The wold hung November grey. “Snow in that cloud,” quoth the old smith.
“Elf of the world wants a white flower!”
“Snowy night a year ago!” said Morgen Fay.
Emmy spoke. “A many are coming by, hurrying, for they want to get
across the wold before air is white and ground is white.”
So the smiths somewhat looked for many, but that day passed and the
night and part of the next day and none came. Snow, too, held off. Sky
pallid grey, earth grey, and all unearthly still. Then a packman came
by, going from a town south of the wold to a town north of it, and he
had news. He had ridden ahead of thirty who would stop for rest at the
Good Man. “Prior and his monks and so many lay brothers stoutly armed
and mounted. Great church folk changing visits.”
“Beyond-Wold Abbey?”
“Aye, going there. Have come a long way, they say, stopping at
friaries and castles. They’re Blackfriars. Ah, it is policy for men
to visit now and then, getting away from home, changing stories and
learning a bit! Prior’s a man like the rest of us! Tail man told me
when I walked beside him a bit. They’ve got a saint’s bone with them,
and a many poor souls have been healed in this town and that castle.”
“What like is the prior?”
“Tall bent man, thin as paper, very pale, with black eyes.”
“That is not Westforest!” said Godfrey the smith, and looked over the
grey wold to see if they were coming.
Morgen answered, “No, not Prior Matthew. But it hath a sound of another
I have seen going down High Street and by town cross.”
“Saint Leofric’s Friary,” said the packman. “Other side England. Aye,
bone of Saint Leofric. Prior Hugh.”
Through grey air a flake fell, then another and another. “Thirty with
him, do you say? Is there by chance a giant of a friar--you could not
miss him if he were there--Friar Martin?”
“Oh, aye, I think I saw him,” said the packman. “There was a huge
brother bestriding the strongest horse! Well, I say, say I, black
friars, white friars, grey friars and brown friars are at times ill
as they’re sung, and at times good as they’re sung, and most times in
between the two! But I say for the most part England’s had good of
them. In the most and for the long run!”
He was speaking to the brown-gold smith. That one agreed with him. “I
think so, too, brother--though I’ve had my buffets--for the most part
and in the long run!”
The packman had his pony shod and was ready to depart. Snowflakes were
few; he would reach the end of the wold, the sea and his small haven
before night. He looked at the gold-brown smith, hesitated, then, “Come
ye apart for a word!” They moved out under the hill. “You’ve got a fair
woman with you. Do you remember a carter yesterday morn?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, he saith at the Good Man that he saw you in London, you and the
woman there, though you did not see him. He saith a black friar raised
that quarter of London against you and the woman, but especially the
woman for she was a sorceress. But when they came to the house and beat
in the door, you were gone, the two of you. There was one Jankin, but
he knew naught. Well, Harry the carter told all that at the Good Man
yestereve. I thought you might like to know. I might not have told, but
she hath a great look of a sister of mine who’s dead. It is easy to cry
sorcery, and hard to down the cry!”
“Aye, it is. Take our thanks, friend!”
The packman mounted his pony and went away through the grey day, the
few flakes of snow.
“Are you going, too?” asked Emmy. “I see you over wold and you do not
come back. But I wish you to come back and I must weep!”
“We are pilgrims--we cannot stay! Some one has set us a pilgrimage.”
In an hour they had parted with the old smith and with Emmy. Englefield
and Morgen Fay went over the wold, not by the road, but by a shepherds’
path, running hereabouts over and between low hills. From the first of
these they looked back. They could see, almost closely, the smithy and
the hut under the hill. They had loved this place, loved the wold.
“Love it still and take it with us! So I have the rose tree and Ailsa
and the garden. All things we love go with us, nor can we ever help
that.”
“So who loveth most hath most treasure!”
They looked back to the smithy and then to the road that ran almost
beneath them on this hill top. Now they could see approaching a mounted
company, thirty at least, still a good way off but growing larger with
a steady pacing movement.
“Let us watch. They do not dream we are here. Move yonder and the furze
will hide.”
Prior Hugh of Saint Leofric, with him a dozen monks and the rest stout
lay Brothers, rode thoughtfully, mounted on his white mule. Out of grey
day, athwart the gathering snow, pictures formed for him. The man and
woman above him, hidden on the hill brow, also saw pictures, vivid,
defined, one after the other. Friar Martin, huge on huge horse, looked
upward as he passed. They saw his great tanned face, his black beard
wagging ever for Saint Leofric. Loyalties--loyalties!
