III
Not a soul was visible on the hedgeless highway, or on either side ofit, and the white road seemed to ascend and diminish till it joinedthe sky. At the very top it was crossed at right angles by a green”ridgeway”--the Ickneild Street and original Roman road through thedistrict. This ancient track ran east and west for many miles, anddown almost to within living memory had been used for driving flocksand herds to fairs and markets. But it was now neglected andovergrown.
The boy had never before strayed so far north as this from thenestling hamlet in which he had been deposited by the carrier from arailway station southward, one dark evening some few months earlier,and till now he had had no suspicion that such a wide, flat,low-lying country lay so near at hand, under the very verge of hisupland world. The whole northern semicircle between east and west,to a distance of forty or fifty miles, spread itself before him; abluer, moister atmosphere, evidently, than that he breathed up here.
Not far from the road stood a weather-beaten old barn of reddish-greybrick and tile. It was known as the Brown House by the people of thelocality. He was about to pass it when he perceived a ladder againstthe eaves; and the reflection that the higher he got, the further hecould see, led Jude to stand and regard it. On the slope of the rooftwo men were repairing the tiling. He turned into the ridgeway anddrew towards the barn.
When he had wistfully watched the workmen for some time he tookcourage, and ascended the ladder till he stood beside them.
”Well, my lad, and what may you want up here?”
”I wanted to know where the city of Christminster is, if you please.”
”Christminster is out across there, by that clump. You can seeit--at least you can on a clear day. Ah, no, you can't now.”
The other tiler, glad of any kind of diversion from the monotony ofhis labour, had also turned to look towards the quarter designated.”You can't often see it in weather like this,” he said. ”The timeI've noticed it is when the sun is going down in a blaze of flame,and it looks like--I don't know what.”
”The heavenly Jerusalem,” suggested the serious urchin.
”Ay--though I should never ha' thought of it myself.... But I can'tsee no Christminster to-day.”
The boy strained his eyes also; yet neither could he see the far-offcity. He descended from the barn, and abandoning Christminster withthe versatility of his age he walked along the ridge-track, lookingfor any natural objects of interest that might lie in the banksthereabout. When he repassed the barn to go back to Marygreen heobserved that the ladder was still in its place, but that the men hadfinished their day's work and gone away.
It was waning towards evening; there was still a faint mist, but ithad cleared a little except in the damper tracts of subjacent countryand along the river-courses. He thought again of Christminster, andwished, since he had come two or three miles from his aunt's houseon purpose, that he could have seen for once this attractive city ofwhich he had been told. But even if he waited here it was hardlylikely that the air would clear before night. Yet he was loth toleave the spot, for the northern expanse became lost to view onretreating towards the village only a few hundred yards.
He ascended the ladder to have one more look at the point the menhad designated, and perched himself on the highest rung, overlyingthe tiles. He might not be able to come so far as this for manydays. Perhaps if he prayed, the wish to see Christminster might beforwarded. People said that, if you prayed, things sometimes came toyou, even though they sometimes did not. He had read in a tract thata man who had begun to build a church, and had no money to finishit, knelt down and prayed, and the money came in by the next post.Another man tried the same experiment, and the money did not come;but he found afterwards that the breeches he knelt in were made bya wicked Jew. This was not discouraging, and turning on the ladderJude knelt on the third rung, where, resting against those above it,he prayed that the mist might rise.
He then seated himself again, and waited. In the course of ten orfifteen minutes the thinning mist dissolved altogether from thenorthern horizon, as it had already done elsewhere, and about aquarter of an hour before the time of sunset the westward cloudsparted, the sun's position being partially uncovered, and the beamsstreaming out in visible lines between two bars of slaty cloud. Theboy immediately looked back in the old direction.
Some way within the limits of the stretch of landscape, points oflight like the topaz gleamed. The air increased in transparency withthe lapse of minutes, till the topaz points showed themselves to bethe vanes, windows, wet roof slates, and other shining spots upon thespires, domes, freestone-work, and varied outlines that were faintlyrevealed. It was Christminster, unquestionably; either directlyseen, or miraged in the peculiar atmosphere.
The spectator gazed on and on till the windows and vanes lost theirshine, going out almost suddenly like extinguished candles. Thevague city became veiled in mist. Turning to the west, he saw thatthe sun had disappeared. The foreground of the scene had grownfunereally dark, and near objects put on the hues and shapes ofchimaeras.
He anxiously descended the ladder, and started homewards at a run,trying not to think of giants, Herne the Hunter, Apollyon lying inwait for Christian, or of the captain with the bleeding hole in hisforehead and the corpses round him that remutinied every night onboard the bewitched ship. He knew that he had grown out of belief inthese horrors, yet he was glad when he saw the church tower and thelights in the cottage windows, even though this was not the home ofhis birth, and his great-aunt did not care much about him.