世界尽头的那口井-CHAPTER 4 Ralph Rideth the Downs
As for Ralph, he rode on with a merry heart, and presently came to an
end of the plain country, and the great downs rose up before him with a
white road winding up to the top of them. Just before the slopes began
to rise was a little thorp beside a stream, and thereby a fair church
and a little house of Canons: so Ralph rode toward the church to see if
therein were an altar of St. Nicholas, who was his good lord and
patron, that he might ask of him a blessing on his journey. But as he
came up to the churchyard-gate he saw a great black horse tied thereto
as if abiding some one; and as he lighted down from his saddle he saw a
man coming hastily from out the church-door and striding swiftly toward
the said gate. He was a big man, and armed; for he had a bright steel
sallet on his head, which covered his face all save the end of his
chin; and plates he had on his legs and arms. He wore a green coat
over his armour, and thereon was wrought in gold an image of a tree
leafless: he had a little steel axe about his neck, and a great sword
hung by his side. Ralph stood looking on him with his hand on the
latch of the gate, but when the man came thereto he tore it open
roughly and shoved through at once, driving Ralph back, so that he
well-nigh overset him, and so sprang to his horse and swung himself
into the saddle, just as Ralph steadied himself and ruffled up to him,
half drawing his sword from the scabbard the while. But the
man-at-arms cried out, "Put it back, put it back! If thou must needs
deal with every man that shoveth thee in his haste, thy life is like to
be but short."
He was settling himself in his saddle as he spoke, and now he shook his
rein, and rode off speedily toward the hill-road. But when he was so
far off that Ralph might but see his face but as a piece of reddish
colour, he reined up for a moment of time, and turning round in his
saddle lifted up his sallet and left his face bare, and cried out as if
to Ralph, "The first time!" And then let the head-piece fall again, and
set spurs to his horse and gallopped away.
Ralph stood looking at him as he got smaller on the long white road,
and wondering what this might mean, and how the unknown man should know
him, if he did know him. But presently he let his wonder run off him,
and went his ways into the church, wherein he found his good lord and
friend St. Nicholas, and so said a paternoster before his altar, and
besought his help, and made his offering; and then departed and gat to
horse again, and rode softly the way to the downs, for the day was hot.
The way was steep and winding, with a hollow cup of the hills below it,
and above it a bent so steep that Ralph could see but a few yards of it
on his left hand; but when he came to the hill's brow and could look
down on the said bent, he saw strange figures on the face thereof, done
by cutting away the turf so that the chalk might show clear. A tree
with leaves was done on that hill-side, and on either hand of it a
beast like a bear ramping up against the tree; and these signs were
very ancient. This hill-side carving could not be seen from the thorp
beneath, which was called Netherton, because the bent looked westward
down into the hollow of the hill abovesaid; but from nigher to Wulstead
they were clear to see, and Ralph had often beheld them, but never so
nigh: and that hill was called after them Bear Hill. At the top of it
was an earth-work of the ancient folk, which also was called Bear
Castle. And now Ralph rode over the hill's brow into it; for the walls
had been beaten down in places long and long ago.
Now he rode up the wall, and at the topmost of it turned and looked
aback on the blue country which he had ridden through stretching many a
league below, and tried if he could pick out Upmeads from amongst the
diverse wealth of the summer land: but Upmeads Water was hidden, and he
could see nothing to be sure of to tell him whereabouts the High House
stood; yet he deemed that he could make out the Debateable Wood and the
hills behind it well enough. Then he turned his horse about, and had
the down-country before him; long lines of hills to wit, one rising
behind the other like the waves of a somewhat quiet sea: no trees
thereon, nor houses that he might see thence: nought but a green road
that went waving up and down before him greener than the main face of
the slopes.
He looked at it all for a minute or two as the south-west wind went
past his ears, and played a strange tune on the innumerable stems of
the bents and the hard-stalked blossoms, to which the bees sang
counterpoint. Then the heart arose within him, and he drew the sword
from the scabbard, and waved it about his head, and shook it toward the
south, and cried out, "Now, welcome world, and be thou blessed from one
end to the other, from the ocean sea to the uttermost mountains!"
A while he held the white steel in his fist, and then sheathed the
blade, and rode down soberly over the turf bridge across the ancient
fosse, and so came on to the green road made many ages before by an
ancient people, and so trotted south along fair and softly.
Little is to be told of his journey through the downs: as he topped a
low hill whereon were seven grave-mounds of the ancient folk in a row,
he came on a shepherd lying amidst of his sheep: the man sprang to his
feet when he heard horse-hoofs anigh him and saw the glint of steel,
and he set his hand to a short spear which lay by him; but when he saw
nought but Ralph, and heard how he gave him the sele of the day, he
nodded his head in a friendly way, though he said nought in salutation;
for the loneliness of the downs made the speech slow within him.
