CHAPTER XXIX
It was still the wold when under pale fine sunshine they came to asmithy, rude and poor, set beneath a long wave, where a road went by.Lonely was the wold, lonely and lonely, yet folk did travel across it.Here, too, horses must be shod and cart and wagon mended, though notmany nor often. But the place seemed dilapidated, the smith an old man.He could not do, he said, what was needed to be done. Custom, if youcould call it custom, was dwindling; he needed a helper. He looked atEnglefield and said that he seemed a strong fellow now! “What might beyour name?”
They had changed names when they left Master Cuddington, that seemingwiser. “Godfrey the smith, and this is Joan.”
“Smith, now! Can you do this--and this?”
A middle aged woman called from the hut that adjoined. “Get them tostay, father, get them to stay! There be pilgrims a-horseback, comingby to-morrow!”
“Where would we dwell?”
The old man had a gnomish, elfin humour. “There’s a great empty palaceyonder, waiting king and queen!” He pointed with a shaking forefingerto a hut a hundred yards away, close to the earth wave that rose inpale gold, green and purple and held it as in a cup. Sky hung a deepand serene blue, sunshine was sifted gold, spring flowerets bloomed onthe wold and all the bees in the land were humming there. Lonely andcould be well loved, the great wold! Godfrey the smith looked to Joan.
“Aye, I will it if you will it!”
Great wold and day and night, and the smithy with the older and theyounger smith, and the lubberly boy that helped, and the few travellersand comers-by. Work done with satisfaction and the wold to rest in,walk in, by times. Hut of the old man and his daughter and the lubberlyboy, hut of Joan and Godfrey, Emmy was the daughter’s name and she hadsecond sight.
She took to Joan. “You’re eternal. He’s eternal, too. And so am I.Eternity--Eternity--Eternity.” She went off upon the word into her ownvisions.
May and June. “And it was a good day when you came!” quoth the old manin his throaty, under-earth voice. “Came to the palace, king smith andqueen lace-woman!”
July, and the wold very rich, and the sunshine strong and the starrynights soft, immense, musing, brooding, tender. The wold was aworld, away in space from sister worlds, yet throwing bridges across,invisible as spider’s thread in sunshine. July--August. Gold on thewold, gold in the sky, gold and sapphire.
September. Said Emmy, “I see some one coming, riding a bay horse.”
They were walking the wold. “Maybe ’tis to-morrow,” said Emmy, “maybenext day, maybe next week. I cannot see his face but he means to rideto the smithy on great wold.”
The day was golden, golden September. Everything spread wider,everything lifted higher. All things had their roots down, down, butall things climbed and broadened, inviting the air and the wind and thesun.
“Ah, warmth in light! Ah, light in warmth!”
“Aye, aye!” said Emmy. “The world’s no so bad if you take it large.”
Back in a great amber twilight to smithy and huts.
In the morning anvil and iron and hammer. Glow of fire, sweeping pastof wold wind. A man on a bay horse, a man behind him riding a blackmare, came to the smithy. Richard Englefield, looking up, met full theeyes of Somerville.
He knew him, remembering him with Abbot Mark, coming to view him atwork, at Silver Cross. He felt in his hands again a silver bowl,around it silver vine leaves. Somerville drew his breath and moistenedhis lips, then smiled with oddly twitching face. “Brother Richard--”
“I am Richard Englefield, and here on the wold Godfrey the smith.”
“When you were woodchopper, seven leagues yonder, it was Diccon Dawn.”
“Aye, so.”
“There was Alice Dawn, saith my cousin. Diccon and Alice Dawn. Is shehere?”
Englefield, standing, looked afar over wold and then into the vast,quiet blue sky. “Yes. Leave horse and man and come with us to the hillyonder.”
A tiny stream ran by the smithy. He kneeled and laved his face andhands and arms, dried them, and moved with Somerville, dismounted,toward the hut under gold and purple waves of the wold.
“Morgen!”
She came forth. Wold went into mist, reeled and was Wander forest andruined farm. Wander forest, ruined farm, Robert Somerville.
“Morgen--Morgen Fay!”
The wold came back, wold and sky and Richard the smith. More than that.There came, as it were, a blue mantle around her; she felt an arm, abreast, a face looking down, great as the sky and the earth, supernallyfair and filled with supernal love. “O Mother, All-Mother!”
Richard was speaking, quickly, “Let us go, Morgen, we three, to thehilltop and talk together there.”
They went, climbing the earth-wave, to a level of grass and heathwhence one saw all the wold rippling afar. “Sit down--sit down!” Thesun shone, the wind went careering. Who will speak first? They letSomerville do that, who sat with eyes now on Morgen and now on goldspecks afar in the wold. “Not-change and change--and which is the greatmiracle perchance the Saints know! I seem to know the whence, Morgen,but as to the where and the whither--”
She said, “Listen, Somerville! There was a Morgen, there is a Morgen,there will be a Morgen. ‘There will be’ is the ruler. Say that I diedby fire but that I live again pardoned!”
He regarded her. A mist came over his eyes, the odd, grimacing faceworked. Up went a hand to cover it, then dropped. “Ah, Morgen Fay, I,too, perchance, must do some dying! I had to come to find you, but youare safe and safe enough, for all my finding!”
She said, “Aye, Rob, do I not know that of you? Tell me, have youheard aught of Ailsa?”
No, he had not. But he told them this and that of Middle Forest andWander vale. Thomas Bettany? He was well and was wedding young CecilyDanewood. Middle Forest, Castle, Saint Leofric, Silver Cross andWestforest. Montjoy, having made one pilgrimage, was now, they said,gone another.
The wold rolled afar, sun shone, wind breathed. Blue sky had cloudmountains. Blue sea, pearl mountains, and that invisible that held andwas both, and rising with both surpassed. The wind sang, the fragranceran.
Richard Englefield told of his life. Boyhood and the goldsmith, Franceand Italy, the tall houses, the seeking, the priest, Silver Cross. “Nowthine, Somerville!”
Awhile ago Somerville would have thought this impossible, but now,quietly reminiscently, he spread out for himself and for themSomerville’s life, dark and light. And then there spoke Morgen Fay. Theclean wind, the dry light, went about the hill.
“And all was changing all the time, changing and waking and learning,through earth and air and water and fire! And now it begins to knowthat it wakes and learns--and that is all, Rob--and now are we all bornagain.”
“Born again,” said Somerville? “Is that possible?”
“It has happened.” Englefield was speaking. “And now Middle Forest isdear again, and Silver Cross is dear again, and street of the smiths isdear, and Cuddington wood and this wold. And you and me and Morgen andEmmy yonder, and all.”
“Is Abbot Mark dear? And is Prior Matthew, too?”
Godfrey the smith laughed. “Why, when they wish it we can talktogether, being after all one!”
“It is true we talk together,” said Somerville, “and I feel no angeragainst you, and you seem to have none against me.”
“I have none. And beautiful is this day and restful, here on the hilltop. And God is in the world and here.”
The sun stood at noon. Clean air, dry air, autumn wealth and rest,and beyond the autumn, across the winter, spring,--ever higher, everricher, ever with more music! They left the hill and came to smithyand huts. They gave Somerville and his man bread and ale, and then thethree said farewell.
Somerville on his bay horse rode over the wold. Old habit as he rode,horses’ hoofs beating so, brought forth rhythm and words.
“Who can tell The road he’s led? The glint of gold-- In each that worth-- That’s here, that’s there, That van
isheth! ‘It ne’er had birth!’ Then comes again, Daffodil from winter earth. Star shining out, when storm lies dead!”