Chapter 2

Then into the gray they sheer away, On the awful polar tide; And the sailors know they have seen the wraith Of the missing Nancy's Pride.

ARNOLD, MASTER OF THE SCUD

There's a schooner out from Kingsport, Through the morning's dazzle-gleam, Snoring down the Bay of Fundy With a norther on her beam.

How the tough wind springs to wrestle, When the tide is on the flood! And between them stands young daring-- Arnold, master of the Scud.

He is only "Martin's youngster," To the Minas coasting fleet, "Twelve year old, and full of Satan As a nut is full of meat."

With a wake of froth behind him, And the gold green waste before, Just as though the sea this morning Were his boat pond by the door,

Legs a-straddle, grips the tiller This young waif of the old sea; When the wind comes harder, only Laughs "Hurrah!" and holds her free.

Little wonder, as you watch him With the dash in his blue eye, Long ago his father called him "Arnold, Master," on the sly,

While his mother's heart foreboded Reckless father makes rash son. So to-day the schooner carries Just these two whose will is one.

Now the wind grows moody, shifting Point by point into the east. Wing and wing the Scud is flying With her scuppers full of yeast.

And the father's older wisdom On the sea-line has descried, Like a stealthy cloud-bank making Up to windward with the tide,

Those tall navies of disaster, The pale squadrons of the fog, That maraud this gray world border Without pilot, chart, or log,

Ranging wanton as marooners From Minudie to Manan. "Heave to, and we'll reef, my master!" Cries he; when no will of man

Spills the foresail, but a clumsy Wind-flaw with a hand like stone Hurls the boom round. In an instant Arnold, Master, there alone

Sees a crushed corpse shot to seaward, With the gray doom in its face; And the climbing foam receives it To its everlasting place.

What does Arnold, Master, think you? Whimper like a child for dread? That's not Arnold. Foulest weather Strongest sailors ever bred.

And this slip of taut sea-faring Grows a man who throttles fear. Let the storm and dark in spite now Do their worst with valor here!

Not a reef and not a shiver, While the wind jeers in her shrouds, And the flauts of foam and sea-fog Swarm upon her deck in crowds,

Flies the Scud like a mad racer; And with iron in his frown, Holding hard by wrath and dreadnought, Arnold, Master, rides her down.

Let the taffrail shriek through foam-heads! Let the licking seas go glut Elsewhere their old hunger, baffled! Arnold's making for the Gut.

Cleft sheer down, the sea-wall mountains Give that one port on the coast; Made, the Basin lies in sunshine! Missed, the little Scud is lost!

Come now, fog-horn, let your warning Rip the wind to starboard there! Suddenly that burly-throated Welcome ploughs the cumbered air.

The young master hauls a little, Crowds her up and sheets her home, Heading for the narrow entry Whence the safety signals come.

Then the wind lulls, and an eddy Tells of ledges, where away; Veers the Scud, sheet free, sun breaking, Through the rifts, and--there's the bay!

Like a bird in from the storm-beat, As the summer sun goes down, Slows the schooner to her moorings By the wharf at Digby town.

All the world next morning wondered. Largest letters, there it stood, "Storm in Fundy. A Boy's Daring. Arnold, Master of the Scud."

THE SHIPS OF ST. JOHN

Smile, you inland hills and rivers! Flush, you mountains in the dawn! But my roving heart is seaward With the ships of gray St. John.

Fair the land lies, full of August, Meadow island, shingly bar, Open barns and breezy twilight, Peace and the mild evening star.

Gently now this gentlest country The old habitude takes on, But my wintry heart is outbound With the great ships of St. John.

Once in your wide arms you held me, Till the man-child was a man, Canada, great nurse and mother Of the young sea-roving clan.

Always your bright face above me Through the dreams of boyhood shone; Now far alien countries call me With the ships of gray St. John.

Swing, you tides, up out of Fundy! Blow, you white fogs, in from sea! I was born to be your fellow; You were bred to pilot me.

At the touch of your strong fingers, Doubt, the derelict, is gone; Sane and glad I clear the headland With the white ships of St. John.

Loyalists, my fathers, builded This gray port of the gray sea, When the duty to ideals Could not let well-being be.