Again some two miles further on Ralph met a flock of sheep coming down
a bent which the road climbed, and with them were three men, their
drovers, and they drew nigh him as he was amidst of the sheep, so that
he could scarce see the way. Each of these three had a weapon; one a
pole-axe, another a long spear, and the third a flail jointed and bound
with iron, and an anlace hanging at his girdle. So they stood in the
way and hailed him when the sheep were gone past; and the man with the
spear asked him whither away. "I am turned toward Higham-on-the-Way,"
quoth he; "and how many miles shall I ride ere I get there?"
Said one of them: "Little less than twenty, lord." Now it was past
noon two hours, and the day was hot; so whereas the faces of the men
looked kind and friendly, albeit somewhat rugged, he lighted down from
his horse and sat down by the way-side, and drew his bottle of good
wine from out of his wallet, and asked the men if they were in haste.
"Nay, master," said he of the pole-axe, while all eyes turned to the
bottle, "HE has gone by too long; and will neither meddle with us, nor
may we deal with him."
"Well then," quoth Ralph, "there is time for bever. Have ye ought of a
cup, that we may drink to each other?"
"Yea," said the carle with the anlace, "that have I." Therewith he drew
from his pouch a ram's horn rimmed with silver, and held it up, and
said as if he were speaking to it: "Now, Thirly, rejoice! for ye shall
have lord's wine poured into thy maw."
Therewith he held it out toward Ralph, who laughed and filled it up,
and filled for himself a little silver cup which he carried, and said:
"To you, shepherds! Much wool and little cry!" And he drank withal.
"And I," quoth the man with the horn, "call this health; Much cry and
little wool!"
"Well, well, how mean ye by that, Greasy Wat?" said the man with the
spear, taking the horn as he spake; "that is but a poor wish for a lord
that drinketh out of our cup."
Said Wat: "Why, neighbour, why! thy wit is none too hasty. The wool
that a knight sheareth is war and battle; that is wounding and death;
but the cry is the talk and boasting and minstrelsy that goeth before
all this. Which is the best wish to wish him? the wounds and the
death, or the fore-rumour and stir thereof which hurteth no man?"
Ralph laughed thereat, and was merry and blithe with them; but the
spearman, who was an old man, said:
"For all Wat sayeth, lord, and his japes, ye must not misdeem of us
that we shepherds of the Downs can do nought but run to ales and
feasts, and that we are but pot-valiant: maybe thou thyself mayst live
to see things go otherwise: and in that day may we have such as thee
for captain. Now, fair lord, I drink to thy crown of valour, and thy
good luck; and we thank thee for the wine and yet more for the blithe
fellowship."
So Ralph filled up the ram's horn till Dame Katherine's good island
wine was well-nigh spent; and at last he said:
"Now, my masters, I must to horse; but I pray you tell or we depart,
what did ye mean when ye said that HE had gone past? Who is HE?"
The merry faces of the men changed at his word, and they looked in each
other's faces, till at last the old spearman answered him:
"Fair lord, these things we have little will to talk about: for we be
poor men with no master to fleece us, and no lord to help us: also we
be folk unlearned and unlettered, and from our way of life, whereas we
dwell in the wilderness, we seldom come within the doors of a church.
But whereas we have drunk with thee, who seemest to be a man of
lineage, and thou hast been blithe with us, we will tell thee that we
have seen one riding south along the Greenway, clad in a coat as green
as the way, with the leafless tree done on his breast. So nigh to him
we were that we heard his cry as he sped along, as ye may hear the
lapwing whining; for he said: 'POINT AND EDGE, POINT AND EDGE! THE RED
WATER AMIDST OF THE HILLS!' In my lifetime such a man hath, to my
knowledge, been seen thrice before; and after each sight of him
followed evil days and the death of men. Moreover this is the Eve of
St. John, and we deem the token the worse therefor. Or how deemest
thou?"
Ralph stood silent awhile; for he was thinking of the big man whom he
had met at the churchyard gate, and all this tale seemed wonderful to
him. But at last he said:
"I cannot tell what there is in it; herein am I no help to you. To-day
I am but little; though I may one day be great. Yet this may I do for
you; tomorrow will I let sing a mass in St. Mary's Church on your
behoof. And hereafter, if I wax as my will is, and I come to be lord
in these lands, I will look to it to do what a good lord should do for
the shepherds of the Downs, so that they may live well, and die in good
hope. So may the Mother of God help me at need!"
Said the old shepherd: "Thou hast sworn an oath, and it is a good
oath, and well sworn. Now if thou dost as thou swearest, words can but
little thanks, yet deeds may. Wherefore if ever thou comest back
hither, and art in such need that a throng of men may help thee
therein; then let light a great fire upon each corner of the topmost
wall of Bear Castle, and call to mind this watch-word: 'SMITE ASIDE THE
AXE, O BEAR-FATHER,' and then shalt thou see what shall betide thee for
thy good-hap: farewell now, with the saints to aid!"
Ralph bade them live well and hail, and mounted his horse and rode off
down the Greenway, and as he rode the shepherds waved their weapons to
him in token of good-will.