The Faery Tales of Weir

by Anna McClure Sholl

Then he grew gray as the ashes of a long-spent fire, for he knew that he had failed; and his pride suffered a mortal wound, since it was greater than his love. "You are deceived, Lady Beatrice, like all the rest," he said. "There is no magic Tree."

For answer she turned her horse and rode sadly away. Her heart was too heavy for speech. As he saw her going the sense of loss cut like a knife into his spirit, and his pain was keen, for he still loved for his sake and not for hers. She, seeing that he suffered, longed to comfort him, but she was not one of those who live for the moment, and she held her peace.

When they reached the waiting procession everyone looked at Sir Godfrey, and his pride was, by the challenge of their eyes, again aroused, for he could do nothing, nor feel nothing unless he was before a mirror. So he began to be very gay; and though he would have scorned to speak a lie, he acted one that everyone might believe he had seen the magic Tree. But the Lady Beatrice remained silent and sad. When they reached her gates he asked her permission to enter; then she said: "Some day, not now."

He rode away without a jest, for she had never before refused him any courtesy, and his heart was heavy within him. That night he could not sleep, but tossed upon his bed, sometimes grieving because he had not seen the magic Tree and so had been made of no worth in the Lady Beatrice's eyes; sometimes in anguish because she had not allowed him to enter her gates.

But in all this he loved himself, so the pain was but transitory, and next day he put on his finest doublet of leaf-green satin lined with primrose silk and edged with pale corals, and rode to her gates. There the porter brought back word that the Lady Beatrice could not see him.

Sir Godfrey was angry then, and he sought to make her jealous. Next day when at the jousts, he sat at the feet of her cousin, Lady Alladine, nor did he look towards the Lady Beatrice.

But all that only heaped fire on his own heart, and he rode home to his castle with his brow dark. The singing birds seemed to mock him, and he thought he heard the shrill laughter of the goblin-men, who live in the deep dells. That night he could not sleep; but murmured again and again that she was his own love, and not the Lady Alladine.

So full of meekness he rode next day to the castle of his heart's life, but the porter brought back to him the same message, and Sir Godfrey departed full of anguish. His pain, like a scourge, drove him on and on until he was far off in the desert amid the tangled and tripping briers and the keen-edged stones. The rain beat upon his head and upon his silken clothes, but he was unmindful of it, because he had begun to grieve not for himself, but for his sweet lost love.

The days went by and he grew thin and worn with his grieving; and because he learned how salt is the taste of tears he began to pity everything that suffered. He was well-nigh worn out with his memories, for now he never thought of his noble deeds, but of the times when he had given pain to others. Often he remembered the poor goose-girl and her birds. At first he would say, "I gave her gold"; then a voice in his heart answered, "Gold cannot pay for life."

So one day he went to the market-place and bought a fine gray goose with a bill as red as a cardinal's robe; and he tucked the bird under his arm, though the people jeered to see a noble knight carrying a goose. But Sir Godfrey cared not. He went straight to the village green where the goose-girl was leading her birds around, and bowed low before her as if she were a great lady.