Tatterhood Read Free Page A

the stillness of the house rang in her ears; and until the forest birds resumed their singing. Then she crept out, stole through the empty rooms, slipped from the house and followed the peas home to her father’s farm, running all the way.
    It wasn’t many days before the groom came visiting again. He was dressed so finely, with his buckles and embroidery, that the girl found it hard to find fault with him.
    â€˜Why didn’t you call last week, as we’d arranged?’ he asked. ‘Did I not promise to surprise you?’
    In truth, his sweetheart had never been more astonished in her life; but she changed the subject and invited him to attend a feast they wanted to arrange in his honour.
    He agreed, and invitations were sent out to neighbouring valleys. Farmers with arms like cudgels and smiths with hands like sledge-hammers were soon crowding her father’s hall.
    At last, with the meat and potatoes all gone, with the marrow sucked from the bones and the fat from the eyes of the trout, the girl’s father asked the company to tell their tales. There were stories from every valley, and one after another they were told – some tales true and others tall – but all the while the bride sat silent and said nothing.
    Finally her man said to her, ‘Well, my dear? Haven’t you anything to say? Come along, entertain us with a story.’
    She paused, as if in thought.
    Then at last she said, ‘I had a dream some nights ago, a dream which surprised me. If you wish to listen, I’ll tell it to the end.’
    Well, the farmers and the smiths and the millers with their arms like knotted wood and their fists like rocks promised they would listen to the end. And her sweetheart promised too.
    â€˜I dreamed that I walked along a broad and sunny path,’ she said, ‘and that where I walked, there were strewn peas, green as emeralds in the sunlight.’
    â€˜And so it would have been, had you cared to visit me, my dear,’ said her man.
    â€˜Then the road grew narrower, and the light dimmer, until it led me into wilderness and forest,’ said she.
    â€˜And so it is along the road to my house,’ said the groom.
    â€˜But then at last I came to a clearing in the forest and there I saw an elegant house.’
    â€˜Then you must have been dreaming of my house,’ said he.
    â€˜I went into the kitchen. There was not a creature, but for a bird in a cage, and as I went into the parlour, it called after me.’
    â€˜Indeed, you dreamt of my house,’ said the man. ‘Especially if the parlour there was fine.’
    â€˜So it was,’ said she. ‘And when I went into a bedchamber, the bird called again – “Be bold,” it cried, “but not too bold” – and there I saw a great many chests. When I looked into them, they were filled with silver and gold.’
    â€˜That was my house you dreamt of, my dear,’ said the groom. ‘I have just such chests.’
    â€˜Then, in my dream, I went into another room,’ she went on. ‘The bird called to me again as before, and there I saw costumes of all kinds, tossed and flung across every surface.’
    â€˜Indeed, that was my house too, my dear.’
    â€˜When I went into the next chamber, the bird started shrieking. And in that chamber there were casks and tubs …’
    â€˜I too have casks and tubs,’ said the man, ‘both painted and carved.’
    â€˜Casks and tubs,’ said she, ‘filled to the brim with blood.’
    The man shifted in his seat. ‘God forbid that it should be so at my house,’ he said.
    â€˜My dear, it was only a dream,’ said the young woman. ‘When I went into the next room, the bird was shrieking so loud that the pewter rattled in its racks. But still I went on, and there in the last room I found dead women and tangled skeletons.’
    â€˜It isn’t so at my house,’ said the man, now