The Roadmender | Page 3

on my cheek, all round me rolling stretches of
cloud-shadowed down, no sound but the shrill mourn of the peewit and
the gathering of the sea.
The hours pass, the shadows lengthen, the sheep-bells clang; and I lie
in my niche under the stunted hawthorn watching the to and fro of the
sea, and AEolus shepherding his white sheep across the blue. I love the
sea with its impenetrable fathoms, its wash and undertow, and rasp of
shingle sucked anew. I love it for its secret dead in the Caverns of

Peace, of which account must be given when the books are opened and
earth and heaven have fled away. Yet in my love there is a paradox, for
as I watch the restless, ineffective waves I think of the measureless,
reflective depths of the still and silent Sea of Glass, of the dead, small
and great, rich or poor, with the works which follow them, and of the
Voice as the voice of many waters, when the multitude of one mind
rends heaven with alleluia: and I lie so still that I almost feel the kiss of
White Peace on my mouth. Later still, when the flare of the sinking sun
has died away and the stars rise out of a veil of purple cloud, I take my
way home, down the slopes, through the hamlet, and across miles of
sleeping fields; over which night has thrown her shifting web of
mist--home to the little attic, the deep, cool well, the kindly wrinkled
face with its listening eyes-- peace in my heart and thankfulness for the
rhythm of the road.
Monday brings the joy of work, second only to the Sabbath of rest, and
I settle to my heap by the white gate. Soon I hear the distant stamp of
horsehoofs, heralding the grind and roll of the wheels which reaches
me later--a heavy flour-waggon with a team of four great gentle horses,
gay with brass trappings and scarlet ear-caps. On the top of the craftily
piled sacks lies the white-clad waggoner, a pink in his mouth which he
mumbles meditatively, and the reins looped over the inactive
whip--why should he drive a willing team that knows the journey and
responds as strenuously to a cheery chirrup as to the well-directed lash?
We greet and pass the time of day, and as he mounts the rise he calls
back a warning of coming rain. I am already white with dust as he with
flour, sacramental dust, the outward and visible sign of the stir and beat
of the heart of labouring life.
Next to pass down the road is an anxious ruffled hen, her speckled
breast astir with maternal troubles. She walks delicately, lifting her feet
high and glancing furtively from side to side with comb low dressed.
The sight of man, the heartless egg-collector, from whose haunts she
has fled, wrings from her a startled cluck, and she makes for the white
gate, climbs through, and disappears. I know her feelings too well to
intrude. Many times already has she hidden herself, amassed four or
five precious treasures, brooding over them with anxious hope; and

then, after a brief desertion to seek the necessary food, she has returned
to find her efforts at concealment vain, her treasures gone. At last, with
the courage of despair she has resolved to brave the terrors of the
unknown and seek a haunt beyond the tyranny of man. I will watch
over her from afar, and when her mother-hope is fulfilled I will marshal
her and her brood back to the farm where she belongs; for what end I
care not to think, it is of the mystery which lies at the heart of things;
and we are all God's beasts, says St Augustine.
Here is my stone-song, a paraphrase of the Treasure Motif.
[Music score which cannot be reproduced. It is F# dotted crotchet, F#
quaver, F# quaver, F# dotted crotchet, D crotchet, E crotchet. This bar
is then repeated once more.]
What a wonderful work Wagner has done for humanity in translating
the toil of life into the readable script of music! For those who seek the
tale of other worlds his magic is silent; but earth- travail under his
wand becomes instinct with rhythmic song to an accompaniment of the
elements, and the blare and crash of the bottomless pit itself. The
Pilgrim's March is the sad sound of footsore men; the San Graal the
tremulous yearning of servitude for richer, deeper bondage. The yellow,
thirsty flames lick up the willing sacrifice, the water wails the secret of
the river and the sea; the birds and beasts, the shepherd with his pipe,
the underground life in rocks and caverns, all cry their message to this
nineteenth-century toiling, labouring world--and to me