The Goose Girl and Other Stories (40 page)

‘Then let us put a stop to that,' said Freydis, ‘by killing her and Thorfinn, and taking their ship for our own. It is bigger than yours and a better ship than mine, and would be useful to us both.'

But Finbow would not agree to that, so Freydis left him and went home in a great passion. She got into bed with cold feet, and so wakened Thorward. He asked why she was so cold and wet.

‘I went to see Finbow and Helge,' she said, ‘and asked them to sell me certain goods that we need. But they would not listen, and one struck me on the face. So now will you get up and avenge me, and kill Finbow for what he has done? For I tell you I so hate him that if you let him live I shall no longer live with you.'

It was always the way with Freydis that she would wholly lose her temper when she did not get what she wanted, and now she was mad with rage against Finbow because he would not help her take revenge on Gudrid. But Thorward was not to be moved, and turned away from her and made out that he was sleeping.

‘It is easy to see I am not at home in Greenland, where you would
be quick enough to avenge me, lest Eric and Leif should hear how chicken-hearted you were,' said Freydis bitterly.

Now it began to be spoken of that Freydis was plotting against Gudrid, and when Thorfinn heard that he called a meeting of all the men, and said, ‘There has been ill-feeling and dissension among us ever since we came here, and now it seems too late to hope for betterment in our relations. There is moreover a constant danger from the Scraelings, who are too many for us, and so, though the land is fruitful and good, I have made up my mind to go home to Iceland. But if any of my own crew should wish to stay here, they can do so, and if any of the others want to come with me, who are free to come, I shall take as many as I have room for.'

Then there was much talk and argument, and the end of it was that Thorfinn and Gudrid set sail for Iceland, with some of Finbow's men as well as their own, and came there safely and settled in Rowanness. But the others stayed where they were, and all the married men stayed, for their wives were unwilling to make the voyage.

For a little while it seemed as though there was a better feeling among the settlers, but Freydis was nursing her grudge against Finbow and soon she began to spread lies about him and his brother Helge. She said they were making ready to go elsewhere in Wineland, and would betray them to the Scraelings. Then she hid certain jewels and loose goods, and said the brothers had stolen them. She worked on Thorward and his men for a long time, till they were ready to believe anything, and one night she said she had heard Finbow and Helge plotting to set fire to their house, that Leif had built. So the next morning they rose early, taking their weapons, and went to the brothers' hall and fell on the men there before they were awake. Finbow and some of his men fought well, but they had little chance, being naked, and they were all killed. Freydis herself killed the women who were there.

Now Thorward and those men who were left said they would stay in Wineland no longer, for clearly there was no luck there and no one cared to live beside the graves of so many men they had murdered. But Freydis said, ‘If we go back to Greenland I shall be the death of anyone who tells what happened here. We can say that Helge and Finbow chose to stay in Wineland, and so we left them.'

They launched their ship, then, and loaded it and went aboard. They lay for a little while in the middle of the firth, and watched a party of Scraelings come into the settlement to see if anything had been left behind. One of the Scraelings, bigger than the rest, found an axe under Finbow's hall. He took it up and looked at it for a long
time, for they had no steel and did not know what it was. He turned to a man who stood near and struck at him, and he fell down dead at once.

The big man looked at the axe again, staring awhile at it, and then he threw it into the sea as far as he could. After that the Scraelings left the settlement.

Freydis and the others came safely to Greenland, but though she gave handsome gifts to her crew, to make them hold their tongues, the story got about that she had murdered Helge and Finbow. Leif would not punish her as she deserved, because she was his sister, but she and her husband were avoided thereafter, and they did not thrive. As time went on they were considered good for nothing except what was bad.

Unlike So Many Musicians, Perigot was handsome. His eyes were blue and his hair was black. A lock of it fell with engaging disorder over his broad forehead. Even while he played upon his pipe, his upper lip, pursed for its melodious task, retained a whimsical fascination, and when he put down his reed and yawned, he showed white teeth that looked the whiter for his brown skin, and the arms he stretched were long and muscular.

