Chapter 3

The blackthorn bloomed anew, and the long grass Was starred with flowers that once Griselda prized, But plucked not. She, poor wench, from moon to moon Waxed pale and paler: of no known disease, The village-leech averred, with lips pursed out And cane at chin; some inward fire, he thought, Consumed. A dark inexplicable blight Had touched her, thinned her, till of that sweet earth Scarce more was left than would have served to grow A lily. Later, at a fresh-turned grave, From out the maiden strewments, as it were, A whisper rose, of most pathetic breath, Of how one maid had been by two men loved-- No names, God's mercy!--and that neither man Would wed her: why?--conjecture faltered there, For whiter was she than new-drifted snow, Or bleached lamb's wool, or any purest thing, Such stuff in sooth as Heaven shapes angels of; And how from their warm, comfortable beds These two men wandered out into the night, Sore stricken and distempered in their mind, And being by Satan blinded and urged on Did fling them headlong from a certain crag That up Clovelly way o'erhangs the sea-- O'erhangs the sea to tempt unhappy folk. From door to door the piteous legend passed, And like a thrifty beggar took from each. And when the long autumnal season came To that bleak, bitter coast, and when at night The deep was shaken, and the pent cloud broke Crashing among the lurid hills of heaven, And in brief sudden swoonings of the gale Contentious voices rose from the sand-dunes, Then to low sobs and murmurs died away, The fishwives, with their lean and sallow cheeks Lit by the flickering driftwood's ruddy glow, Drew closer to the crane, and under breath To awestruck maidens told the fearful tale.

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. 'T was said that once the Queen reached out her hand-- This was at Richmond in her palace there-- And let it rest on Burleigh's velvet sleeve, And spoke--right stately was she in her rouge: “Prithee, good Master Cecil, tell us now Was 't ever known what ill befell those men, Those Wyndhams? Were they never, never found? Look you, 't will be three years come Michaelmas: 'T were well to have at least the bones of them. 'Fore God, sir! this is something should be seen! When the Armada, which God smote and sunk, Threatened our Realm, our buckler and our shield Were such stout hearts as that young Wyndham was. The elder brother--well, Heaven fashioned him. Our subjects are our subjects, mark you that. Not found, forsooth! Why, then, they should be found!” Fain had my good Lord Burleigh solved the thing, And smoothed that ominous wrinkle on the brow Of her Most Sweet Imperious Majesty. Full many a problem his statecraft had solved-- How strangle treason, how soothe turbulent peers, How foil the Pope and Spain, how pay the Fleet-- Mere temporal matters; but this business smelt Strongly of brimstone. Bring back vanished folk! That could not Master Cecil an he would.

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. Dark were the days that came to Wyndham Towers With that grim secret rusting in its heart. On the sea's side along the fissured wall The lichen spread in patches of dull gold Up to the battlements, at times assailed By sheeted ghosts of mist blown from the sea, Now by the whistling arrows of the sleet Pelted, and thrice of lightning scorched and seamed, But stoutly held from dreary year to year By legions of most venerable rooks, Shrill black-robed prelates of the fighting sort. In the wide moat, run dry with summer droughts Great scarlet poppies lay in drifts and heaps, Like bodies fall'n there in some vain assault. Within, decay and dolor had their court-- Dolor, decay, and silence, lords of all. From room to room the wind went shuddering On some vague endless quest; now pausing here To lift an arras, and then hurrying on, To some fresh clue, belike! The sharp-nosed mouse Through joist and floor discreetly gnawed her way, And for her glossy young a lodging made In a cracked corselet that once held a heart. The meditative spider undisturbed Wove his gray tapestry from sill to sill. Over the transom the stone eagle drooped, With one wing gone, in most dejected state Moulting his feathers. A blue poisonous vine, Whose lucent berry, hard as Indian jade, No squirrel tried his tooth on, June by June On the south hill-slope festered in the sun. Man's foot came not there. It was haunted ground.

