And now, why now, fatigued as he had been an hour or so ago (but time had lost its tiresome, restless meaning), now he stood firm while all things and all men staggered.
"Morano," said Rodriguez as he passed that foolish figure, "we go sixty miles to-morrow."
"Sixty, master?" said Morano. "A hundred: two hundred."
"It is best to rest now," said his master.
"Two hundred, master, two hundred," Morano replied.
And then Rodriguez left him, and heard him muttering his challenge to distance still, "Two hundred, two hundred," till the old stairway echoed with it.
And so he came to his chamber, of which he remembered little, for sleep lurked there and he was soon with dreams, faring further with them than my pen can follow.
THE EIGHTH CHRONICLE. HOW HE TRAVELLED FAR
One blackbird on a twig near Rodriguez' window sang, then there were fifty singing, and morning arose over Spain all golden and wonderful.
Rodriguez descended and found mine host rubbing his hands by his good table, with a look on his face that seemed to welcome the day and to find good auguries concerning it. But Morano looked as one that, having fallen from some far better place, is ill-content with earth and the mundane way.
He had scorned breakfast; but Rodriguez breakfasted. And soon the two were bidding mine host farewell. They found their horses saddled, they mounted at once, and rode off slowly in the early day. The horses were tired and, slowly trotting and walking, and sometimes dismounting and dragging the horses on, it was nearly two hours before they had done ten miles and come to the house of the smith in a rocky village: the street was cobbled and the houses were all of stone.
The early sparkle had gone from the dew, but it was still morning, and many a man but now sat down to his breakfast, as they arrived and beat on the door.
Gonzalez the smith opened it, a round and ruddy man past fifty, a citizen following a reputable trade, but once, ah once, a bowman.
"Senor," said Rodriguez, "our horses are weary. We have been told you will change them for us."
"Who told you that?" said Gonzalez.
"The green bowmen in Shadow Valley," the young man answered.
As a meteor at night lights up with its greenish glare flowers and blades of grass, twisting long shadows behind them, lights up lawns and bushes and the deep places of woods, scattering quiet night for a moment, so the unexpected answer of Rodriguez lit memories in the mind of the smith all down the long years; and a twinkle and a sparkle of those memories dancing in woods long forsaken flashed from his eyes.
"The green bowmen, senor," said Gonzalez. "Ah, Shadow Valley!"
"We left it yesterday," said Rodriguez.
When Gonzalez heard this he poured forth questions. "The forest, senor; how is it now with the forest? Do the boars still drink at Heather Pool? Do the geese go still to Greatmarsh? They should have come early this year. How is it with Larios, Raphael, Migada? Who shoots woodcock now?"
The questions flowed on past answering, past remembering: he had not spoken of the forest for years. And Rodriguez answered as such questions are always answered, saying that all was well, and giving Gonzalez some little detail of some trifling affair of the forest, which he treasured as small shells are treasured in inland places when travellers bring them from the sea; but all that he heard of the forest seemed to the smith like something gathered on a far shore of time. Yes, he had been a bowman once.
But he had no horses. One horse that drew a cart, but no horses for riding at all. And Rodriguez thought of the immense miles lying between him and the foreign land, keeping him back from his ambition; they all pressed on his mind at once. The smith was sorry, but he could not make horses.
"Show him your coin, master," said Morano.
"Ah, a small token," said Rodriguez, drawing it forth still on its green ribbon under his clothing. "The bowman's badge, is it not?"
Gonzalez looked at it, then looked at Rodriguez.
"Master," he said, "you shall have your horses. Give me time: you shall have them. Enter, master." And he bowed and widely opened the door. "If you will breakfast in my house while I go to the neighbours you shall have some horses, master."
So they entered the house, and the smith with many bows gave the travellers over to the care of his wife, who saw from her husband's manner that these were persons of importance and as such she treated them both, and as such entertained them to their second breakfast. And this meant they ate heartily, as travellers can, who can go without a breakfast or eat two; and those who dwell in cities can do neither.
And while the plump dame did them honour they spoke no word of the forest, for they knew not what place her husband's early years had in her imagination.
They had barely finished their meal when the sound of hooves on cobbles was heard and Gonzalez beat on the door. They all went to the door and found him there with two horses. The horses were saddled and bridled. They fixed the stirrups to please them, then the travellers mounted at once. Rodriguez made his grateful farewell to the wife of the smith: then, turning to Gonzalez, he pointed to the two tired horses which had waited all the while with their reins thrown over a hook on the wall.
"Let the owner of these have them till his own come back," he said, and added: "How far may I take these?"
"They are good horses," said the smith.
"Yes," said Rodriguez.
"They could do fifty miles to-day," Gonzalez continued, "and to- morrow, why, forty, or a little more."
"And where will that bring me?" said Rodriguez, pointing to the straight road which was going his way, north-eastward.
"That," said Gonzalez, "that should bring you some ten or twenty miles short of Saspe."
"And where shall I leave the horses?" Rodriguez asked.
"Master," Gonzalez said, "in any village where there be a smith, if you say 'these are the horses of the smith Gonzalez, who will come for them one day from here,' they will take them in for you, master."
"But," and Gonzalez walked a little away from his wife, and the horses walked and he went beside them, "north of here none knows the bowmen. You will get no fresh horses, master. What will you do?"
"Walk," said Rodriguez.
Then they said farewell, and there was a look on the face of the smith almost such as the sons of men might have worn in Genesis when angels visited them briefly.
They settled down into a steady trot and trotted thus for three hours. Noon came, and still there was no rest for Morano, but only dust and the monotonous sight of the road, on which his eyes were fixed: nearly an hour more passed, and at last he saw his master halt and turn round in his saddle.
"Dinner," Rodriguez said.
All Morano's weariness vanished: it was the hour of the frying-pan once more.
They had done more than twenty-one miles from the house of Gonzalez. Nimbly enough, in his joy at feeling the ground again, Morano ran and gathered sticks from the bushes. And soon he had a fire, and a thin column of grey smoke going up from it that to him was always home.
When the frying-pan warmed and lard sizzled, when the smell of bacon mingled with the smoke, then Morano was where all wise men and all unwise try to be, and where some of one or the other some times come for awhile, by unthought paths and are gone again; for that smoky, mixed odour was happiness.
Not for long men and horses rested, for soon Rodriguez' ambition was drawing him down the road again, of which he knew that there remained to be travelled over two hundred miles in Spain, and how much beyond that he knew not, nor greatly cared, for beyond the frontier of Spain he believed there lay the dim, desired country of romance where roads were long no more and no rain fell. They mounted again and pushed on for this country. Not a village they saw but that Morano hoped that here his affliction would end and that he would dismount and rest; and always Rodriguez rode on and Morano followed, and with a barking of dogs they were gone and the village rested behind them. For many an hour their slow trot carried them on; and Morano, clutching the saddle with worn arms, already was close to despair, when Rodriguez halted in a little village at evening before an inn. They had done their fifty miles from the house of Gonzalez, and even a little more.