The Well at the World's End: A Tale
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CHAPTER 20
They Come to the Ocean Sea
Being come to the wood they went not very far into it that day, forthey were minded to rest them after the weariness of the wilderness:they feasted on a hare which Ralph shot, and made a big fire to keepoff evil beasts, but none came nigh them, though they heard the voicesof certain beasts as the night grew still. To be short, they slept farinto the morrow's morn, and then, being refreshed, and their horsesalso, they rode strongly all day, and found the wood to be not verygreat; for before sunset they were come to its outskirts, and themountains lay before them. These were but little like to that hugewall they had passed through on their way to Chestnut-dale, beingrather great hills than mountains, grass-grown, and at their feetsomewhat wooded, and by seeming not over hard to pass over.
The next day they entered them by a pass marked with the token, whichled them about by a winding way till they were on the side of thebiggest fell of all; so there they rested that night in a fair littlehollow or dell in the mountain-side. There in the stillness of thenight both Ursula, as well as Ralph, heard that roaring of a greatwater, and they said to each other that it must be the voice of theSea, and they rejoiced thereat, for they had learned by the Sage andhis books that they must needs come to the verge of the Ocean-Sea,which girdles the earth about. So they arose betimes on the morrow,and set to work to climb the mountain, going mostly a-foot; and the waywas long, but not craggy or exceeding steep, so that in five hours'time they were at the mountain-top, and coming over the brow beheldbeneath them fair green slopes besprinkled with trees, and beyond them,some three or four miles away, the blue landless sea and on either handof them was the sea also, so that they were nigh-hand at the ending ofa great ness, and there was naught beyond it; and naught to do if theymissed the Well, but to turn back by the way they had come.
Now when they saw this they were exceedingly moved and they looked onone another, and each saw that the other was pale, with glisteningeyes, since they were to come to the very point of their doom, and thatit should be seen whether there were no such thing as the Well in allthe earth, but that they had been chasing a fair-hued cloud; or elsetheir Quest should be achieved and they should have the world beforethem, and they happy and mighty, and of great worship amidst all men.
Little they tarried, but gat them down the steep of the mountain, andso lower and lower till they were come to ground nigh level; and thenat last it was but thus, that without any great rock-wall or girdle ofmarvellous and strange land, there was an end of earth, with its grassand trees and streams, and a beginning of the ocean, which stretchedaway changeless, and it might be for ever. Where the land ended therewas but a cliff of less than an hundred feet above the eddying of thesea; and on the very point of the ness was a low green toft with asquare stone set atop of it, whereon as they drew nigh they saw thetoken graven, yea on each face thereof.
Then they went along the edge of the cliff a mile on each side of thesaid toft, and then finding naught else to note, naught save the grassand the sea, they came back to that place of the token, and sat down onthe grass of the toft.
It was now evening, and the sun was setting beyond them, but they couldbehold a kind of stair cut in the side of the cliff, and on the firststep whereof was the token done; wherefore they knew that they werebidden to go down by the said stair; but it seemed to lead no whither,save straight into the sea. And whiles it came into Ralph's mind thatthis was naught but a mock, as if to bid the hapless seekers castthemselves down from the earth, and be done with it for ever. But inany case they might not try the adventure of that stair by the failinglight, and with the night long before them. So when they had hoppledtheir horses, and left them to graze at their will on the sweet grassof the meadow, they laid them down behind the green toft, and, beingforwearied, it was no long time ere they twain slept fast at theuttermost end of the world.