The river-nymph, Cleophantis, hiding in a clump of yellow irises, felt her natural shyness conquered by a much stronger force, and first cutting, with a silver sickle she carried, a few of the tall flowers to supplement her exiguous costume, emerged from her shelter and walked towards him. Her voice was a little uncertain with mingled excitement and shame, and as she spoke a blush played prettily on her pale cheeks.

‘I don't want you to think that I am one of those impressionable creatures who lose their heads on every possible occasion,' she said, ‘but really, I've never heard anything so lovely as that last little dancing tune. Of course it's impertinent of me to speak like this to an utter stranger, and quite unforgivable to ask him a favour, but you would make me so happy if you were to play it again!'

Perigot, at first, was amused rather than surprised by her appearance and ingenuous request; for his playing had often attracted, from their river-homes or dark-blossoming corners of the wood, nymphs and dryads whose fervent admiration of his skill upon the pipe had invariably been succeeded by a declaration of their tenderness towards himself. To begin with he had been flattered by their addresses, but after some dozen encounters he had discovered an unsubstantial airy monotony in their company. They were agreeable to look at, they pattered a few pretty sentences, but they had no personality and their charm was vapid and standardised; so Perigot had long since ceased to be impressed by the undines, sylphs, and hamadryads, errant glimpses of whom threw so many of his contemporaries, less gifted than himself, into a perfect fever of desire. Now, thinking that here was only another of that kind, he was not very interested by the nymph's appearance, but before she had finished speaking he perceived in her something
different, a quality that made her far superior to the trivial sprites of his previous acquaintance, and hurriedly rising he led her, with pleasant words of welcome, to a cushion of comfortable green turf.

Putting down her silver sickle and discreetly arranging her bunch of flags and yellow irises, she smiled and said, ‘My name is Cleophantis, and I am, so far as we know, the youngest daughter of the Moon King.'

Perigot played his dancing tune, and all the birds within hearing flew near to listen, while a brock came out of the wood with a small deer following it, and from the river-bank tumbled a sleek family of otters.

‘That was beautiful,' said Cleophantis when he had finished. ‘Oh, so beautiful! I could sit and listen to you for ever.'

Her voice and eyes, however, betrayed a regard for Perigot greater than that for his music, which Perigot quite clearly recognised; for though he was not conceited he was intelligent. Generally, when he noticed this transference of interest in his audience, he was displeased and bored, for he knew how readily a nymph was taken by mere outward appearance, and as an artist he was depressed to find that his music had never more than a minor appeal for women. But now he was delighted to see the brightness of Cleophantis's eyes, their bashful veiling by long lashes, and to note the tremor in her voice. He sat down beside her.

‘Your father won't be up for hours yet,' he said, and kissed her with a warmth of which she, in the coolness of her river, had never dreamed.

She sprang from him, dropping her flags and flowers, red as a lily-pool at sunset, and Perigot, laughing and eager, pursued her. He caught her easily, but when he found her shyness was real, and not assumed, he became gentle and courteous with her, though her beauty, of which he became ever more sensible, constantly tempted him into little sallies of ardour. These Cleophantis rebuked with increasing distress, for she had fallen deeply in love with the handsome shepherd, and only her early training in the chaste schoolroom of the osier beds prevented her from yielding to the persuasion which intermittently escaped his disciplined politeness. At last she said she would have to go, and nothing Perigot could say would make her tarry longer, for she was afraid of the awful lengths to which love might lead her.

‘But you will come back?' said Perigot, pleading.

‘Perhaps,' said Cleophantis, and meant, ‘You know I will!'

‘And you will not always keep me at arm's length, or even a finger-breadth away?'

‘I am going to speak to my elder sister about you,' answered Cleophantis, and though Perigot groaned, for he thought this was an ill omen for love, Cleophantis continued, ‘She is extraordinarily wise, and I have the greatest respect for her opinion. It is true that she has never had a lover, but in spite of that she is very broadminded. Oh, Perigot, if she says we are right to love, how happy I shall be!'

‘You will come tomorrow?' said Perigot.