When the breadth of scarlet bunting Puts the wreath of maple on, I must cheer too,--slip my moorings With the ships of gray St. John.

Peerless-hearted port of heroes, Be a word to lift the world, Till the many see the signal Of the few once more unfurled.

Past the lighthouse, past the nunbuoy, Past the crimson rising sun, There are dreams go down the harbor With the tall ships of St. John.

In the morning I am with them As they clear the island bar,-- Fade, till speck by speck the midday Has forgotten where they are.

But I sight a vaster sea-line, Wider lee-way, longer run, Whose discoverers return not With the ships of gray St. John.

THE KING OF YS

Wild across the Breton country, Fabled centuries ago, Riding from the black sea border, Came the squadrons of the snow.

Piping dread at every latch-hole, Moaning death at every sill, The white Yule came down in vengeance Upon Ys, and had its will.

Walled and dreamy stood the city, Wide and dazzling shone the sea, When the gods set hand to smother Ys, the pride of Brittany.

Morning drenched her towers in purple; Light of heart were king and fool; Fair forebode the merrymaking Of the seven days of Yule.

Laughed the king, "Once more, my mistress, Time and place and joy are one!" Bade the balconies with banners Match the splendor of the sun;

Eyes of urchins shine with silver, And with gold the pavement ring; Bade the war-horns sound their bravest In _The Mistress of the King_.

Mountebanks and ballad-mongers And all strolling traffickers Should block up the market corners With none other name than hers.

Laughed the fool, "To-day, my Folly, Thou shalt be the king of Ys!" O wise fool! How long must wisdom Under motley hold her peace?

Then the storm came down. The valleys Wailed and ciphered to the dune Like huge organ pipes; a midnight Stalked those gala streets at noon;

And the sea rose, rocked and tilted Like a beaker in the hand, Till the moon-hung tide broke tether And stampeded in for land.

All day long with doom portentous, Shreds of pennons shrieked and flew Over Ys; and black fear shuddered On the hearthstone all night through.

Fear, which freezes up the marrow Of the heart, from door to door Like a plague went through the city, And filled up the devil's score;

Filled her tally of the craven, To the sea-wind's dismal note; While a panic superstition Took the people by the throat.

As with morning still the sea rose With vast wreckage on the tide, And their pasture rills, grown rivers, Thundered in the mountain side,

"Vengeance, vengeance, gods to vengeance!" Rose a storm of muttering; And the human flood came pouring To the palace of the king.

"Save, O king, before we perish In the whirlpools of the sea, Ys thy city, us thy people!" Growled the king then, "What would ye?"

But his wolf's eyes talked defiance, And his bearded mouth meant scorn. "O our king, the gods are angry; And no longer to be borne

"Is the shameless face that greets us From thy windows, at thy side, Smiling infamy. And therefore Thou shall take her up, and ride

"Down with her into the sea's mouth, And there leave her; else we die, And thy name goes down to story A new word for cruelty."

Ah, but she was fair, this woman! Warm and flaxen waved her hair; Her blue Breton eyes made summer In that bleak December air.

There she stood whose burning beauty Made the world's high roof tree ring, A white poppy tall and wind-blown In the garden of the king.

Her throat shook, but not with terror; Her eyes swam, but not with fear; While her two hands caught and clung to The one man they had found dear.

"Lord and lover,"--thus she smiled him Her last word,--"it shall be so, Only the sea's arms shall hold me, When from out thine arms I go."

Swore he, "By the gods, my mistress, Thou shall have queen's burial. Pearls and amber shall thy tomb be; Shot with gold and green thy pall.

"And a million-throated chorus Shall take up thy dirge to-night; Where thy slumber's starry watch-fires Shall a thousand years be bright."

Then they brought the coal-black stallion, Chafing on the bit. Astride Sprang the young king; shouted, "Way there!" Caught the girl up to his side;

And a path through that scared rabble Rode in pageant to the sea. And the coal-black mane was mingled With gold hair against his knee.

Sure as the wild gulls make seaward, From the west gate to the beach Rode these two for whom now freedom Landward lay beyond their reach.

