CHAPTER XXV
Tristan rode through the woods from Holy Guard that autumntide fierce of heart and grim of face. He held northwards for Tor’s Tower by the rugged coast that closed the western sea, glad of his own savage strength and the rude wilderness that suited his temper. The elemental fiercenesses of life had waxed within him, and action came as a balm to his raw and rebellious spirit. With Rosamunde gone from the heavens like the chastening moon, primitive darkness had fallen around. The glimmering stars of chivalry were faint above. The wild beasts seemed akin to Tristan; he fought and slew, was even as they.
In this wise, gaunt and wind-tanned, with rusty hauberk and unshaven chin, he came after many days to Tor’s Tower, where Samson had gathered the folk of the Seven Streams. It was a wintry evening, grey and desolate, with clouds racing in the heavens and the sea rushing towards the shore. In the woods a shower of leaves were falling, dancing and flickering to the piping of the wind.
At Tor’s Tower the cry went up from the rude camp in the meadows to the grey walls upon the cliff: “Tristan has come, Tristan le Sauvage!”
Savage indeed seemed the wanderer who met the greetings of these iron men, took their rough hand-grips and the waving of their steel. Unshaven, sullen, and fierce of eye, with his black hair tangled by the wind and rain, he was no gay pilgrim on his great raw-boned horse. Tristan climbed the causeway with his face towards the sea, and dismounted before the castle gate.
Samson stood there to greet him with his hands outstretched, a warm light on his powerful face.
“Welcome, brother, out of the south.”
They stood and looked into each other’s eyes like men to whom silence meant more than words. Tristan’s mood could be deciphered from his face, with its pursed up mouth and sullen eyes. Samson read the truth thereon, how much Tristan had left in the Southern Marches.
They passed together into the tower, and climbing the stairs, looked out over the battlements towards the sea. Below them stretched the marshes and the sandy shore, and in the east the woods waved their reddened banners against the night. Samson leant against the parapet and watched Tristan as he stood beside him.
“You have failed, brother?” he said at last.