“No. ’Tis a lonely place—a great wold. There was a dog running about—not mine. I’m thankful to ye, but I think my leg’s broken, and my head is singing, singing.”
“Do you know the wold? Where is the house you were going to?”
“It’s Gaffer Garrow, the shepherd. There’s the wold hostel, too—the Good Man. But it’s not a good inn—they be robbers! My head is singing.”
“Let’s see if canst stand. Now arms about shoulders. So!”
Half carrying him, they followed the stream. When he failed, Englefield carried him outright. So they went, very slowly, down the hollow land, a long way, until they saw Gaffer Garrow’s furze heap and hut. An old man and woman and a shepherd lad and a girl came forth to meet them. “Alack and alack, and Jack, what’s happened?”
Diccon Dawn, it seemed, could set a bone. When it was done and the sailor on his straw bed, with gaffer and gammer and younger brother and sister to his hand, Diccon and Alice Dawn went on over the wold. The young girl walked a little way with them to show the way, seeing that they were going to the sea. “You will come to the Good Man, but I would not lodge there. Then you will come to three trees, then will be wold a long way, then you will smell the sea.”
At turning, she said. “Our Jack might have died there, earth over him! Our Lady must have been walking before you. I see Her sometimes in the even, walking the wold.”
They walked it, the girl returning to her hut, and they seemed to be alone, except for Silver Cross rising.
The Good Man topped a low wave of the April earth. They saw it against cool, blue sky, with an ash and an aspen pricked out above either end. Men and women were in the doorway. Richard Englefield and Morgen Fay went by, though the host called to them and an urchin came running after. “Hey! This be the Good Man, the only hostel this half of wold!”