So he promised them that they should have the whole of their request;
and they unloosed him from the net, and landed altogether on the further
bank.
Up the hill they went, following the track of the Silver Man. Presently
they reached its crest; and there before them lay all the howling winter
of the world.
The Silver Man turned his face and looked back; and looking back it
became all young, and ruddy, and bright. The ferryman and his wife gazed
at him, both speechless at the wonderful change. He took their hands,
making them turn the way by which they had come; below their feet was a
deep black gulf, and beyond and away lay nothing but a dark starless
hollow of air.
"Now," said their guide, "you have but to step forward one step, and you
shall be in the land of Returning Time."
They loosed hold of his hands, joined clasp, husband with wife, and at
one step upon what seemed gulf beneath their feet, found themselves in a
green and flowery land. There were perfumed valleys and grassy hills,
whose crops stretched down before the breeze; thick fleecy clouds
crossed their tops, and overhead amid a blue air rang the shrill
trilling of birds. Behind lay, fading mistily as a dream, the bare world
they had left; and fast on his forward road, growing small to them from
a distance, went the Silver Man, a shining point on the horizon.
The ferryman and his wife looked, and saw youth in each other's faces
beginning to peep out through the furrows of age; each step they took
made them grow younger and stronger; years fell from them like worn-out
rags as they went down into the valleys of the land of Returning Time.
How fast Time returned! Each step made the change of a day, and every
mile brought them five years back towards youth. When they came down to
the streams that ran in the bed of each valley, the ferryman and his
wife felt their prime return to them. He saw the gold come back into her
locks, and she the brown into his. Their lips became open to laughter
and song. "Oh, how good," they cried, "to have lived all our lives poor,
to come at last to this!"
They drank water out of the streams, and tasted the fruit from the trees
that grew over them; till presently, being tired for mere joy, they lay
down in the grass to rest. They slept hand within hand and cheek against
cheek, and, when they woke, found themselves quite young again, just at
the age when they were first married in the years gone by.
The ferryman started up and felt the desire of life strong in his blood.
"Come!" he said to his wife, "or we shall become too young with
lingering here. Now we have regained our youth, let us go back into the
world once more!"
His wife hung upon his hand, "Are we not happy enough," she asked, "as
it is? Why should we return?"
"But," he cried, "we shall grow too young; now we have youth and life at
its best let us return! Time goes too fast with us; we are in danger of
it carrying us away."
She said no further word, but followed up towards the way by which they
had entered. And yet, in spite of her wish to remain, as she went her
young blood frisked. Presently coming to the top of a hill, they set off
running and racing; at the bottom they looked at each other, and saw
themselves boy and girl once more.
"We have stayed here too long!" said the ferryman, and pressed on.
"Oh, the birds," sighed she, "and the flowers, and the grassy hills to
run on, we are leaving behind!" But still the boy had the wish for a
man's life again, and urged her on; and still with every step they grew
younger and younger. At length, two small children, they came to the
border of that enchanted land, and saw beyond the world bleak and wintry
and without leaf. Only a further step was wanted to bring them face to
face once more with the hard battle of life.
Tears rose in the child-wife's eyes: "If we go," she said, "we can never
return!" Her husband looked long at her wistful face; he, too, was more
of a child now, and was forgetting his wish to be a man again.
He took hold of her hand and turned round with her, and together they
faced once more the flowery orchards, and the happy watered valleys.
Away down there light streams tinkled, and birds called. Downwards they
went, slowly at first, then with dancing feet, as with shoutings and
laughter they ran.
Down into the level fields they ran; their running was turned to a
toddling; their toddling to a tumbling; their tumbling to a slow crawl
upon hands and feet among the high grass and flowers; till at last they
were lying side by side, curled up into a cuddly ball, chuckling and
dimpling and crowing to the insects and birds that passed over them.
Then they heard the sweet laughter of Father Time; and over the hill he
came, young, ruddy, and shining, and gathered them up sound asleep on
the old boat by the ferry.
_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury._
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.