found themselves breathing fish-odours and turf-smoke for the night, under a shed of the humblest construction. His family consisted of a wife and one child only; but the strangers preferred a bed by the turf-embers to the couch that was kindly offered them.
The cabin was built of the most simple and homely materials. The walls were pebble-stones from the sea-beach, cemented with clay. The roof-tree was the wreck of some unfortunate vessel stranded on the coast. The whole was thatched with star-gra.s.s or sea-reed, blackened with smoke and moisture.
”You are but scantily peopled hereabouts,” said Harrington, for lack of other converse.
”Why, ay,” returned the peasant; ”but it matters nought; our living is mostly on the water.”
”And it might be with more chance of company than on sh.o.r.e; we saw a woman swimming or diving there not long ago.”
”Have ye seen her?” inquired both man and dame with great alacrity.
”Seen whom?” returned the guest.
”The Meer-woman, as we call her.”
”We saw a being, but of what nature we are ignorant, float and disappear as suddenly as though she were an inhabitant of yon world of waters.”