There passed Prior Hugh and his following. Reaching the smithy they
halted and dismounted.
Richard Englefield and Morgen Fay went on over the wold, taking faint,
broken paths of shepherds. The sky was grey and came close, they saw
not a living thing on the wold before them, the flakes began to fall a
little more thickly. An hour passed, and now they talked together and
now they were silent.
Down came the flakes; the flakes came down. Now they were white and
many, steadily, steadily falling. Before long they seemed to quicken,
they became a soft vast multitude, they hid as with curtains the wold
all around.
“This is the path?”
“Aye, but there will be a great snow.”
They walked as fast as they might, but the path ran up and down or
wound in the trough of the low waves of whitened earth. They could not
eat the leagues. And ever the snow came faster. “Three hours yet of
daylight. Time enough to reach Brighthaven. But if the snow covers the
path--”
The snow covered it. An hour went by.
“We have all the wold for path! But eastward there lies the sea. And by
my reckoning Grey Farm should be near.”
“The snow cometh so we cannot be sure--”
“Art warm?”
“Aye.”
Another hour and it was dusk and the snow came steadily, hugely, and
where was sea or east or west or north or south could no longer be told
with assurance. No house or hut, and now at last cold, great cold and
weariness.
“Grey Farm may be yonder or yonder, but we cannot see. Lost is but
lost--never forever lost!”
Night! Cold now and ever falling snow, and no path or all path. No
light, no shape other than the wold shape and the snow shape and the
night shape.
“Art very weary?”
“Yes, weary!”
“If we lie down here and sleep it will be to part with life. Let us
try awhile longer. Just a fold of land may keep from us Grey Farm
light.”
They tried, but no house or light arose. Only they heard something
after a time.
“Hark to that! What is it?”
“It is the sea!”
It came to sound louder. No lights of haven, nor could they have seen
them, perhaps, behind the great moving veils and under woldside and
cliff.
“I fear to go farther this way for the cliffs! We may fall--”
“It roars, the sea, and there are lights in my eyes and a singing afar.
I must lie down. I cannot go farther.”
“A little more--a little more. See! I can help thee so.”
“Ah, I love thee! But I cannot--Do you not hear music playing?”
“Here are bushes bent from the sea. Creep under--so! There--now if we
die we die together.”
The falling, falling, falling snow, and at the base of rock the
sounding sea.
“What art thou doing? Take thy cloak again!”
“No, I am warm, warming thee.”
The snow fell ceaselessly.
“I am not afraid nor suffering now. No fear, no pain! And thou hast
none?”
“None!”
Snow falling--snow falling. The great sea sounding and sounding.
“Richard, there are violets. It is Wander forest, but so changed.”
In the night the snow ceased to fall. Dawn came like a white rose, the
shredded petals covering all the earth.
A small and humble House of Carmelites, set upon a cliff a league from
Brighthaven, kept a goodly habit. After tempest, after snow on wold,
it sent out so many Brothers seeking if there were any harmed. So on
this morning as of fine white wool these at last came upon the cliff
brow and to a line of furze bushes mounded white. They would have
passed them by, for all the earth was heaped with snow and no footprint
anywhere save their own deep ones. But a young Brother saw a bit of
blue mantle. “Oh, here!”
With their hands they beat away the snow and with their arms they
lifted. The man and woman moved feebly. They lived, though in an hour,
maybe, they would not have lived. The Brothers bore them to the House
and made for them warmth and cheer. Life flowed again, red came to the
lip, light to the eyes, strength to the frame. They rested through
that day and night in the guest house of the monastery.
The Prior was a saintly man, big of frame, simple and wise. The second
morning the two stood before him to give him thanks and say farewell.
He looked at them somewhat long before speaking. “You are goodly to
look upon,” he said. “I see that you have been through much and will go
through more before heaven is complete. But you are bound for heaven
and Who dwells therein. Take and give blessing!”
The wold was silver, the sea blue, the sky blue crystal. The road
shown, they went forth from the Carmelites to come to Brighthaven. They
walked hand in hand. “How beautiful is the world!”