She came no more. Night after night of dark,--only the star Memory and
the sapphire star of passionate hope that once again, once again he
would wake, clear, still, and know her there. “Even after years, oh,
heaven that holds her, oh, God that sustains her! Even after years
beyond counting.”
She came no more. The nights were slow dark raindrops, heavy, full, one
after the other falling, slow falling, not to be counted. They made
rosaries, they would make rosaries for aye. “Then I must go to her.
Where is the eagle will show me the path?”
March--April. The rose in reliquary, the cave stone lined, the well
widened into a fair pool with steps for going down, for coming up, one
in so many healed! April--May. Noise of Silver Cross like a waving
of forest trees, like a humming of all the bees in the meadows. Folk
coming, going; more folk and more folk coming! At the Abbey a greater
guest house in planning; in shambling village taverns, booths, houses
rising. Pilgrims on foot and pilgrims on horseback and in litter. A
bishop stayed three days in the Abbot’s house, there was rumour that
the cardinal might come. The bells of Silver Cross rang jubilee.
Middle Forest relied now upon its own side of the river. Montjoy in
his castle looked younger by ten years. He looked like some crusading
Montjoy of long ago, long ago. The river murmured of both banks; the
bridge seemed to have two loves. But the mount of Saint Leofric, though
it said, “Praise for doubling!” seemed rather to wish to say, “Out upon
division!” Prior Hugh, though he spoke gracious words, looked warped
and wan and cogitative.
Early May at the ruined farm and Somerville and the helping-woman Joan
in the forest, under a beech tree pale green and silver grey, springing
tall and stretching wide. “I will to go back to my house by the river!
All the world is joyous and grown softened--Oh, I hear it with the ear
inside of ear and I touch it with the touch inside of touch! Good was
done for all of the evil, was it not, Rob?”
He laughed. “Oh, woman--! You can’t go back. Father Edmund has three
voices where he had one! Moreover--”
“Moreover--?”
“See you, Morgen, go up to London town.”
“And why should I go to London town?”
“Ask for that Westforest and Silver Cross.”
Under the beech tree was carpet of last year’s leaves. She lifted and
crumbled them in her hands. “When I said that I would be secret, I
meant not telling! They have no call to fear me.”
“Perhaps they tell themselves that. Or perhaps they see faint menace
every time they look this way!”
“They promised that trouble should cease. I was going back to my own
house over my own garden, by the river that I like to hear by day, by
night. They said that Father Edmund should be checked. Presently I was
to find that I might slip back--”
“What is promised is not easy sometimes to perform. They will give you
gold in London. London is rich, and you are Morgen Fay. Go, and be
powerful there!”
“And you--and you? Oh, I remember that you go once in five years to
London!”
“If you cried out in Middle Forest market place what was done not a
soul would believe you!”
“No. It is too monstrous!”
“Then and there the folk might tear you limb from limb for wild
blaspheming. They are truly quite safe.”
She broke into high laughter. “Then let them leave me alone, and let
them keep promise! It irks me that they are so false! Here are two
months, and not yet may I go back! And Ailsa and Tony, where are they?
I see them begging or in gaol!”
“You should be happy,” he said, “that you are not beggar nor in gaol.”
There fell silence. The beech tree sprang light green and silver, the
sky was blue, the blackbirds talked, a thrush sang, wandering airs went
by. The world was sweet. But she crushed the dead leaves and sat still.
“You must go. Need or no need, they will have it so! Nor can you
stay at the ruined farm forever. Something will happen endangering
you--endangering me.”
She said. “Is life wicked--or are we wicked--or are we dull and
lifeless--stones, broken twigs, dead leaves? Many an one says that I
am wicked, and doubtless I am at times. I know it--I know it! And then
again I am not wicked. So if I say that you are so, poor Sir Robert
Somerville? Perhaps I am mistaken--perhaps I am right. It’s a weary way
to knowledge!”
“Were you gentler,” he said, “had you not such a tongue, you would find
that the winds did not rock your nest so roughly!”
He stood up. “Ah, go!” she said. “Go! I have seen it coming--now it
comes! Your road’s to John o’ Groat’s house and mine’s to Land’s End!”
“You mock the wind,” he answered, “with your nest fixed so firm upon
the bough!”
He went away by woodman’s path, and she to the ruined farm. “Eh, lass!”
said Margery at dusk. “You can work when your mind’s to it!”
The third day from this Somerville and she were again in the wood. “I
am going. It is trudge! All of you make a north wind that I set my back
against and go! Nor will I cry for it, Somerville!”
“You have no need to. They shall give you money. Walk or ride in a
cart from here through the later half of night, keeping disguise. Come
to the port in a day or so and find there the _King Arthur_ bound for
London. Find, too, upon the ship Ailsa--”
Red flowed over her face. “Oh, the power that men, and honest men, own!
It is enough to make one willing to sell soul to devil!”
He waved that aside. “It is for your own safety that you are going.
And were I wholly wicked I should not be here, nor Ailsa at the port
awaiting you--”
She said. “That is true. I thank you there, Rob!”
She broke a spray of hazel, set her teeth in the green wood, then threw
it away. “Shall we say good-by now, you and I?”
“Not just yet. Something has arisen since we sat here the other day. I
have seen Prior Matthew.”
“Aye?”
