At last the day wore to its ending, and then the knight’s
grief strode over him again, and he was moody and
few-spoken; and Birdalone was blithe with him still,
and would have solaced his grief; but he said:
Let it be; as for thee, thou shalt be happy to-morrow,
but this happy day of mine is well-nigh worn, and
it is as the wearing of my life. And the dark
night came, and he bade her good-night sorrowfully,
and departed to his lair in the wood. Birdalone
lay in the bower, and might not sleep a long while
for her joy of the morrow, which should bring her
back to the Castle of the Quest.
But when morning was, and the sun was but just risen,
Birdalone awoke, and stood up and did on her raiment,
and called her servant the knight, and he came at
once leading the two horses, and said: Now go
we to the Castle of the Quest. And he was sober
and sorrowful, but nought fierce or wild.
So Birdalone thanked him kindly and praised him, and
he changed countenance no whit therefor.
Then they mounted and set forth, and the knight led
straight into the wood, and by roads that he wotted
of, so that they went nowise slowly for wenders through
the thick woodland. Thus went they on their way
together, he sorry and she glad.
But now leaves the tale to tell of Birdalone and the
knight on whom she happened in the Black Valley of
the Greywethers, and turns to the Castle of the Quest
and the folk thereof, and what they did in this while
and thereafter.
Here ends the Fourth Part of the Water of the Wondrous
Isles, which is called Of the Days of Abiding, and
the Fifth Part now begins, which is called The Tale
of the Quest’s Ending.
Tells the tale that when the chaplain had departed
from Birdalone at the bower in the copse, he went
home to the castle sadly enough, because of his love
and longing for her, which well he wotted might never
be satisfied. Moreover when he was come into
the castle again, there fell fear upon him for what
might betide her, and he rued it that he had done
her will in getting her forth of the castle; and in
vain now he set before himself all the reasons for
deeming that her peril herein was little or nothing,
even as he had laid them before her, and which he
then believed in utterly, whereas now himseemed there
was an answer to every one of them. So he sighed
heavily and went into the chapel, wherein was an altar
of St. Leonard; and he knelt thereat, and prayed the
saint, as he had erst delivered folk from captivity,
now to deliver both him and Birdalone from peril and
bonds; but though he was long a-praying and made many
words, it lightened his heart little or nothing; so
that when he rose up again, that if anything evil
happened to this pearl of women, he wished heartily
that some one might take his life and he be done with
it.
