After she had had a long cry she dried her eyes and began at once to look for Blue Eyes. She wandered on through the wood with Blue Boy until they came to a hermit's cave. The hermit lived there all the year round, and his only companions were the birds and the beasts of the forest, and Rainbow thought if she talked to him she would perhaps hear the voice or see the look of Blue Eyes. But when she spoke to him she saw that he had forgotten what human beings were like, and he gave Rainbow and Blue Boy some bread and milk just as though they were birds. Then he opened his big book and began reading in it, and no longer noticed their presence.
The months went by, and Rainbow searched everywhere. She searched all through the summer, and although she met many kind faces, and saw many a happy smile, and heard many a young voice, nowhere did she meet any one who in the least reminded her of Blue Eyes.
When the winter came, they went to a city, and Blue Boy, who was growing up into a big boy, was apprenticed to a glass mender, and Rainbow and he lived together in a little room in the glass mender's house. The glass mender had a pretty daughter called Joan, and she had a tame blackbird which she kept in a wicker cage. All through the winter the city had been muffled in snow, and it had been bitterly cold; at last the snow melted; and March came with his boisterous wind and his cold showers of sleet and rain.
But one day the rain stopped; the sun shone in the blue sky, and Joan cried out:
"This is the first Spring day!" She ran out of doors with her bird cage and hung it up on the wall outside the house, and although there were as yet no green leaves anywhere, the blackbird knew that the spring had come, and he began to sing. While Joan was looking at the blackbird, Rainbow was watching her from her window, and was thinking to herself. "Surely now I shall hear the voice of Blue Eyes or see his look!" She was on the point of calling out:
"Blue Eyes, Blue Eyes, come back to me,"
when Joan looked up at her and met her gaze; and laughed, and blushed, and ran away. Rainbow knew that it was neither the voice nor the look of Blue Eyes; and she cried from disappointment.
By the time the spring was over, Blue Boy had learned his trade, and he was able to work on his own account and to support his mother, so they left the city together when the summer came, and they went from village to village and from city to city, mending broken window panes.
The years went by. Blue Boy was almost a man, and still Rainbow had not come across any one who had reminded her of Blue Eyes. She was sad, because she knew that in a year's time Blue Boy would be a man, and that it would be time for him to marry, and that she would then be left all alone. She knew that this was the last year that she and Blue Boy would be together.
One day they were walking through a grassy wood which was yellow with cowslips. It was a lovely April morning, and in the wood a lot of children were playing, and making chains and wreaths with the cowslips.
"Now, at last," thought Rainbow, "I shall hear the voice of Blue Eyes." She ran up to the children, but when the children saw her running towards them, they were frightened, and they ran away into the wood, and although she called and called they would not come back.
A little further on they came to a lovely village on a hill, overlooking a river which was a small arm of the sea. The hill was covered with orchards which were in full blossom, and in front of the little white straw-thatched cottages the neat flower-beds were full of sweet-smelling violets.
Rainbow and Blue Boy stayed in this village, and found plenty of work. One evening Rainbow was strolling in a lane on the top of the hill; the steep lane had on each side of it two grassy banks, on the top of which bushes and brambles and nut-trees grew so thickly that the ends of their boughs almost met across the lane, and the banks were covered with primroses. Walking along this lane, with their faces towards the sunset, Rainbow met a youth and a maiden; they were whispering to each other little broken words, with many sighs and smiles, and their talk was like the talk of two birds.
Rainbow's heart leapt as she heard them, and she was just going to cry out:
"Blue Eyes, Blue Eyes, come back to me,"
when they caught sight of her and stopped talking, and Rainbow knew that Blue Eyes was not there.
Then came the month of May, and the woods grew green and the lilac blossomed, and Rainbow grew sadder and sadder. One night she could not sleep, and she got up and walked through the moonlit village, right down to the quay by the river-side where the fishermen kept their boats and their nets. Many of the fishermen were out fishing on the sea, and one of them, a young lad, was setting the brown sail of his boat on the river, and as he did so, he sang a song which was like this:
"I have a cottage I love well,
In the sweet west countree:
And there my love and I shall dwell,
When I come back from sea.
We'll stow the sail and stow the oar,
And oh, how glad she'll be
To mend the nets upon the shore,
When I come back from sea.
I have a cottage on the hill,
Just right for her and me,
And she will say 'I love you still,'
When I come back from sea."
The fisherman's voice was so glad and joyous as he sang this song, that Rainbow thought Blue Eyes must be there, and she ran to the shore. At that moment the moonlight fell full upon the fisherman, so that Rainbow could see his face, and she stopped herself calling out just in time, for she saw he was not at all like Blue Eyes.
During that same month Blue Boy fell in love with a Dairy Maid called Cherry-Ripe, and it was arranged that they should be married at Michaelmas. But as Michaelmas drew near, Rainbow grew sadder and sadder, because she could not bear to think what she would do without Blue Boy.
September came, and the corn was carried, and the leaves began to turn gold. On Michaelmas Eve, Rainbow was sitting in her garden watching the autumn sunset. Not far from her garden, which was on the side of a steep hill, there was a quarry in which there was an old seat, and this was a favourite spot for lovers, for from this place you could see the little river, all the village and the sea beyond, and the view was beautiful. Rainbow thought she would walk to the quarry, so as to get a better view of the sunset.
When she got there, she saw an old couple sitting on the seat. The man was a fisherman; his face was bronzed and wrinkled by the wind and the waves, and the woman's hair was grey and silvery. They did not notice Rainbow coming, and the old woman said to the man:
"Do you remember how we used to meet here in the days when you were courting me?"
And the old man said: "It was in the spring, and the apple-trees were out."
And the old woman said: "Ah! I was a comely lass then. There was no one like me in the village. Folks wouldn't believe it now, what with my white hair and my wrinkles."
And the old man said: "I see no difference in you, lassie. You've the same lovely blue eyes as you always had, and if your hair has turned silver, it's none the less fair for that."
And the old woman said: "And I see no difference in you, Sweetheart; you're just as strong and as brave as ever."
And the old man said: "Why, it's forty years ago, but it makes nought to us, for as long as I've got you, and you've got me, we shan't see any change in each other, for with us it has always been springtide and courting time, and it always will be."
And the old man looked at the old woman, and smiled and took her hand, and her eyes filled with tears. And when Rainbow saw this, before she knew what happened, she had called out:
"Blue