The Sundering Flood

by William Morris

"Yea," she said, "unto thee."

"O would that we were, would that we were!" said Osberne.

"O!" she said, "be not sad this morning, or wish for aught so that it grieve thee. Bethink thee how dear this moment is, now at last when our eyes behold each other."

"Hast thou come here often to look for me?" said he. She said: "It was the fourteenth of May was a year that we parted; now is this the eighth day of October. That makes five hundred and eleven days: not oftener than that have I come here to look for thee."

So piteous-kind she looked as she spake, that his bosom heaved and his face changed, and he wept. She said: "I wish I had not said that to make thee weep for me, my dear." He spake as his face cleared: "Nay, my dear, it was not all for thee, but for me also; and it was not all for grief, but for love." She said: "With this word thou givest me leave to weep;" and she wept in good sooth.

Then in a while she said: "And now thou wilt sit down, wilt thou not? and tell me all thy tale, and of thy great deeds, some wind whereof hath been blown to us across the Sundering Flood. And sweet it will be to hear thy voice going on and on, and telling me dear things of thyself."

"Even so will I do," said Osberne, "if thou wilt; yet I were fain to hear of thee and how thou hast fared; and thy words would I hear above all things." The voice of him quavered as he spake, and he seemed to find it hard to bring any words out: but his eyes were devouring her as if he could never have enough of looking on her. Forsooth there was cause, so fair she was, and he now come far into his eighteenth year. She was that day clad all in black, without any adornment, and her hair was knit up as a crown about her beauteous head, which sat upon her shoulders as the swan upon the billow: her hair had darkened since the days of her childhood, and was now brown mingled with gold, as though the sun were within it; somewhat low it came down upon her forehead, which was broad and white; her eyes were blue-grey and lustrous, her cheeks a little hollow, but the jaw was truly wrought, and fine and clear, and her chin firm and lovely carven; her lips not very full, but red and lovely, her nose straight and fine. The colour of her clear and sweet, but not blent with much red: rather it was as if the gold of her hair had passed over her face and left some little deal behind there. In all her face was a look half piteous, as though she craved the love of folk; but yet both mirth and swift thought brake through it at whiles, and sober wisdom shaded it into something like sternness. Low-bosomed she was yet, and thin-flanked, and had learned no tricks and graces of movement such as women of towns and great houses use for the beguiling of men. But the dear simpleness of her body in these days when the joy of childhood had left her, and a high heart of good longing was ever before her, was an allurement of love and far beyond any fooling such as that.

Now she said: "How thou lookest on me, dear Osberne, and thy face is somewhat sober; is there aught that thou likest not in me? I will do as thou biddest, and tell all the little there is to tell about me, ere thou tellest me all the mickle thou hast to tell about thee."

He said, and still spake as if the words were somewhat hard to find: "I look upon thee, Elfhild, because I love thee, and because thou hast outgrown thy dearness of a year and a half agone and become a woman, and I see thee so fair and lovely, that I fear for thee and me, that I desire more than is my due, and that never shall we mend our sundering; and that even what I have may be taken from me." She smiled, yet somewhat faintly, and spake: "I call that ill said; yet shalt thou not make me weep thereby, such joy as I have of the love in thy words. But come, sit thou down, and I shall tell thee my tidings."

So they sat down as nigh unto the edge as they might; and Osberne spake no more for that while, but looked and listened, and Elfhild said: "Day by day I have come hither, sometimes sadder and sorrier than at others, whiles with more hope, and whiles with less, whiles also with none at all. Of that thou wottest already or may bethink thee. Of tidings to call tidings the first is that my kinswoman, my mother's sister, has changed her life: she died six months ago, and we brought her to earth by the church of Allhallows the West, hard by the place of the Cloven Mote. Needs must I say that, though she was the last one of my kindred, the loss of her was no very grievous sorrow to me, for ever she had heeded me little and loved me less, though she used me not cruelly when I was little; and her burial was a stately one as for a poor house in the West Dale. Now furthermore, as for the carline who is the only one left to look after me, by my deeming she doth love me, and moreover she hath belike more of a might than were to be looked for of so old and frail-seeming a woman, and that besides here mickle wisdom. Whereof hearken this, which is the second tidings of note I have to tell thee. It is now some two months ago, when summer was waning into autumn, that on an evening just after sunset we were sitting after our wont in our house, which, though it be neither grand nor great, is bigger than we need for us twain. Comes a knock on the door, and the carline goes thereto, and is followed back into the chamber by a tall man, clad neither as one of our country-side nor as a warrior, but in a long black gown with furred edges. He had no weapons save a short sword and a whittle in his girdle; he was not ill-looked, black-bearded and ruddy-faced, and seemed strong-built, a man of about five and forty winters. He hailed us courteously, and asked if he might abide with us till morning, and we naysaid him not, if he might do with such cheer as we might make him. He smiled and said any cheer was better worth to him that the desert as at that time: and he said withal that he had a way-beast without who was as weary as was he; and, says he, there is a pair of saddle-bags on him, which many would not deem overmuch of a burden, if they had not very far to carry it.