Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

THE BERMONDSEY BOOK
the forest can never give shall be yours in the Towns where the days
are short and the nights are long."
The little dwarf's eyes sparkled and he lent forward more eagerly.
He saw as in a dream fair ladies, bright-eyed and tender, the courtiers'
silken coats, the glint of jewels shining in the gloom, light and colour
in profusion, and himself, the centre of the throng, winning with his
woodland lore the first place at the feast. What a hero he would be!
Far better this than the green days in the forest and his bed of pine
cones at sunset.
"There is only one thing that I have to ask of you," the Stranger
tedded, "It is so simple a request that it is hardly worth the making
and will disturb your peace no more than the shadow of a bird's wing.
All I ask is that you no longer keep your cap and bells, but throw them
with doublet and hose into yonder ditch. In their stead I will give you
garments that shall drape you as a king. The sound of your bells would
irritate my people so that they would grow melancholy rather than
glad."
"Certainly," the dwarf cried when he saw the satin coat and
feathered hat the Stranger held out to him. Jumping out of his threadbare
doublet and hose he threw them with cap and bells into the ditch.
As they fell the bells clanked sadly before they sank, gurgling into
the mud.
"You have done well"; said the Stranger. "The clothes I give
you will suit you far better than those you have thrown away, and the
bells were a silly piece of tomfoolery. But we must depart for the hour
grows late and we have far to go."
That night in a tavern in the fashionable quarter of a city some
leagues distant from the forest the Weaver of Eternity and the little
dwarf gave their first performance. The low-raftered room, the long
trestled tables and rough forms on which the audience knelt or sat, the
sand-dusted floor and smoke-laden atmosphere filled the elfin sprite
with wonder, almost with awe. This people whom he gazed upon from
the safe shelter of the chimney corner with their never-ceasing chatter,
their gay clothes and their tired, tired eyes were as new to him as the
rippling stream was old. Were the men so thirsty that they lifted ever
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