“How comes it, crone,” said the King’s daughter, “that you waver like a rag, and pale like a dead leaf before my eyes?”
“Because the morrow has come that I have thought upon, and the hour of my power,” said the crone; and she fell on the beach, and, lo! she was but stalks of the sea tangle, and dust of the sea sand, and the sand lice hopped upon the place of her.
“This is the strangest thing that befell between two seas,” said the King’s daughter of Duntrine.
But the nurse broke out and moaned like an autumn gale. “I am weary of the wind,” quoth she; and she bewailed her day.
The King’s daughter was aware of a man upon the beach; he went hooded so that none might perceive his face, and a pipe was underneath his arm. The sound of his pipe was like singing wasps, and like the wind that sings in windlestraw; and it took hold upon men’s ears like the crying of gulls.
“Are you the comer?” quoth the King’s daughter of Duntrine.
“I am the corner,” said he, “and these are the pipes that a man may hear, and I have power upon the hour, and this is the song of the morrow.” And he piped the song of the morrow, and it was as long as years; and the nurse wept out aloud at the hearing of it.
“This is true,” said the King’s daughter, “that you pipe the song of the morrow; but that ye have power upon the hour, how may I know that? Show me a marvel here upon the beach, between the waves and the dead leaves.”
And the man said, “Upon whom?”
“Here is my nurse,” quoth the King’s daughter. “She is weary of the wind. Show me a good marvel upon her.”