And the great horse, scenting peril, Snorted at the flying spume, Flicked with courage, as how often, When the tides were racing doom,

Ridden, he had plunged to rescue From that seething icy hell Some poor sailor wrecked a-fishing On the coast. What fears should quell

That high spirit? Knee to shoulder, King and stallion reared and sprang Clear above the long white combers And that turmoil's iron clang.

What a launching! For a moment, While the tempest held its breath And a thousand eyes looked wonder, Swimming in that trough of death,

Steering seaward through the welter, Ere they settled out of sight, Waved above them one gold streamer. Valor, bid the world good-night!...

Not a trace, while the long summers Warm the heart of Brittany, Save one stone of Ys, as remnant, For a white mark in the sea.

THE KELPIE RIDERS

I

Buried alive in calm Rochelle, Six in a row by a crystal well,

All Summer long on Bareau Fen Slumber and sleep the Kelpie men;

By the side of each to cheer his ghost, A flagon of foam with a crumpet of frost.

Hear me, friends, for the years are fleet; Soon I leave the noise and the street

For the silent uncompanioned way Where the inn is cold and the night is gray.

But noon is warm and the world is still Where the Kelpie riders have their will.

For never a wind dare stir or stray Over those marshes salt and gray;

No bit of shade as big as your hand To traverse or trammel the sleeping land,

Save where a dozen poplars fleck The long gray grass and the well's blue beck.

Yet you mark their leaves are blanched and sear, Whispering daft at a nameless fear.

While round the hole of one is a rune, Black in the wash of the bleaching noon.

"Ride, for the wind is awake and away. Sleep, for the harvest grain is gray."

No word more. And many a mile, A ghostly bivouac rank and file,

They sleep to-day on the marshes wide; Some far night they will wake and ride.

Once they were riders hot with speed, "Kelpie, Kelpie, gallop at need!"

With hills of the barren sea to roam, Housing their horses on the foam.

But earth is cool and the hush is long Beneath the lull of the slumber song

The crickets falter and strive to tell To the dragon-fly of the crystal well;

And love is a forgotten jest, Where the Kelpie riders take their rest,

And blossoming grasses hour by hour Burn in the bud and freeze in the flower.

But never again shall their roving be On the shifting hills of the tumbling sea,

With the salt, and the rain, and the glad desire Strong as the wind and pure as fire.

II

One doomful night in the April tide With riot of brooks on the mountain side,

The goblin maidens of the hills Went forth to the revel-call of the rills.

Many as leaves of the falling year, To the swing of a ballad wild and clear

They held the plain and the uplands high; And the merry-dancers held the sky.

The Kelpie riders abroad on the sea Caught sound of that call of eerie glee,

Over their prairie waste and wan; And the goblin maidens tolled them on.

The yellow eyes and the raven hair And the tawny arms blown fresh and bare,

Were more than a mortal might behold And live with the saints for a crown of gold.

The Kelpie riders were stricken sore; They wavered, and wheeled, and rode for the shore.

"Kelpie, Kelpie, treble your stride! Never again on the sea we ride.

"Kelpie, Kelpie, out of the storm; On, for the fields of earth are warm!"

Knee to knee they are riding in: "Brother, brother,--the goblin kin!"

The meadows rocked as they clomb the scaur; The pines re-echo for evermore

The sound of the host of Kelpie men; But the windflowers died on Bareau Fen.

Over the marshes all night long The stars went round to a riding song:

"Kelpie, Kelpie, carry us through!" And the goblin maidens danced thereto.

Till dawn,--and the revel died with a shout, For the ocean riders were wearied out.

They looked, and the grass was warm and soft; The dreamy clouds went over aloft;

A gloom of pines on the weather verge Had the lulling sound of their own white surge;

A whip-poor-will, far from their din, Was saying his litanies therein.

Then voices neither loud nor deep: "Tired, so tired; sleep! ah, sleep!

"The stars are calm, and the earth is warm, But the sea for an earldom is given to storm.

"Come now, inherit the houses of doom; Your fields of the sun shall be harried of gloom."

They laid them down; but over long They rest,--for the goblin maids are strong.

The sun goes round; and Bareau Fen Is a door of earth on the Kelpie men,--

Buried at dawn, asleep, unslain, With not a mound on the sunny plain,

Hard by the walls of calm Rochelle, Row on row by the crystal well.

