The Charwoman's Shadow
by Lord Dunsany
XIV: The Folk of Aragona Strike for the Faith
When Ramon Alonzo came out of the wood he saw that the shadows were already shortening. He saw then that he had delayed too long with the charwoman, and should have started while shadows were long, and so gone through the dark of the wood while his own was unnatural, and come to frequented ways while it was as other men’s. And he felt ashamed of his dalliance. For had he been delayed by some radiant girl her beauty would have so dazzled him that he could not have seen his folly; but to come under the fascination of a most aged charwoman seemed a thing so unworthy of his knightly ambitions that he hung his head as he thought of it, and yet all the while remained true to his chivalrous plan to rescue her poor old shadow.
A little way he went; but, soon seeing men in the distance in the fields, he thought it better not to go beyond the last of the oaks that stood outside the wood, until other men’s shadows should be a little longer, and so avoid the ill-informed foolish pother that folk seemed to make when all shadows were not exactly evenly matched. Already he had come to feel a vigorous scorn for the absurd importance that others attached to shadows. For youth argues rapidly, and—in a way—clearly, from whatever premises it has, not often tarrying to enquire if more premises be needed. These were some of the premises from which Ramon Alonzo argued: a shadow is of no possible value to anyone, nor does anyone ever suppose that it is; and, if it were, the poor old woman that lost hers should have been pitied; and he himself actually possessed a shadow, and, if it were too short, their own shadows had all been just as short an hour or two ago; and the same folk that called it too short in the evening would doubtless call it too long at noon. There is indeed a great deal of futility amongst the human race which we do not commonly see, for it all forms part of our illusion; but let a man be much annoyed by something that others do, so that he is separated from them and has to leave them, and looks back at what they are doing, and he will see at once all manner of whimsical absurdities that he had not noticed before; and Ramon Alonzo in the shade of his oak, waiting for the noon to go by, grew very contemptuous of the attitude that the world took up towards shadows.
Nobody passed him and, if any saw him far off, they only saw him keeping a most honoured observance of Spain, which is the siesta, or pause for the heat of the day to go by.
And, when shadows had grown again, he left the shade that had sheltered him against the heat of the sun and the persecution of men and walked boldly down the road, protected by as good a shadow as was to be found in attendance on any man. He had little thought to set such store by so light a protection, or to consider at all the attendance of a thing so slight and vain; but he was learning now the value that the world attached to trifles, and that there were some the neglect of which had no more toleration than sacrilege.
And then, before he had come to Aragona, a glance at the landscape showed that the hour had come when shadows were longer than material things. It was not by any measurement that he saw this, but by a certain eerie look that there is over all things when shadows have become greater than their masters, so that shadowy things seem to influence earthly affairs instead of good solid matter. This eerie hour he had known of old, and often felt the influence of it, yet never before had his conscious thoughts noted it, or told him as they did now that this was the turn of shadow-tide, when each shadow surpassed the stature of its master; so much do our own affairs sharpen our observation. Had he gone on perhaps none would have noticed; but there was growing fast in him the outcast’s feeling, and, however much he scorned the importance folk attached so vainly to shadows, he not only felt his defect but intensely exaggerated it, until impulses came to him to slink and to hide, and he began to know the natural avoidances that are part of the habits of the forsaken and hunted. Therefore he went no nearer to Aragona than where he saw a small azalea, growing a little way ahead; and there he sat down, protected by its shadow, which was only just enough to conceal his deficiency. If any noticed him he pretended to be eating, though he had forgotten to bring any food with him. At times small clouds passed over the face of the sun, but they did not stay long enough to take him through Aragona, so he stayed in the protection of that humble growth that had what he lacked, and wished he had never had to do with magic. Something was making the evening pass very slowly, and making it very cold, and Ramon Alonzo did not know it was hunger.
And at last the sun drew near to the horizon and all the shadows stretched out dark and long; and Ramon Alonzo, more than ever conscious of his own wretched strip of grey darkness, felt amongst these unbridled shadows much as he might have felt on some gala evening had he gone to a glittering fête, where men and women were dressed in all the silks of festival, and had moved amongst them himself in tawdriest oldest cloth. And then the sun set and his buoyant spirits arose and, feeling himself the equal of any material thing, he left the humble protection of the azalea and strode on towards Aragona.
