“You must have slept well under oaken tree!”
“No. I did not sleep.”
“Then faery queen must have visited you! Truly you have the look of it!”
“I longed for your coming, fellow worker, and that I should not have to wait for it till eve! Who brought it about? Still that Success!”
“Vineyard boat cannot be at the landing I told you of. It is now the old landing by the reeds. It seemed best to let you know without delay.”
“Had you not come I might have stained my face and gone into town, changing voice, changing step and figure—Richard Dawn, traveller with gold in his purse, sending from the inn to Master Thomas Bettany—”
“I think well that all the Folk in Green have been here! It is such a place as they flock to. Morgen Fay hid here at the ruined farm.”
“No! She walked in this wood.”
Green light and purple light and gold. Throstle and finch and cuckoo, robin and lark. Fern up-growing, wild plants in bloom, the wood a chalice of odours, censer swinging. Englefield put his hands to his temples. “Friday!”
“What is it, man?”