CHAPTER LIII
To hail the king in seemly sort
The ladie was full fain,
But King Arthur, all sore amazed,
No answer made again
'What wight art thou,' the ladie said,
'That will not speak to me?
Sir, I may chance to ease thy pain,
Though I be foul to see'
The Marriage of Sir Gawaine.
The fairy bride of Sir Gawaine, while under the influence of the spell of her wicked step-mother, was more decrepit probably, and what is commonly called more ugly, than Meg Merrilies; but I doubt if she possessed that wild sublimity which an excited imagination communicated to features marked and expressive in their own peculiar character, and to the gestures of a form which, her sex considered, might be termed gigantic. Accordingly, the Knights of the Round Table did not recoil with more terror from the apparition of the loathly lady placed between 'an oak and a green holly,' than Lucy Bertram and Julia Mannering did from the appearance of this Galwegian sibyl upon the common of Ellangowan.
'For God's sake,' said Julia, pulling out her purse, 'give that dreadful woman something and bid her go away.'
'I cannot,' said Bertram; 'I must not offend her.'
'What keeps you here?' said Meg, exalting the harsh and rough tones of her hollow voice. 'Why do you not follow? Must your hour call you twice? Do you remember your oath? "Were it at kirk or market, wedding or burial,"'—and she held high her skinny forefinger in a menacing attitude.
Bertram—turned round to his terrified companions. 'Excuse me for a moment; I am engaged by a promise to follow this woman.'
'Good Heavens! engaged to a madwoman?' said Julia.
'Or to a gipsy, who has her band in the wood ready to murder you!' said
Lucy.