The Wood Beyond the World - By William Morris

Chapter 2 - Golden Walter Takes Ship to Sail the Seas

When Walter went down to the Katherine next morning, there was the
skipper Geoffrey, who did him reverence, and made him all cheer, and
showed him his room aboard ship, and the plenteous goods which his
father had sent down to the quays already, such haste as he had
made. Walter thanked his father's love in his heart, but otherwise
took little heed to his affairs, but wore away the time about the
haven, gazing listlessly on the ships that were making them ready
outward, or unlading, and the mariners and aliens coming and going:
and all these were to him as the curious images woven on a tapestry.

At last when he had wellnigh come back again to the Katherine, he
saw there a tall ship, which he had scarce noted before, a ship all-
boun, which had her boats out, and men sitting to the oars thereof
ready to tow her outwards when the hawser should be cast off, and by
seeming her mariners were but abiding for some one or other to come
aboard.

So Walter stood idly watching the said ship, and as he looked, lo!
folk passing him toward the gangway. These were three; first came a
dwarf, dark-brown of hue and hideous, with long arms and ears
exceeding great and dog-teeth that stuck out like the fangs of a
wild beast. He was clad in a rich coat of yellow silk, and bare in
his hand a crooked bow, and was girt with a broad sax.

After him came a maiden, young by seeming, of scarce twenty summers;
fair of face as a flower; grey-eyed, brown-haired, with lips full
and red, slim and gentle of body. Simple was her array, of a short
and strait green gown, so that on her right ankle was clear to see
an iron ring.

Last of the three was a lady, tall and stately, so radiant of visage
and glorious of raiment, that it were hard to say what like she was;
for scarce might the eye gaze steady upon her exceeding beauty; yet
must every son of Adam who found himself anigh her, lift up his eyes
again after he had dropped them, and look again on her, and yet
again and yet again. Even so did Walter, and as the three passed by
him, it seemed to him as if all the other folk there about had
vanished and were nought; nor had he any vision before his eyes of
any looking on them, save himself alone. They went over the gangway
into the ship, and he saw them go along the deck till they came to
the house on the poop, and entered it and were gone from his sight.

There he stood staring, till little by little the thronging people
of the quays came into his eye-shot again; then he saw how the
hawser was cast off and the boats fell to tugging the big ship
toward the harbour-mouth with hale and how of men. Then the sail
fell down from the yard and was sheeted home and filled with the
fair wind as the ship's bows ran up on the first green wave outside
the haven. Even therewith the shipmen cast abroad a banner, whereon
was done in a green field a grim wolf ramping up against a maiden,
and so went the ship upon her way.

Walter stood awhile staring at her empty place where the waves ran
into the haven-mouth, and then turned aside and toward the
Katherine; and at first he was minded to go ask shipmaster Geoffrey
of what he knew concerning the said ship and her alien wayfarers;
but then it came into his mind, that all this was but an imagination
or dream of the day, and that he were best to leave it untold to
any. So therewith he went his way from the water-side, and through
the streets unto his father's house; but when he was but a little
way thence, and the door was before him, him-seemed for a moment of
time that he beheld those three coming out down the steps of stone
and into the street; to wit the dwarf, the maiden, and the stately
lady: but when he stood still to abide their coming, and looked
toward them, lo! there was nothing before him save the goodly house
of Bartholomew Golden, and three children and a cur dog playing
about the steps thereof, and about him were four or five passers-by
going about their business. Then was he all confused in his mind,
and knew not what to make of it, whether those whom he had seemed to
see pass aboard ship were but images of a dream, or children of Adam
in very flesh.

Howsoever, he entered the house, and found his father in the
chamber, and fell to speech with him about their matters; but for
all that he loved his father, and worshipped him as a wise and
valiant man, yet at that hour he might not hearken the words of his
mouth, so much was his mind entangled in the thought of those three,
and they were ever before his eyes, as if they had been painted on a
table by the best of limners. And of the two women he thought
exceeding much, and cast no wyte upon himself for running after the
desire of strange women. For he said to himself that he desired not
either of the twain; nay, he might not tell which of the twain, the
maiden or the stately queen, were clearest to his eyes; but sore he
desired to see both of them again, and to know what they were.

So wore the hours till the Wednesday morning, and it was time that
he should bid farewell to his father and get aboard ship; but his
father led him down to the quays and on to the Katherine, and there
Walter embraced him, not without tears and forebodings; for his
heart was full. Then presently the old man went aland; the gangway
was unshipped, the hawsers cast off; the oars of the towing-boats
splashed in the dark water, the sail fell down from the yard, and
was sheeted home, and out plunged the Katherine into the misty sea
and rolled up the grey slopes, casting abroad her ancient withal,
whereon was beaten the token of Bartholomew Golden, to wit a B and a
G to the right and the left, and thereabove a cross and a triangle
rising from the midst.

Walter stood on the stern and beheld, yet more with the mind of him
than with his eyes; for it all seemed but the double of what the
other ship had done; and the thought of it as if the twain were as
beads strung on one string and led away by it into the same place,
and thence to go in the like order, and so on again and again, and
never to draw nigher to each other.

Continue on to chapter 3