And never again they are free to ride Through all the years on the tossing tide,

Barred from the breast of the barren foam, Where the heart within them is yearning home,--

For one long drench of the surf to quell The cursing doom of the goblin spell.

Only, when bugling snows alight To smother the marshes stark and white,

Or a low red moon peers over the rim Of a winter twilight crisp and dim,

With a sound of drift on the buried lands, The goblin maidens loose their hands;

A wind comes down from the sheer blue North; And the Kelpie riders get them forth.

III

Twice have I been on Bareau Fen, But the son of my son is a man since then.

Once as a lad I used to bear St. Louis' cross through the chapel square,

Leading the choristers' surpliced file Slow up the dusk Cathedral aisle.

I was the boy of all Rochelle The pure old father trusted well.

But one clear night in the winter's heart, I wandered out to that place apart.

The shafts of smoke went up to the stars, Straight as the Northern Streamer spars,

From the town's white roofs, so still it was. The night in her dream let no word pass,

Nor ever a breath that one could feel; Only the snow shrieked under my heel.

Yet it seemed when I reached the poplar hole, The ghost of a voice was crying, "Skoal!

"Rouse thee and drink, for the well is sweet, And the crystal snow is good to eat!"

I heeded little, but stooped on my knee, And ate of a handful dreamily.

'Twas cool to the mouth and slaking at first, But the lure of it was ill for thirst.

The voice cried, "Soul of the mortal span, Art thou not of the Kelpie clan?"

"What are you doing there in the ground, Kelpie rider, and never a sound

"To roam the night but the ghost of a cry?" Ringing and swift there came reply,

"He is asleep where thou art afraid, In the tawny arms of a goblin maid!"

Then I knew the voice was the voice of a girl, And I marvelled much (while a little swirl

Of snow leaped up far off on the plain Of sparkling dust and died again),

For what do the cloisters know, think ye, Of women's ways? They be hard to see.

Again the voice cried, "Kin of my kin, The child of the Sun shall win, shall win!"

'Twas an evil weird that so befell; Yet I leaned and drank of the bubbling well.

I looked for my face in the crystal spring, But the face that flickered there was a thing

To make the nape of your neck grow chill, And every vein surge back and thrill

With a passion for something not their own-- In a life their life has never known.

For raven hair and eyes like the sun Are merry but dour to look upon.

She smiled through her lashes under the wave, And my soul went forth her bartered slave.

I swore, "By St. Louis, I'll come to thee, Though I ride to my doom in the gulfs of the sea!

"Thy Kelpie rider shall wake and rue His ruined life in the loss of you."

Then I fled in the start of a terror of joy, O'er leagues where a legion might deploy;

For the acres of snow were level and hard, Every flake like a crystal shard.

I was the runner of all Rochelle, Could run with the hounds on Haric Fell;

And something stark as a gust of the sea Had a grip of the whimsy boy in me.

I ran like the drift on the ice low curled When the winds of Yule are abroad on the world.

Sudden, the beat of a throbbing sound Lost in the core of the blue profound:

"Kelpie, Kelpie, Kelpie, come!" Was it my heart?--But my heart was numb.

"Kelpie, Kelpie!" Was it the sea? Far on, at the verge of Bareau lea,

I saw like an army, shield and casque, The breakers roll in the Roads of Basque.

"Kelpie, Kelpie!" Was it the wolves? In the dusk of pines where night dissolves

To streamers and stars through the mountain gorge, I heard the blast of a giant forge.

Then I knew the wind was awake from the North, And the ocean riders were freed and forth.

Time, there is time (now gallop, my heart!) Ere the black riders disperse and depart.

The dawn is late, but the dawn comes round, And Fleetfoot Jean has the wind of a hound.

The hue and cry of the Kelpie horde Was growing and grim on that white seaboard.

It rolled and gathered and died and grew Far off to the rear; a smile thereto

I turned; a fathom behind my ear A rider rode with a shadowy leer.

I sickened and sped. He laughed aloud, "Wind for a mourner, snow for a shroud!"

On and on, half blown, half blind, Shadow and self, and the wind behind!

