‘Achilles’ armes which Artegall did win.’
From that day Britomart could think of nothing but the knight whose picture had ridden across the mirror and vanished away.
She grew thoughtful and sad, and could not sleep, for she feared it was a dreadful thing to love a shadow.
Her old nurse slept in her room, and at night when she heard Britomart tossing about in bed and softly crying to herself, the old woman was very unhappy. Night after night she heard her, till she could bear it no longer. She asked Britomart what was wrong, and Britomart sobbingly told her.
Then the good old nurse comforted Britomart. She said she was sure that Artegall must be a real man, and not just a shadow, and that she would find him. Then she tucked the bedclothes round Britomart, and put out the flickering lamp. When Britomart, much comforted, had fallen quietly asleep, her nurse sat and watched beside her, and dropped some tears because Britomart was no longer a little baby-girl for her to take care of, but a grown-up girl who loved a knight.
Next day the old nurse went to the woods and gathered all sorts of herbs. She boiled them down together, and mixed them with milk and other things, and put them in an earthen pot. Round the pot she bound three of her hairs plaited together. Then she said a charm over the pot, and made Britomart turn round and round and round about it. She thought that this charm would cure Britomart of loving the knight, and make her gay and happy again. But the old nurse’s charm was no good. Britomart grew thin and sad and ill.
Then the old woman thought of Merlin, the magician who had made the mirror.
‘It is all his fault that my princess is so sad,’ she said; ‘he must make her happy again.’
So she dressed Britomart and herself in shabby old clothes, and went to seek Merlin.
The magician lived in a dark cave under a rock. The rock lay near a swift-rushing river that ran down between thickly wooded hills. Hollow, fearful sounds, and a clanking, as of chains, were always heard there.