It was still the wold when under pale fine sunshine they came to a
smithy, 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 not
many 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 you
could call it custom, was dwindling; he needed a helper. He looked at
Englefield and said that he seemed a strong fellow now! “What might be
your name?”
They had changed names when they left Master Cuddington, that seeming
wiser. “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 to
stay, father, get them to stay! There be pilgrims a-horseback, coming
by to-morrow!”
“Where would we dwell?”
The old man had a gnomish, elfin humour. “There’s a great empty palace
yonder, waiting king and queen!” He pointed with a shaking forefinger
to a hut a hundred yards away, close to the earth wave that rose in
pale gold, green and purple and held it as in a cup. Sky hung a deep
and serene blue, sunshine was sifted gold, spring flowerets bloomed on
the wold and all the bees in the land were humming there. Lonely and
could 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 the
younger smith, and the lubberly boy that helped, and the few travellers
and 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 lubberly
boy, hut of Joan and Godfrey, Emmy was the daughter’s name and she had
second 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 own
visions.
May and June. “And it was a good day when you came!” quoth the old man
in his throaty, under-earth voice. “Came to the palace, king smith and
queen lace-woman!”
July, and the wold very rich, and the sunshine strong and the starry
nights soft, immense, musing, brooding, tender. The wold was a
world, away in space from sister worlds, yet throwing bridges across,
invisible as spider’s thread in sunshine. July--August. Gold on the
wold, 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, “maybe
next day, maybe next week. I cannot see his face but he means to ride
to the smithy on great wold.”
The day was golden, golden September. Everything spread wider,
everything lifted higher. All things had their roots down, down, but
all things climbed and broadened, inviting the air and the wind and the
sun.
“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 past
of wold wind. A man on a bay horse, a man behind him riding a black
mare, came to the smithy. Richard Englefield, looking up, met full the
eyes of Somerville.
He knew him, remembering him with Abbot Mark, coming to view him at
work, at Silver Cross. He felt in his hands again a silver bowl,
around it silver vine leaves. Somerville drew his breath and moistened
his 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 she
here?”
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 hill
yonder.”
A tiny stream ran by the smithy. He kneeled and laved his face and
hands 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 and
ruined 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, a
breast, a face looking down, great as the sky and the earth, supernally
fair and filled with supernal love. “O Mother, All-Mother!”
Richard was speaking, quickly, “Let us go, Morgen, we three, to the
hilltop and talk together there.”
They went, climbing the earth-wave, to a level of grass and heath
whence one saw all the wold rippling afar. “Sit down--sit down!” The
sun shone, the wind went careering. Who will speak first? They let
Somerville do that, who sat with eyes now on Morgen and now on gold
specks afar in the wold. “Not-change and change--and which is the great
miracle 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 died
by fire but that I live again pardoned!”
He regarded her. A mist came over his eyes, the odd, grimacing face
worked. 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 you
are safe and safe enough, for all my finding!”
She said, “Aye, Rob, do I not know that of you? Tell me, have you
heard aught of Ailsa?”
No, he had not. But he told them this and that of Middle Forest and
Wander vale. Thomas Bettany? He was well and was wedding young Cecily
Danewood. Middle Forest, Castle, Saint Leofric, Silver Cross and
Westforest. Montjoy, having made one pilgrimage, was now, they said,
gone another.
The wold rolled afar, sun shone, wind breathed. Blue sky had cloud
mountains. Blue sea, pearl mountains, and that invisible that held and
was both, and rising with both surpassed. The wind sang, the fragrance
ran.
Richard Englefield told of his life. Boyhood and the goldsmith, France
and Italy, the tall houses, the seeking, the priest, Silver Cross. “Now
thine, Somerville!”
Awhile ago Somerville would have thought this impossible, but now,
quietly reminiscently, he spread out for himself and for them
Somerville’s life, dark and light. And then there spoke Morgen Fay. The
clean 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 know
that it wakes and learns--and that is all, Rob--and now are we all born
again.”
“Born again,” said Somerville? “Is that possible?”
“It has happened.” Englefield was speaking. “And now Middle Forest is
dear again, and Silver Cross is dear again, and street of the smiths is
dear, and Cuddington wood and this wold. And you and me and Morgen and
Emmy yonder, and all.”
“Is Abbot Mark dear? And is Prior Matthew, too?”
Godfrey the smith laughed. “Why, when they wish it we can talk
together, being after all one!”
“It is true we talk together,” said Somerville, “and I feel no anger
against you, and you seem to have none against me.”
“I have none. And beautiful is this day and restful, here on the hill
top. 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, ever
richer, ever with more music! They left the hill and came to smithy
and huts. They gave Somerville and his man bread and ale, and then the
three 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 vanisheth!
‘It ne’er had birth!’
Then comes again,
Daffodil from winter earth.
Star shining out, when storm lies dead!”