I slackened, he slackened; I fled, he flew; In a swirl of snow-drift all night through

I scoured along the gusty fen, A quarry for hunting Kelpie men.

But only one could hold at my side: "Brother, brother, I love thy stride.

"Wilt thou follow thy whim to win My merry maid of the goblin kin?"

I swerved from my trail, for he haunted my ear With his moaning jibe and his shadowy leer.

So by good hap as we sped it fell, I fetched a circuit back for the well.

Like a spilth of spume on the crest of the bore When the combing tides make in for shore,

That runner ran whose love was a wraith; But the rider rode with revenge in his teeth.

Another league, and I touch the goal,-- The mystic rune on the poplar bole,--

When the dusky eyes and the raven hair And the lithe brown arms shall greet me there.

I ran like a harrier on the trace In the leash of that ghoul, and the wind gave chase.

A furlong now; I caught the gleam Of the bubbling well with its tiny stream;

An arrowy burst; I cleared the beck; And--the Kelpie rider bestrode my neck.

* * * * *

Dawn, the still red winter dawn; I awoke on the plain; the wind was gone;--

All gracious and good as when God made The living creatures, and none was afraid.

I stooped to drink of the wholesome spring Under the poplars whispering:

Face to my face in that water clear-- The Kelpie rider's jabbering leer!

Ah, God! not me: I was never so! Sainted Louis, who can know

The lords of life from the slaves of death? What help avail the speeding breath

Of the spirit that knows not self's abode,-- When the soul is lost that knows not God?

I turned me home by St. Louis' Hall, Where the red sun burns on the windows tall.

And I thought the world was strange and wild, And God with his altar only a child.

IV

Again one year in the prime of June, I came to the well in the heated noon,

Leaving Rochelle with its red roof tiles By the Pottery Gate before St. Giles,--

There where the flower market is, Where every morning up from Duprisse

The flower girls come by the long white lane That skirts the edge of Bareau plain;--

To the North, the city wall in the sun, To the left, the fen where the eye may run

And have its will of the blazing blue. The while I loitered the market through,

Halting a moment to converse With old Babette who had been my nurse,

There passed through the stalls a woman, bright With a kirtle of cinnabar and white

Among the kerseys blue; and I said, "Who is it, Babette, with lifted head,

"And the startled look, possessed and strange, Under the paint--secure from change?"

"Ah, 'Sieur Jean, do ye not ken Of the eerie folk of Bareau Fen?"

I blenched, and she knew too well I wist The fearsome fate of the goblin tryst.

"The street is a cruel home, 'Sieur Jean, But a weird uncanny drives her on.

"'Tis a bitter tale for Christian folk, How once she dreamed, and how she woke."

"Ay, ay!" I passed and reached the spring Where the poplars kept their whispering,

Hid for an hour in the shade, In the rank marsh grass of a tiny glade.

There crossed the moor from the town afar, In kirtle of white and cinnabar,

A wanderer on that plain of tears, Bowed with a burden not of the years,

As one that goeth sorrowing For many an unforgotten thing.

To the crystal well as the sun drew low There came that harridan of woe.

She stooped to drink; I heard her cry: "Ah, God, how tired out am I!

"I called him by the dearest name A girl may call; I have my shame.

"'Yet death is crueller than life,' Once they said, 'for all the strife.'

"And so I lived; but the wild will, Broken and bitter, drives to ill.

"And now I know, what no one saith, That love is crueller than death.

"How I did love him! Is love too high, My God, for such lost folk as I?"

Her tears went down to the grass by the well, In that passion of grief, and where they fell

Windflowers trembled pale and white. A craven I crept away from the sight;

And turned me home to St. Louis' Hall, Where the sunflowers burn by the eastern wall.

The vesper frankincense that day Rose to the rafters and melted away,

And was no more than a cloud that stirs Among the spires of Norway firs.

And I said, "The holy solitude Of the hoary crypt and the wild green wood

"Are one to the God I have never known, Whose kingdom has neither bourn nor throne."

V

Now I am old, and the years delay; But I know, I know, there will come a day,--

When April is over the Norland town. And the loosened brooks from the hills go down,

When tears have quenched the sorrow of time,-- Wherein the earth shall rebuild her prime,