The Well at the World's End: A Tale
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CHAPTER 22
Now They Have Drunk and Are Glad
Long they slept till the shadows were falling from the west, and thesea was flowing fast again over the sands beneath them, though therewas still a great space bare betwixt the cliff and the sea. Then spakeUrsula as if Ralph had but just left speaking; and she said: "Yea, dearlord, and I also say, that, lovely as thou art now, never hast thoubeen aught else but lovely to me. But tell me, hast thou had any scarof a hurt upon thy body? For if now that were gone, surely it shouldbe a token of the renewal of thy life. But if it be not gone, thenthere may yet be another token."
Then he stood upon his feet, and she cried out: "O but thou art fairand mighty, who now shall dare gainsay thee? Who shall not long forthee?"
Said Ralph: "Look, love! how the sea comes over the sand like thecreeping of a sly wood-snake! Shall we go hence and turn from theocean-sea without wetting our bodies in its waters?"
"Let us go," she said.
So they went down on to the level sands, and along the edges of thesweet-water stream that flowed from the Well; and Ralph said: "Beloved,I will tell thee of that which thou hast asked me: when I was but a ladof sixteen winters there rode men a-lifting into Upmeads, and NicholasLongshanks, who is a wise man of war, gathered force and went againstthem, and I must needs ride beside him. Now we came to our above, andput the thieves to the road; but in the hurly I got a claw from thewar-beast, for the stroke of a sword sheared me off somewhat from myshoulder: belike thou hast seen the scar and loathed it."
"It is naught loathsome," she said, "for a lad to be a bold warrior,nor for a grown man to think lightly of the memory of death drawn nearfor the first time. Yea, I have noted it but let me see now what hasbefallen with it."
As she spoke they were come to a salt pool in a rocky bight on theirright hand, which the tide was filling speedily; and Ralph spake: "Seenow, this is the bath of the water of the ocean sea." So they werespeedily naked and playing in the water: and Ursula took Ralph by thearm and looked to his shoulder and said: "O my lad of the pale edges,where is gone thy glory? There is no mark of the sword's pilgrimage onthy shoulder." "Nay, none?" quoth he.
"None, none!" she said, "Didst thou say the very sooth of thy hurt inthe battle, O poor lad of mine?" "Yea, the sooth," said he. Then shelaughed sweetly and merrily like the chuckle of a flute over therippling waters, that rose higher and higher about them, and she turnedher eyes askance and looked adown to her own sleek side, and laid herhand on it and laughed again. Then said Ralph: "What is toward,beloved? For thy laugh is rather of joy that of mirth alone."
She said: "O smooth-skinned warrior, O Lily and Rose of battle; hereon my side yesterday was the token of the hart's tyne that gored mewhen I was a young maiden five years ago: look now and pity the maidenthat lay on the grass of the forest, and the woodman a-passing bydeemed her dead five years ago."
Ralph stooped down as the ripple washed away from her, then said: "Insooth here is no mark nor blemish, but the best handiwork of God, aswhen he first made a woman from the side of the Ancient Father of thefield of Damask. But lo you love, how swift the tide cometh up, and Ilong to see thy feet on the green grass, and I fear the sea, lest itstir the joy over strongly in our hearts and we be not able to escapefrom its waves."
So they went up from out of the water, and did on the hallowed raimentfragrant with strange herbs, and passed joyfully up the sand towardsthe cliff and its stair; and speedily withal, for so soon as they wereclad again, the little ripple of the sea was nigh touching their feet.As they went, they noted that the waters of the Well flowed seawardfrom the black-walled pound by three arched openings in its outer face,and they beheld the mason's work, how goodly it was; for it was as ifit had been cut out of the foot of a mountain, so well jointed were itsstones, and its walls solid against any storm that might drive againstit.
They climbed the stair, and sat them down on the green grass awhilewatching the ocean coming in over the sand and the rocks, and Ralphsaid: "I will tell thee, sweetling, that I am grown eager for the road;though true it is that whiles I was down yonder amidst the ripple ofthe sea I longed for naught but thee, though thou wert beside me, andthy joyous words were as fire to the heart of my love. But now that Iam on the green grass of the earth I called to mind a dream that cameto me when we slept after the precious draught of the Well: formethought that I was standing before the porch of the Feast-hall ofUpmeads and holding thine hand, and the ancient House spake to me withthe voice of a man, greeting both thee and me, and praising thygoodliness and valiancy. Surely then it is calling me to deeds, and ifit were but morning, as it is now drawing towards sunset, we wouldmount and be gone straightway."
"Surely," she said, "thou hast drunk of the Well, and the fear of theehas already entered into the hearts of thy foemen far away, even as thelove of thee constraineth me as I lie by thy side; but since it isevening and sunset, let it be evening, and let the morning see to itsown matters. So now let us be pilgrims again, and eat the meal ofpilgrims, and see to our horses, and then wander about this lovelywilderness and its green meads, where no son of man heedeth the wildthings, till the night come, bringing to us the rest and the sleep ofthem that have prevailed over many troubles."
Even so they did, and broke bread above the sea, and looked to theirhorses, and then went hand in hand about the goodly green bents betwixtthe sea and the rough of the mountain; and it was the fairest andsoftest of summer evenings; and the deer of that place, both little andgreat, had no fear of man, but the hart and hind came to Ursula's hand;and the thrushes perched upon her shoulder, and the hares gambolledtogether close to the feet of the twain; so that it seemed to them thatthey had come into the very Garden of God; and they forgat all the manymiles of the waste and the mountain that lay before them, and they hadno thought for the strife of foemen and the thwarting of kindred, thatbelike awaited them in their own land, but they thought of the love andhappiness of the hour that was passing. So sweetly they wore throughthe last minutes of the day, and when it was as dark as it would be inthat fair season, they lay down by the green knoll at the ending of theland, and were lulled to sleep by the bubbling of the Well at theWorld's End.
BOOK FOUR
The Road Home