‘That is sooth,’ said the Sun-beam.
Said Face-of-god: ‘What things shall stay us? Or deemest thou that we shall never see Silver-dale again?’
She smiled: ‘Even so I think thou deemest, Gold-mane. But many things shall hinder us besides the long road.’
Said he: ‘Yea, and what things?’
‘Thinkest thou,’ said the Sun-beam, ‘that the winning of Silver-stead is the last battle which thou shalt see?’
‘Nay,’ said he, ‘nay.’
‘Shall thy Dale—our Dale—be free from all trouble within itself henceforward? Is there a wall built round it to keep out for ever storm, pestilence, and famine, and the waywardness of its own folk?’
‘So it is as thou sayest,’ quoth Face-of-god, ‘and to meet such troubles and overcome them, or to die in strife with them, this is a great part of a man’s life.’
‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and hast thou forgotten that thou art now a great chieftain, and that the folk shall look to thee to use thee many days in the year?’
He laughed and said: ‘So it is. How many days have gone by since I wandered in the wood last autumn, that the world should have changed so much!’