Now it is my turn, and I must leave the wayside to serve in the
sheepfolds during the winter months. It is scarcely a farewell,
for my road is ubiquitous, eternal; there are green ways in
Paradise and golden streets in the beautiful City of God.
Nevertheless, my heart is heavy; for, viewed by the light of the
waning year, roadmending seems a great and wonderful work which I
have poorly conceived of and meanly performed: yet I have learnt
to understand dimly the truths of three great paradoxes--the
blessing of a curse, the voice of silence, the companionship of
solitude--and so take my leave of this stretch of road, and of you
who have fared along the white highway through the medium of a
printed page.
Farewell! It is a roadmender's word; I cry you Godspeed to the
next milestone--and beyond.
OUT OF THE SHADOW
CHAPTER I
I am no longer a roadmender; the stretch of white highway which
leads to the end of the world will know me no more; the fields and
hedgerows, grass and leaf stiff with the crisp rime of winter's
breath, lie beyond my horizon; the ewes in the folding, their
mysterious eyes quick with the consciousness of coming motherhood,
answer another's voice and hand; while I lie here, not in the
lonely companionship of my expectations, but where the shadow is
bright with kindly faces and gentle hands, until one kinder and
gentler still carries me down the stairway into the larger room.
But now the veil was held aside and one went by crowned with the
majesty of years, wearing the ermine of an unstained rule, the
purple of her people's loyalty.
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