And suddenly he threw his arms above his head, his face being purple and his eyes closed like a drunkard's. With the passion and strength of his laughter the blood gushed from his mouth and nose like falling scarlet ribbons. His body came forward on the tablecloth; monks and doctors craned forwards over him. The Percy moved disdainfully away as if from a sick and filthy beast, and over the table the body shook and quivered in the last gusts of laughter.
The Decies, with his sword drawn, moved backwards to the arch at the door, and first the Lady Isopel of Cullerford, the Lord Lovell's daughter, came round to speak to him, and then the Lady Douce of Haltwhistle, her sister. They stood looking back at their mother, and then they called to them their husbands, Sir Symonde and Sir Walter Limousin. They stood at talk, Sir Symonde shrugging his shoulders and Cullerford grunting whilst the ladies caught them earnestly by the arms, leaning forwards. Then they called to them the lawyer, Magister Stone, who was no great distance away, and he brought with him the Prince Bishop's Almoner, a dry man with but one eye who had a furred hood up, to keep away the draughts, since he suffered from the earache. Then they beckoned to them certain of their armed men and Sir Henry Vesey of Wall Houses, a knight of little worth in morals but a great reiver. And so, by little and little, they had a company, mostly ill-favoured but violent around them. So they perceived that the Lady Rohtraut had fallen in a swoon, and the knight of Cullerford went forward and begged the lords and lordings and the company to avoid that hall and go upon their errands, since there was sorrow enough, and his brothers-in-law and their wives would take it kindly if they could be left alone with their mother. And, since he was the husband of the lady's daughter, they listened to him and went out, and the Vesey of Haltwhistle saw to it that they had their horses, and soon there were few left in the hall but the Lord Lovell, who had a leech, bending over him. The Lady Rohtraut, having fallen back in her chair, was being tended by the Lady Margaret and an old woman of seventy called Elizabeth Campstones. Then the daughters and the Decies went about in the Castle and were very busy.
IV
The Young Lovell felt as if he had came up out of a deep dream. He knew that the lady of the white horse thought to him:
"And I have all the time of the sea and the sky and beyond," but she spoke not at all—no words and no language that he knew. Only it was as if he saw her thoughts coursing through her mind as minnows swim in clear water. And he knew that, before that, he had thought, as if beseechingly:
"Even let me go in Christ's name, for I have many businesses."
She had a crooked and voluptuous mouth, mocking eyes of a shade of green, a little nose, a figure of waves, a high breast crossed with scarlet ribbons, and hair the colour of the yellow gold, shining with the sun, each hair separate and inclining to little curls. In short she was all white and gold save for her red and alluring lips that smiled askant, and he thought that he had never seen so bright a lady, no, not among the courtesans of Venice. His heart at the sight of her hair beat in great, stealthy pulses; his throat was dry and the flowers grew all about her. And she sat there smiling, with the side of her face to him, and he heard her think—
"This mortal man shall be mine."
It had been then that he had prayed her in Christ's name to let him go, and that she had answered that she had all the time of this earth and beyond it.
He turned Hamewarts slowly down the dune, though his heart lay behind him, and, like a mortally wounded man upon a dying horse, he rode towards his Castle where it towered upon the crag. The day was very bright, in the white sand the wind played with the ribbed rushes, and very slowly Hamewarts went. To judge by the sun he had not stayed more than a half-hour in that place, if so long, for it was very little above the horizon. He had not thought the day would prove so bright. The sea was very blue: the foam sparkled and was churned to curds, and the little wind was warm from sunwards. He saw the shepherd coming down a very green slope below the chapel, and the white sheep, with whiter lambs, spreading, like a fan below him. Behind him, over that shoulder, Meggot, their goose girl, was driving her charges, a great company of grey with but three white ones amongst them.