The Wood Beyond the World Page 7

  CHAPTER VII: WALTER COMES TO THE SHARD IN THE ROCK-WALL

  As they were in converse thus, they heard the hunters blowing on theirhorns all together; whereon the old man arose, and said: "I deem by theblowing that the hunt will be over and done, and that they be blowing ontheir fellows who have gone scatter-meal about the wood. It is now somefive hours after noon, and thy men will be getting back with theirvenison, and will be fainest of the victuals they have caught; thereforewill I hasten on before, and get ready fire and water and other mattersfor the cooking. Wilt thou come with me, young master, or abide thy menhere?"

  Walter said lightly: "I will rest and abide them here; since I cannotfail to see them hence as they go on their ways to thine house. And itmay be well that I be at hand to command them and forbid, and put someorder amongst them, for rough playmates they be, some of them, and nowall heated with the hunting and the joy of the green earth." Thus hespoke, as if nought were toward save supper and bed; but inwardly hopeand fear were contending in him, and again his heart beat so hard, thathe deemed that the carle must surely hear it. But the old man took himbut according to his outward seeming, and nodded his head, and went awayquietly toward his house.

  When he had been gone a little, Walter rose up heedfully; he had with hima scrip wherein was some cheese and hard-fish, and a little flasket ofwine; a short bow he had with him, and a quiver of arrows; and he wasgirt with a strong and good sword, and a wood-knife withal. He looked toall this gear that it was nought amiss, and then speedily went down offthe mound, and when he was come down, he found that it covered him frommen coming out of the wood, if he went straight thence to that shard ofthe rock-wall where was the pass that led southward.

  Now it is no nay that thitherward he turned, and went wisely, lest thecarle should make a backward cast, and see him, or lest any straggler ofhis own folk might happen upon him.

  For to say sooth, he deemed that did they wind him, they would be like tolet him of his journey. He had noted the bearings of the cliffs nigh theshard, and whereas he could see their heads everywhere except from thedepths of the thicket, he was not like to go astray.

  He had made no great way ere he heard the horns blowing all togetheragain in one place, and looking thitherward through the leafy boughs (forhe was now amidst of a thicket) he saw his men thronging the mound, andhad no doubt therefore that they were blowing on him; but being wellunder cover he heeded it nought, and lying still a little, saw them godown off the mound and go all of them toward the carle's house, stillblowing as they went, but not faring scatter-meal. Wherefore it wasclear that they were nought troubled about him.

  So he went on his way to the shard; and there is nothing to say of hisjourney till he got before it with the last of the clear day, and enteredit straightway. It was in sooth a downright breach or cleft in the rock-wall, and there was no hill or bent leading up to it, nothing but atumble of stones before it, which was somewhat uneasy going, yet needednought but labour to overcome it, and when he had got over this, and wasin the very pass itself, he found it no ill going: forsooth at first itwas little worse than a rough road betwixt two great stony slopes, thougha little trickle of water ran down amidst of it. So, though it was sonigh nightfall, yet Walter pressed on, yea, and long after the very nightwas come. For the moon rose wide and bright a little after nightfall.But at last he had gone so long, and was so wearied, that he deemed itnought but wisdom to rest him, and so lay down on a piece of greenswardbetwixt the stones, when he had eaten a morsel out of his satchel, anddrunk of the water out of the stream. There as he lay, if he had anydoubt of peril, his weariness soon made it all one to him, for presentlyhe was sleeping as soundly as any man in Langton on Holm.