No sooner had he come to the fields and gardens that lay about the village than idlers saw him and stood up at once and called aloud to warn the village folk, as though their idleness had been a perpetual guard whose purpose was triumphantly fulfilled. “The man with the bad shadow,” they all cried out; and he saw that his story had been noised about, and that this was become his name. Answering voices called from the little streets and out of small high windows, and there was the noise of feet running. And then some ran to the tower where the ropes hung down from the belfry, to ring the bells that they rang against magic or thunder, and those mellow musical voices went over the fields to protest against Ramon Alonzo. They seemed to be flooding all the gloaming with memories, as they carried to Ramon Alonzo there in his loneliness vision on vision of times and occupations from which he was now cut off and debarred by a shadow. He felt a wistful love for their golden voices, calling out to him from this land he had lost, where dwelt the happy men that had not touched magic; but when the bells rang on and on and on a fury came on him at the narrow folly of the folk that made all this fuss about a shadow, and he flung his arm impatiently to his sword-hilt. But when he saw, amongst the crowd that was hastening to gather against him, women and even children, and the protestation of the bells still filled the air with outcry, he perceived that there was an ado that it was beyond his sword to settle. So he turned back along the way he had come; and soon his shape was dim on the darkening hillside to the eager crowd that watched and talked in the village, and soon their excited voices reached him no more, and he heard no sound but the bells warning all those lands against him.
For a while he paced the hillside in the chill, full of all such thoughts as arise from hunger, and that thrive in the cold and fatigue that hunger brings; doubts, fears, and despairs. What was he himself, he wondered, now that his shadow had left him? Was he any longer a material thing? And he helplessly cast his mind over all known forms of matter. Were any of them without shadows? Even water and even clouds. And what of this sinister thing with which he associated, the magician’s piece of gloom? How much was he a fellow conspirator with it? How much was it damned?
And his thoughts turned thence to the dooms of the Last Day. How much was a shadow necessary to salvation? Would the blessed Saints care for so light and insubstantial a thing? But at once came the thought that they themselves had renounced material things and were themselves immaterial and spiritual, and might set more store by a shadow than he could ever know.
And all the while as he walked on the darkening hillside doubts asked him questions and despairs hinted replies, which might neither of them ever have spoken at all had he thought to bring some food with him in a satchel. And all the while the blue of the sky grew deeper, and moths passed over the grass, with a flight unlike the flight of whatever flies by day, and little queer cries were heard that the daylight knows not; and then, like a queen slipping silently into her throne-room through a secret panel of oak, bright over lingering twilight the first star appeared.
It was the hour when Earth has most reverence, the hour when her mystery reaches out and touches the hearts of her children; at such a time if at all one might guess her strange old story; such a time she might choose at which to show herself, in the splendour that decked her then, to passing comet or spirit, or whatever stranger should travel across the paths of the planets. Ramon Alonzo, cold and lonely while star after star appeared, not only drew no happiness from all that mellow glow, but saw in it a new horror. For looking closely with downcast eyes on the moss and grass of the hill he noticed now that the piece of gloom that the magician had given him was a little darker than the natural darkness of that early starry hour; so that he alone, of all things in the night, had a shadow creeping beside him. And again he brooded bitterly, trying to guess the end of it. Must he share the obvious doom of this false shape? Must he lose salvation because he had lost his shadow? And as he mournfully pondered the night darkened, and soon was darker than that piece of gloom. When Ramon Alonzo saw that it had gone, and that he was for the moment like all other men and things, shadowless in the night, he soon forgot the future, and turned again towards the village of Aragona, thinking to pass through its streets like any other traveller.
When he reached the village it was full night and all the stars were shining, not only those that had stolen into sight, one by one, where no eye watched, but the whole Milky Way. The bells long since had ceased, and a hush held all the village as Ramon Alonzo strode through. But it was a hush of whisperings, the strained hush of watchers. All the upper windows were open; men were gathered in darkened rooms. Women peered behind curtains. Even in lofts there were watchers. And for all their eagerness they did not see Ramon Alonzo till he was well within the village. Perhaps they expected some more stealthy approach than his honest, confident stride; perhaps they whispered too earnestly amongst themselves; most likely they thought that not just at that moment would the event for which they waited occur. But when one sharp angry cry was heard from an upper window all the watchers saw him at once. Then the hush broke in a tumble of feet descending wooden stairs, and a clatter of scabbards, and a noise of doors flung open, and sudden voices, and the sound of feet in the street.
“For the Faith,” they cried; “for the Faith! Where is he?”
Behind him Ramon Alonzo heard many voices; before him he saw four men, one of whom carried a lantern. A few paces more and he was halfway through the village. And these few paces brought him close to the four men. Behind him a confusion in the voices showed that they were not certain where he was. Ahead of him there seemed no more than these four. He went quickly up to them; and they no less eagerly, and even gladly, hastened towards him. His sword was out, and theirs.
“For the Faith!” they cried.
“One at a time, señors,” said Ramon Alonzo with a sweep of his hat; for they were all coming on him together. And at these words one hung back a little, but another turned to him.
“It is for the Faith,” he said. Then they all came on together, three upon Ramon Alonzo while the fourth stood beside them with drawn sword, holding the lantern high.
