_The Reticence of the Leather-Worker_
It was many days before Alveric learned from the monotony of the rocks
that one day's journey was the same as another, and that by no number of
journeys would he bring any change to his rugged horizons, which were
all drearily like the ones they replaced and never brought a view of the
pale-blue mountains. He had gone, while his fortnight's provisions grew
lighter and lighter, for ten days over the rocks: it was now evening and
Alveric understood at last that if he travelled further and failed soon
to see the peaks of the Elfin Mountains he would starve. So he ate his
supper sparingly in the darkness, his bundle of firewood having long
since been used, and abandoned the hope that had led him. And as soon as
there was any light at all to show him where the East was he ate a
little of what he had saved from his supper, and started his long tramp
back to the fields of men, over rocks that seemed all the harsher
because his back was to Elfland. All that day he ate and drank little,
and by nightfall he still had left full provisions for four more days.
He had hoped to travel faster during these last days, if he should have
to turn back, because he would travel lighter: he had given no thought
to the power of those monotonous rocks to weary and to depress with
their desolation when the hope that had somewhat illumined their
grimness was gone: he had thought little of turning back at all, till
the tenth evening came and no pale-blue mountains, and he suddenly
looked at his provisions. And all the monotony of his homeward journey
was broken only by occasional fears that he might not be able to come to
the fields we know.
The myriad rocks lay larger and thicker than tombstones and not so
carefully shaped, yet the waste had the look of a graveyard stretching
over the world with unrecording stones above nameless heads. Chilled by
the bitter nights, guided by blazing sunsets, he went on through the
morning mists and the empty noons and weary birdless evenings. More than
a week went by since he had turned, and the last of his water was gone,
and still he saw no sign of the fields we know, or anything more
familiar than rocks that he seemed to remember and which would have
misled him northward, southward, or eastward, were it not for the red
November sun that he followed and sometimes some friendly star. And then
at last, just as the darkness fell blackening that rocky multitude,
there showed westward over the rocks, pale at first against remnants of
sunset, but growing more and more orange, a window under one of the
gables of man. Alveric rose and walked towards it till the rocks in the
darkness and weariness overcame him and he lay down and slept; and the
little yellow window shone into his dreams and made forms of hope as
fair as any that came from Elfland.
The house that he saw in the morning when he woke seemed impossible to
be the one whose tiny light had held out hope and help to him in the
loneliness; it seemed now too plain and common. He recognized it for a
house not far from the one of the leather-worker. Soon he came to a pool
and drank. He came to a garden in which a woman was working early, and
she asked him whence he had come. "From the East," he said, and pointed,
and she did not understand. And so he came again to the cottage from
which he had started, to ask once more for hospitality from the old man
who had housed him twice.
He was standing in his doorway as Alveric came, walking wearily, and
again he made him welcome. He gave him milk and then food. And Alveric
ate, and then rested all the day: it was not till evening he spoke. But
when he had eaten and rested and he was at the table again, and supper
was now before him and there was light and warmth, he felt all at once
the need of human speech. And then he poured out the story of that great
journey over the land where the things of man ceased, and where yet no
birds or little beasts had come, or even flowers, a chronicle of
desolation. And the old man listened to the vivid words and said
nothing, making some comments of his own only when Alveric spoke of the
fields we know. He heard with politeness but said never a word of the
land from which Elfland had ebbed. It was indeed as though all the land
to the East were delusion, and as though Alveric had been restored from
it or had awoken from dream, and were now among reasonably daily things,
and there was nothing to say of the things of dream. Certainly never a
word would the old man say in recognition of Elfland, or of anything
eighty yards East of his cottage door. Then Alveric went to his bed and
the old man sat alone till his fire was low, thinking of what he had
heard and shaking his head. And all the next day Alveric rested there
or walked in the old man's autumn-smitten garden, and sometimes he tried
again to speak with his host of his great journey in the desolate land,
but got from him no admission that such lands were, checked always by
his avoidance of the topic, as though to speak of these lands might
bring them nearer.
And Alveric pondered on many reasons for this. Had the old man been to
Elfland in his youth and seen something he greatly feared, perhaps
barely escaping from death or an age-long love? Was Elfland a mystery
too great to be troubled by human voices? Did these folk dwelling there
at the edge of our world know well the unearthly beauty of all the
glories of Elfland, and fear that even to speak of them might be a lure
to draw them whither their resolution, barely perhaps, held them back?
Or might a word said of the magical land bring it nearer, to make
fantastic and elvish the fields we know? To all these ponderings of
Alveric there was no answer.
And yet one more day Alveric rested, and after that he set out to return
to Erl. He set out in the morning, and his host came with him out of his
doorway, saying farewell and speaking of his journey home and of the
affairs of Erl, which were food for gossip over many farmlands. And
great was the contrast between the good man's approval that he showed
thus for the fields we know, over which Alveric journeyed now, and his
disapproval for those other lands whither Alveric's hopes still turned.
And they parted, and the old man's farewells dwindled, and then he
turned back into his house, rubbing his hands contentedly as he slowly
went, for he was glad to see one who had looked toward the fantastic
lands turn now to a journey across the fields we know.
In those fields the frost was master, and Alveric walked over the crisp
grey grass and breathed the clear fresh air thinking little of his home
or his son, but planning how even yet he might come to Elfland; for he
thought that further North there might be a way, coming round perhaps
behind the pale-blue mountains. That Elfland had ebbed too far for him
to overtake it there he felt despairingly sure, but scarcely believed it
had gone along the entire frontier of twilight, where Elfland touches
Earth as far as poet has sung. Further North he might find the frontier,
unmoved, lying sleepy with twilight, and come under the pale-blue
mountains and see his wife again: full of these thoughts he went over
the misty mellow fields.
And full of his dreams and plans about that phantasmal land he came in
the afternoon to the woods that brood above Erl. He entered the wood,
and deep though he was amongst thoughts that were far from there, he
soon saw the smoke of a fire a little way off, rising grey among the
dark oak-boles. He went towards it to see who was there, and there were
his son and Ziroonderel warming their hands at the fire.
"Where have you been?" called Orion as soon as he saw him.
"Upon a journey," said Alveric.
"Oth is hunting," Orion said, and he pointed in the direction whence the
wind was fanning the smoke. And Ziroonderel said nothing, for she saw
more in Alveric's eyes than any questions of hers would have drawn from
his tongue. Then Orion showed him a deer-skin on which he was sitting.
"Oth shot it," he said.
There seemed to be a magic all round that fire of big logs quietly
smouldering in the woods upon Autumn's discarded robe that lay brilliant
there; and it was not the magic of Elfland, nor had Ziroonderel called
it up with her wand: it was only a magic of the wood's very own.
And Alveric stood there for a while in silence, watching the boy and the
witch by their fire in the woods, and understanding that the time was
come when he must tell Orion things that were not clear to himself and
that were puzzling him even now. Yet he did not speak of them then, but
saying something of the affairs of Erl, turned and walked on toward his
castle, while Ziroonderel and the boy came back later with Oth.
And Alveric commanded supper when he came to his gateway, and ate it
alone in the great hall that there was in the Castle of Erl, and all the
while he was pondering words to say. And then he went in the evening up
to the nursery and told the boy how his mother was gone for a while to
Elfland, to her father's palace (which may only be told of in song).
And, unheeding any words of Orion then, he held on with the brief tale
that he had come to tell, and told how Elfland was gone.
"But that cannot be," said Orion, "for I hear the horns of Elfland every
day."
"You can hear them?" Alveric said.
And the boy replied, "I hear them blowing at evening."