"I wonder what the old fellow was trying to tell me," said Master Nathaniel to himself.
On the morning of the following day he arrived at the village of Swan-on-the-Dapple.
Here the drama of autumn had only just reached its gorgeous climax, and the yellow and scarlet trees were flaming out their silent stationary action against the changeless chorus of pines, dark green against the distant hills.
"By the Golden Apples of the West!" muttered Master Nathaniel, "I'd no idea those accursed hills were so near. I'm glad Ranulph's safe away."
Having inquired his way to the Gibbertys' farm, he struck off the high road into the valley - and very lovely it was looking in its autumn colouring. The vintage was over, and the vines were now golden and red. Some of the narrow oblong leaves of the wild cherry had kept their bottle-green, while others, growing on the same twig, had turned to salmon-pink, and the mulberries alternated between canary-yellow and grass-green. The mountain ash had turned a fiery rose (more lovely, even, than had been its scarlet berries) and often an olive grew beside it, as if ready, lovingly, to quench its fire in its own tender grey. The birches twinkled and quivered, as if each branch were a golden divining rod trembling to secret water; and the path was strewn with olives, looking like black oblong dung. It was one of those mysterious autumn days that are intensely bright though the sun is hidden; and when one looked at these lambent trees one could almost fancy them the source of the light flooding the valley.
From time to time a tiny yellow butterfly would flit past, like a little yellow leaf shed by one of the birches; and now and then one of the bleeding, tortured looking liege-oaks would drop an acorn, with a little flop - just to remind you, as it were, that it was leading its own serene, vegetable life, oblivious to the agony ascribed to it by the fevered fancy of man.
Not a soul did Master Nathaniel pass after he had left the village, though from time to time he saw in the distance labourers following the plough through the vineyards, and their smocks provided the touch of blue that turns a picture into a story; there was blue smoke, too, to tell of human habitations; and an occasional cock strutting up and down in front of one of the red vines, like a salesman before his wares, flaunting, by way of advertisement, a crest of the same material as the vine leaves, but of a more brilliant hue; and in the distance were rushes, stuck up in sheaves to dry, and glimmering with the faint, whitish, pinky-grey of far-away fruit trees in blossom.
While, as if the eye had not enough to feed on in her own domain, the sounds, even, of the valley were pictorial - a tinkling of distant bells, conjuring up herds of goats; the ominous, melancholy roar which tells that somewhere a waggoner is goading on his oxen; and the distant bark of dogs that paints a picture of homesteads and sunny porches.
As Master Nathaniel jogged leisurely along, his thoughts turned to the farmer Gibberty, who many a time must have jogged along this path, in just such a way, and seen and heard the very same things that he was seeing and hearing now.
Yes, the farmer Gibberty had once been a real living man, like himself. And so had millions of others, whose names he had never heard. And one day he himself would be a prisoner, confined between the walls of other people's memory. And then he would cease even to be that, and become nothing but a few words cut in stone. What would these words be, he wondered.
A sudden longing seized him to hold Ranulph again in his arms. How pleasant would have been the thought that he was waiting to receive him at the farm!
But he must be nearing his journey's end, for in the distance he could discern the figure of a woman, leisurely scrubbing her washing on one of the sides of a stone trough.
"I wonder if that's the widow," thought Master Nathaniel. And a slight shiver went down his spine.
But as he came nearer the washerwoman proved to be quite a young girl.
He decided she must be the granddaughter, Hazel; and so she was.
He drew up his horse beside her and asked if this were the widow Gibberty's farm.
"Yes, sir," she answered shortly, with that half-frightened, half-defiant look that was so characteristic of her.
"Why, then, I've not been misdirected. But though they told me I'd find a thriving farm and a fine herd of cows, the fools forgot to mention that the farmer was a rose in petticoats," and he winked jovially.
Now this was not Master Nathaniel's ordinary manner with young ladies, which, as a matter of fact, was remarkably free from flirtatious facetiousness. But he had invented a role to play at the farm, and was already beginning to identify himself with it.
As it turned out, this opening compliment was a stroke of luck. For Hazel bitterly resented that she was not recognized as the lawful owner of the farm, and Master Nathaniel's greeting of her as the farmer thawed her coldness into dimples.
"If you've come to see over the farm, I'm sure we'll be very pleased to show you everything," she said graciously.
"Thank'ee, thank'ee kindly. I'm a cheesemonger from Lud-in-the-Mist. And there's no going to sleep quietly behind one's counter these days in trade, if one's to keep one's head above the water. It's competition, missy, competition that keeps old fellows like me awake. Why, I can remember when there weren't more than six cheesemongers in the whole of Lud; and now there are as many in my street alone. So I thought I'd come myself and have a look round and see where I could get the best dairy produce. There's nothing like seeing for oneself."
And here he launched into an elaborate and gratuitous account of all the other farms he had visited on his tour of inspection. But the one that had pleased him best, he said, had been that of a very old friend of his - and he named the farmer near Moongrass with whom, presumably, Ranulph and Luke were now staying.
Here Hazel looked up eagerly, and, in rather an unsteady voice, asked if he'd seen two lads there - a big one, and a little one who was the son of the Seneschal.
"Do you mean little Master Ranulph Chanticleer and Luke Hempen? Why, of course I saw them! It was they who told me to come along here and very grateful I am to them, for I have found something well worth looking at."
A look of indescribable relief flitted over Hazel's face.
"Oh oh! I'm so glad you saw them," she faltered.
"Aha! My friend Luke has evidently been making good use of his time - the young dog!" thought Master Nathaniel; and he proceeded to retail a great many imaginary sayings and doings of Luke at his new abode.
Hazel was soon quite at home with the jovial, facetious old cheesemonger. She always preferred elderly men to young ones, and was soon chatting away with the abandon sometimes observable when naturally confiding people, whom circumstances have made suspicious, find someone whom they think they can trust; and Master Nathaniel was, of course, drinking in every word and longing to be in her shoes.
"But, missy, it seems all work and no play!" he cried at last. "Do you get no frolics and junketings?"
"Sometimes we dance of an evening, when old Portunus is here," she answered.
"Portunus?" he cried sharply, "Who's he?"
But this question froze her back into reserve. "An old weaver with a fiddle," she answered stiffly.
"A bit doited?"
Her only answer was to look at him suspiciously and say, "Do you know Portunus, sir?"
"Well, I believe I met him - about half-way between here and Lud. The old fellow seemed to have something on his mind, but couldn't get it out - I've known many a parrot that talked better than he."
"Oh, I've often thought that, too! That he'd something on his mind, I mean," cried Hazel on another wave of confidence. "It's as if he were trying hard to tell one something. And he often follows me as if he wanted me to do something for him. And I sometimes think I should try and help him and not be so harsh with him - but he just gives me the creeps, and I can't help it."