Behind lay
scattered some small faint-winkling stars on sapphire fields, and a stain
of yellow light was in a breach of one wall.
He descended. What was the Goshawk doing? Was he betrayed? It was surely
now time? No; the moon had not yet smitten the face of the castle. He
made his way through the hazel-bank among flitting nightmoths, and
glanced up to measure the moon's distance. As he did so, a first touch of
silver fell on the hoary flint.
'Oh, young bird of heaven in that Devil's clutch!'
Sounds like the baying of boar-hounds alarmed him. They whined into
silence.
He fell back. The meadow breathed peace, and more and more the
nightingales volumed their notes. As in a charmed circle of palpitating
song, he succumbed to languor. The brook rolled beside him fresh as an
infant, toying with the moonlight. He leaned over it, and thrice
waywardly dipped his hand in the clear translucence.
Was it his own face imaged there?
Farina bent close above an eddy of the water. It whirled with a strange
tumult, breaking into lines and lights a face not his own, nor the
moon's; nor was it a reflection.
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