‘At noon,' said Cleophantis, ‘and for a pledge that I shall return, keep this sickle. Its blade is silver from the Mountains of the Moon, forged with the last heat of the moon, and tempered in its coldest stream. No man or beast can resist its edge, and the handle is an emerald that will keep its owner always in health.'

While Perigot was examining the sickle, Cleophantis, fearing her resolution would fail, ran to the edge of the nearby stream. She stood for a moment on the bank, looked back, and whispered ‘Perigot, my heart!' But Perigot's head was still bent over the flashing blade, and so she stepped unseen into the welcoming river. When Perigot looked up she had gone.

The sun was low and he realised that it was time to go home, so he whistled to the sheep-dogs that were lying far afield, guarding the fringes of the flock, and they gathered the sheep before them while Perigot, thrusting the sickle under his belt, played on his pipe the merriest song the meadows had ever heard, and strode briskly towards the hill on the far side of which stood his father's house. It seemed to him that the quicker he walked the sooner tomorrow would come, and with it Cleophantis—if her sister let her; and his tune grew so glad and so exciting that the lambs capered madly, and the old ewes were puzzled, and the half-grown rams leapt like mountain goats as they followed him over the hill.

Perigot's mother sighed when he came in to supper, for she at once perceived he was in love again, and she was always nervous when her sons were in that state of mind; but his father, a heartless and wealthy man who owned several thousand sheep, two rich valleys, and much hill-land, asked in a gruff voice if the flock was safe, and finding it was, told Perigot to keep quiet while he ate, for only children or idiots, he said, must sing with their mouths full of porridge.

In the morning Perigot rose early and was about to lead his flock back to the river-pasture when a man who looked like a Saracen or an Indian, and who had been lounging by the sheep-fold, stopped him and said, ‘I've heard tell you know a good fighting-cock when you see one, sir?'

Now Perigot was a sportsman, and though till that moment his
thoughts had all been of Cleophantis, as soon as the Indian spoke of fighting-cocks a picture rushed into his mind of brave birds tussling in the air—bronze feathers gleaming, spurs clashing—and eagerly he asked, ‘Have you any to sell or match with mine?'

‘Better birds than any in your country,' said the Indian.

‘I doubt that,' answered Perigot, ‘but I'll have a look at them.' And he called Thenot, his younger brother, a freckled boy with a snub nose, and told him to take the sheep to the river-field, and he would follow by and by.

So fine were the Indian's birds, and such a heroic main was fought, that the sun was overhead before Perigot remembered his tryst with Cleophantis. Then, in a kind of panic, he threw some silver coins to the Indian and began to run, as fast as he could, up the steep path that led over the hill to the riverside grazing. He knew that he would be late, and though he tried to comfort himself with the thought that a little waiting never did any girl harm, he could not convince himself, for Cleophantis was the Moon King's daughter, and very different from any other nymph or forest-girl he had ever seen.

It was a full hour past noon when he reached the flock, and immediately his young brother called to him in a strange sobbing voice. Thenot's freckled face was tear-stained, and in great distress he gasped, ‘She's dead, Perigot, she's dead! Oh, why didn't you come in time? She waited for you a little while, walking to and fro, and then she sat down, for she felt weak, and still you did not come, and presently she fainted. I rubbed her hands, but they were so delicate I could not rub them hard. Once she opened her eyes and asked, “Do you see him coming?” And then she said, “My heart is breaking”, and she died. Oh, Perigot, she was lovely! Why did you not come in time?'

Perigot, numb with remorse, looked down at her where she lay like a plucked lily on the grass. He could not speak, and his brain was too cold even to frame a proper thought. He just stood and looked at her, and knew that he had never seen such loveliness alive. Suddenly Thenot gave a frightened cry and ran away. Perigot looked up and saw, coming to him from the stream, a tall and dreadful nymph with a black river-squall blowing about her, bending the grass and flowers and chilling the summer air.

‘Murderer!' she said. ‘Killer of my sister!' She raised a wet arm round which a water-snake was twisted. The river-squall howled at her back, and Perigot, shivering with cold, fell to his knees beside the dead girl.