“That for St. Michael!” cried the first to cross with Ramon Alonzo. But the stroke was well parried.
“That for all archangels!” the same swordsman cried, making another blow at Ramon Alonzo. But he had taken off his cloak and folded it on his left arm, and the cloak took that blow. With his sword he parried a thrust from one of the others.
But one man cannot fight against three for long; and the stationary lantern and the clear sound of steel had told the crowd in the street where the young man was, the man with the bad shadow, as they called him, and they were pouring that way. Ramon Alonzo therefore pushed past his antagonist, muffling his sword’s point with his cloak and so passing him that he was for a moment between himself and the other two swordsmen. Then he passed round and attacked the man with the lantern.
The four men had their plan, and it was evidently planned that the man with the lantern should not join in the attack but should light the others. This they had probably long talked over and settled while they waited for Ramon Alonzo. And the man with the lantern would surely have been the least skilful swordsman. But that Ramon Alonzo should attack him they none of them had considered.
As Ramon Alonzo passed round behind the backs of the three, each of them turned and stood on guard for a moment, for it is well known to be dangerous to have an armed man behind you in the dark. In that moment Ramon Alonzo launched himself upon the man with the lantern. There was no more than a pass and a parry and then again a thrust.
“That for the mother of St. Anne,” said the man with the lantern, aiming his last stroke. And then Ramon Alonzo’s point entered his ribs.
The strange magical shadow spun weirdly about as Ramon Alonzo grabbed the fallen lantern; and, holding it with the arm that had the cloak, his own eyes were protected by a fold of the cloth from the light that somewhat dazzled the eyes of the three. But it was not only the three; there were twenty or thirty more pouring up the street only now a few paces away. With a flourish of cloak and lantern in their faces, and an always watchful sword-point, he now disengaged from the three, and turned and ran as the crowd came pouring up.
He had suddenly gained a few paces, but the light of a lantern is easy to follow at night; and, keeping to the road, he was soon approached by the swiftest of the runners. For a while they raced, but when Ramon Alonzo saw that in the end he would be overtaken he stopped and put down the lantern in the road. The other came up, not one of those three with whom he had already crossed swords. Ramon Alonzo flung his whole cloak at his head, and picked up the lantern and ran on. Time enough to fight him later, he thought, if he overtook him again. But the cloak had completely covered the man’s head and his sword had gone through it, and the crowd came up with him before he was able to start after the lantern again. And Ramon Alonzo at once ran lighter without his cloak, and sped on with a certain pleasure such as comes to athletes in youth. The crowd now cursed the lantern that they saw bobbing on before them, confusing it with lights of hellish origin, and forgetful or ignorant that it was the respectable lantern of a good kitchen-grocer of their own village.
Ramon Alonzo they abjured to stop, calling him by the names of certain famous devils; but he no more heeded them than would these devils have done. Only he noticed that, though they fought or pursued, as their cries indicated, for the Faith, for St. Michael, for St. Joseph, for St. Judas not Iscariot, for all the Saints, for the King, they none of them cried “for a Shadow.” And yet that was all that the fuss was about, he reflected irritably. There are always two views, even over a trifle.
He had been gaining a little ever since he dropped his cloak; but now one runner seemed to be ahead of the crowd again. He heard his feet above the sound of their shouts and their running. On his left ran a little lane among deep hedges, joining the wider road. And now was come the time to put the lantern to the purpose for which he carried it. He ran down the lane till he found a gap in the hedge on his right, then he put the lantern high up on the hedge on his left and stuck it there still alight. He then crawled through the gap on his right and ran softly towards the road he had left, over a corner of a wild field.
They soon came to the lantern. They did not hear him run softly over the field, but gathered round the lantern, and pulled it down; and, finding he was not there, they pursued in every direction, some of them going across the field to the road and following Ramon Alonzo. But they had wasted too many moments and could no longer hear him running. Following that lantern had been too easy, and now that it guided them no longer they did not immediately use their wits or their ears.
For some while Ramon Alonzo heard voices behind him; then they dropped off and mingled with the far noises of night. He ran leisurely on. And presently the various parties turned back from their roads and lanes and gathered again in the village, and there was talk till a late hour of what they had done for the Faith. And many a guess there was of whence he had come, and many of where he had gone; and many a tale there was of the same thing differently seen, and these tales were checked by the wisdom of elder men who had not been there but could make some shrewd guesses. And when all was compared it was seen there had been more magic than one could easily credit if it had not actually happened. And a wise old man who had not spoken as yet was seen to be shaking his head; and when all were listening he spoke: “Well, it is gone,” he said. “The Saints be praised.”
“Aye, it is gone,” said they all.
So they went to bed.