“There is needed one more appearance. Question has arisen as to Saint
Willebrod--if he rests still or if actively he aids! There are some who
are devoted to him. Once more then!”
“Oh, I will not!”
His bright eyes dwelt upon her, all the lights played in his odd face.
“Why not, Morgen? Be good-natured! I nor none am doing badly by you.”
“What do you get from this?”
“The old debatable land--and a piece that was not debatable. I love
land! And I get playgoer’s enjoyment, watching from a good, quiet
seat--and comfort that we’re all fruit just pleasantly specked and
wasp-eaten--and some mirth from Montjoy’s ecstacy. So be good!
What! There are houses by Thames in London. You may have a garden
still--plant your rose tree there.”
It was high May weather. As once before Thomas Bettany had errand up
the Wander,--merchant errand of account-to-be-paid. This time it was
with Oak Tree Grange beyond Silver Cross. He rode in the May tide and
with him rode John Cobb, and they had done the errand. Oak Tree Grange
lay out of the world, and now they were on a cart track, nothing more.
Young Bettany rode light and happy on his big grey horse. May world was
a fair world, fair, sweet, gay, kind! He whistled clear and strong. “I
swear I saw God sitting on yon cloud!”
Said John Cobb, “I’m going to Silver Cross to get this old scar taken
off my face.”
“Silver Cross. I don’t know.”
They were riding by a wood, old, uncut, dim. “This is Somerville’s land
now! He always claimed it, and now the Abbey allows it.”
John Cobb looked about him. “I know now where we are. Over there,
a mile through, is a ruined farm. Lonely! It’s so lonely you lose
yourself--and there’s a ghost walks in the wood.”
“Let’s go look.”
John was not averse, being in the other’s company. They left cart track
and rode over yielding earth under old trees. There was no path and the
trees must be rounded. The way they had come sank from sight, almost
it might seem from mind, so quick the place took them. Bettany’s blue
eyes sparkled. He loved all this; he might come at any moment upon
wizard’s tower. What indeed they came upon was another faint track,
leading north and south. “Abbey is that way and Somerville Hall that
way, and over there is the turn to the road we left. They come in and
go out that way--but, Lord, there’s mortal little travel! You might say
it’s a witched place.”
“That is what I like!” said the other. “Oh, if I might I would travel
far!”
They rode as though it were bottom of the sea, it was so green and
silent. Bettany turned in his saddle and studied the lay of the place.
“When Somerville goes to Silver Cross I think he takes this way. It’s
not so far.”
“Turn here to the ruined farm. David that lives here, I’ve heard my
mother say, was foster brother to Sir Robert’s father.”
They rode on and now they saw the ruined farm between the trees. A
wreck it seemed, like a broken ship slipped down to sea floor. Then by
a thorn in bloom stood up Morgen Fay.
“_Who are you?_”
“_Who are you?_”
In a moment she knew him and Bettany knew her for all her servant dress
and stained face. “How do you come here--how do you come here? You are
in London--”
John Cobb crossed himself. “Like she be a sorceress, too--”
Morgen stepped from the thorn to the side of the big grey horse. She
met blue eyes with dark eyes. Her lips smiled, her eyes and under her
eyes. “Oh, the saints!” she said. “I can but be glad to see you, lad!
You are no telltale! Can you teach your man to be none either?”
“I can that. But Morgen Fay, how did you grow here?”
He swung himself down from his horse and stood beside her. John Cobb
gaped. “Send him a little away,” she said, “but do not let him out of
sight. This world’s a danger-bush where the thorn is always near the
may!”
They talked. “Do you remember that foggy day when you climbed through
window? I have not seen you since! I like you, though not the way that
all expect. I wish I might have had you for brother. Well, they would
stone me--burn me, maybe--in the market place, Father Edmund preaching
over me! I dwell at the ruined farm.”
Intelligence flashed between them. “Somerville saved you--put you
here. I think the better of him!” He spoke sturdily, a young spiritual
adventurer.
She looked at him with eyes that seemed to have considered a myriad
matters. She sighed--she stretched her arms in a yearning gesture in
the dim gulf of the world into which the wood seemed to have turned.
“It is away to London! Maybe I shall never again see you nor Somerville
nor Montjoy, who is too good now to be seen close, nor Middle Forest
High Street that I danced in when I was a little girl, nor my house
that I liked, though often was I wretched in it! Nor my garden that the
old wall mothered, nor river that I listened to and listened to. Well,
tide and time we run away! But where we run to, that is a question for
a wise man! They say that we run to heaven or to hell--and I shouldn’t
dare say my road was the first!”
Without warning Thomas Bettany found himself priest. “If you’ve strayed
into wrong road, turn and take the other! You’ve got more than you
think of the other in you now. Turn, Morgen!” He regarded her with a
sudden startled face. “By the rood! It’s the Great Adventure.”
She looked at him with more of the thorn in her face than the bloom.
From beyond an oak came John Cobb’s warning voice. “Some one’s coming!
Two or three!”
“Go at once!” said Morgen Fay, and so meant it that she wrought their
going. Bettany, obeying her, rode without turning his head, straight
through the wood. The trees fell like fountains between the two and
the thorn bush. To the right lay the ruined farm, but they pushed on
and came after a mile to the narrow, little travelled road that led
at last to the highway that, passing Silver Cross, ran on to Middle
Forest.