THE next morning the old woman of the cliff gave to David a bridle studded with silver bosses, and the bit that hung from the bridle was of pure gold. "Take it," she said; "with it alone you can tame the Black Winged Horse."
David took it and thanked her, and then started off upon his way. The day was bright and lovely, and David, turning his face to the westward, strode across the field away from the ocean and inland. The sun had hardly yet arisen, and all the earth was bright and filled with the sparkling sheen of dew, that, in the slanting brightness, turned the spider webs everywhere into little fairy sheets of silver. The few small trees that stood out solitary here and there upon the rolling downs did not move a single leaf, but remained still and motionless in the motionless air. Everywhere the birds were chanting a jubilant melody, The multitudinous song seemed to fill all the air near and afar.
David swelled out his breast, drinking in deep draughts of the sweet morning air as he strode along. He turned and looked back. The old woman of the cliff was standing looking after him, a red petticoat, a gleam of fire in the misty brightness of the morning. He waved his hand toward her, and she waved her hand toward him. Then he turned again and strode away to the far-reaching westward.
He was almost the only man who had ever seen that old woman with the eyes of flesh, and he never saw her again.
But thus it was that David set out upon that journey all in the dewy freshness of the morning, with the song of the birds ringing in his ears, and the fragrance of the early day keen in his nostrils. Yes; and so do we all set forth upon the task that lies before us with buoyant and lusty joyousness of hope filling all the heart.
The day grew fuller and fuller, the sun rose higher and higher, and shone hotter and hotter until it beat down fiercely upon David's head. And now he had left the high and windy downs, and all around him lay hot, reeking fenlands with bogs and quags, and here and there a stunted pollard willow. Now there was no song of birds, but only now and then the deep bull-like bassoon of a great frog hidden under the bank amid the rushes and the arrow-heads. Now and then a heron arose and flapped away in slow and heavy flight. The sweat ran down David's face in streams, and ever and anon he lifted his hat and wiped the trickling drops away with his sleeve.
So it was that he plodded along his way across the oozy fenland, with the hot sun beating down upon him. So do we all toil upon our task when maybe it is half-way done.
The sun began to slant down into the western sky, and now it shone full in his face. He had eaten his noon-day bread, but he was parched with thirst. For now he had left even the fenlands behind, and was walking across a wide and boundless stretch of rocks and boulders and round stones. All was silent, all was dead except now and then when a lizard or a great fat, black cricket would dart across the path from rock to rock. David was very weary, for the round stones slipped and rolled away from under his feet.
So he drew near the end of his journey. So we all of us draw near to the end of our labor, weary, thirsty, stumbling as we go.
The sun was yet two hours high when David, from the top of a naked and rocky hill, saw the fountain of crystal water lying, a bright fragment, in the valley beneath him--that wonderful fountain of water whence the great Black Winged Horse drinks every evening, and so refreshes himself before he again takes his flight to those lofty altitudes of the still blue heavens where he forever circles, dips, hovers in airy and ambient brightness.
David, when he saw the fountain, shouted and leaped and ran down the stony hill to where the little pool lay like a fragment of heaven amid the black, lichen-covered rocks. He plunged his face and hands and arms into the pool, and drank deep draughts of its crystal coolness. It seemed to fill his veins with fresh strength and his soul with a renewed life. Again and again he drank, and then he paused, breathing deep and full.
As he so paused, hanging over the mirror-like surface of the little pool, watching it as its rippled bosom stilled again into its first glassy smoothness, he suddenly saw reflected in the surface of the water a something that seemed to be a great bird hovering with wings outspread, high in the air above him. He looked up, and there against the blue sky overhead, far, far away, he saw, not a bird, but a wonderful winged horse, circling around and around on wide-spread wings in slow, eagle-like flight against the profound upper depths of fathomless sky.
It was the Winged Horse, and David knew that it must now be coming to drink at the fountain, for already the sun was growing red, and falling toward the west in the last hours of day. He caught up the bridle and flung it over his arm, and then drew back and hid himself among the dark lichen-covered rocks.
The Black Horse circled nearer and nearer, and though its body was black, its wings glistened as white as snow. It circled nearer and nearer, sweeping around and around in narrowing flight, until at last it hovered darkly over the spring of water. Then with. its wings reaching high and quivering, it settled slowly, slowly to the earth, until it rested as lightly as a feather upon the solid rock beneath its feet. Still it held its wings poised for a moment or two, then folded them rustling across its back. Then it bent its stately head, and began to drink great draughts of water from the fountain.
Then, quick as a flash, David leaped out and upon it, and before the horse could spring away, be had clutched it by the forelock. Then began a mighty struggle between the horse and the man. It was well for David that he himself had first drunk strength from that fountain, for otherwise he never could have kept his hold, and would have been dashed to pieces under those iron hoofs. For the horse struck at him with its hoofs, and beat at him with its glistening pinions. But it could not shake him loose, and he still kept his hold, clinging fast to it. It tried to fly away into the air, but David's weight held it to the earth. Then it tried to thrust him against the rocks, and to crush him between it and them, but David, stooping suddenly forward, slipped the golden bit into its mouth and between its teeth. Then in an instant all was over. The horse stood trembling and quivering, its body covered with foam, and its wide-spread nostrils as red as blood. It was tamed, and it bowed its head acknowledging its master. Then after a little while it spoke with a voice as plain as that of a Christian man.
"What would you have of me, master "
"I would have you take me to the Iron Castle of the Iron Man," said David.
"Then mount upon my back, and I will take you thither, master. But woe is me that it must be so, for you are the first man who has ever sat astride of my back."
David laid his hand upon its back and grasped a crop of its mane. Then, with a leap, he sprang upon it.