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. An oak stood where an acorn tumbled once, Ages ago, and all the world was strange. Now, in that year King Charles the Second left Forever the soft arms of Mistress Gwynn And wrapt him in that marble where he lies, The moulder'd pile with its entombed Crime Passed to the keep of a brave new-fledged lord, Who, liking much the sane and wholesome air That bent the boughs and fanned the turret's top, Cried, “Here dwell I!” So fell it on a day The stroke of mallets and the screech of saws In those bleak chambers made such din as stopped The careful spider half-way up his thread, And panic sent to myriad furtive things That dwelt in wainscots and loved not the sun. Vainly in broken phalanx clamorous Did the scared rooks protest, and all in vain The moths on indolent white damask wings At door and casement rallied. Wyndham Towers Should have a bride, and ghosts had word to quit.

And now, behold what strange thing came to pass. A certain workman, in the eastern wing Plying his craft alone as the day waned-- One Gregory Nokes, a very honest soul, By trade wood-carver--stumbled on a door Leading to nowhere at an alcove's end, A double door that of itself swung back In such strange way as no man ever saw; And there, within a closet, on the flags Were two grim shapes which, vaguely seen at first In the half light, grew presently distinct-- Two gnomes or vampires seemed they, or dire imps Straight from the Pit, in guise fantastical Of hose and doublet: one stretched out full length Supine, and one in terror-stricken sort Half toppled forward on the bended knee, Grasping with vise-like grip the other's wrist, As who should say, Arouse thee, sleep no more! But said it not. If they were quick or dead, No sign they gave beyond this sad dumb show. Blurred one face was, yet luminous, like the moon Caught in the fleecy network of a cloud, Or seen glassed on the surface of a tarn When the wind crinkles it and makes all dim; The other, drawn and wrenched by mortal throes, And in the aspect such beseeching look As might befall some poor wretch called to compt On the sudden, even as he kneels at prayer, With Mercy! turned to frost upon the lip.

Thus much saw Nokes within the closet there Ere he drew breath; then backing step by step, The chisel clutched in still uplifted hand, His eyes still fixed upon the ghosts, he reached An open window giving on the court Where the stone-cutters were; to them he called Softly, in whispers under his curved palm, Lest peradventure a loud word should rouse The phantoms; but ere foot could climb the stair, Or the heart's pulses count the sum of ten, Through both dread shapes, as at God's finger-touch, A shiver ran, the wavering outlines broke, And suddenly a chill and mist-like breath Touched Nokes's cheek as he at casement leaned, And nought was left of that most piteous pair Save two long rapiers of some foreign make Lying there crossed, a mass of flaky rust.

O luckless carver of dead images, Saint's-head or gargoyle, thou hast seen a sight Shall last thee to the confines of the grave! Ill were thy stars or ever thou wert born That thou shouldst look upon a thing forbid! Now in thine eye shall it forever live, And the waste solitudes of night inhabit With direful shadows of the nether world, Yet leave thee lonely in the throng of men-- Not of them, thou, but creature set apart Under a ban, and doomed henceforth to know The wise man's scorn, the dull man's sorry jest. For who could credence give to that mad tale Of churchyard folk appearing in broad day, And drifting out at casement like a mist? Marry, not they who crowded up the stair In haste, and peered into that empty cell, And had half mind to buffet Master Nokes, Standing with finger laid across his palm In argumentative, appealing way, Distraught, of countenance most woe-begone. “See!--the two swords. As I 'm a Christian soul!” “Odds, man!” cried one, “thou 'st been a-dreamin', man. Cleave to thy beer, an' let strong drink alone!”

So runs the legend. So from their long sleep Those ghosts arose and fled into the night. But never bride came to that dark abode, For wild flames swept it ere a month was gone, And nothing spared but that forlorn old tower Whereon the invisible fingers of the wind Its fitful and mysterious dirges play.