It was still the wold when under pale fine sunshine they came to a smithy, rude and poor, set beneath a long wave, where a road went by. Lonely was the wold, lonely and lonely, yet folk did travel across it. Here, too, horses must be shod and cart and wagon mended, though not many nor often. But the place seemed dilapidated, the smith an old man. He could not do, he said, what was needed to be done. Custom, if you could call it custom, was dwindling; he needed a helper. He looked at Englefield and said that he seemed a strong fellow now! “What might be your name?” They had changed names when they left Master Cuddington, that seeming wiser. “Godfrey the smith, and this is Joan.” “Smith, now! Can you do this--and this?” A middle aged woman called from the hut that adjoined. “Get them to stay, father, get them to stay! There be pilgrims a-horseback, coming by to-morrow!” “Where would we dwell?” The old man had a gnomish, elfin humour. “There’s a great empty palace yonder, waiting king and queen!” He pointed with a shaking forefinger to a hut a hundred yards away, close to the earth wave that rose in pale gold, green and purple and held it as in a cup. Sky hung a deep and serene blue, sunshine was sifted gold, spring flowerets bloomed on the wold and all the bees in the land were humming there. Lonely and could be well loved, the great wold! Godfrey the smith looked to Joan. “Aye, I will it if you will it!” Great wold and day and night, and the smithy with the older and the younger smith, and the lubberly boy that helped, and the few travellers and comers-by. Work done with satisfaction and the wold to rest in, walk in, by times. Hut of the old man and his daughter and the lubberly boy, hut of Joan and Godfrey, Emmy was the daughter’s name and she had second sight. She took to Joan. “You’re eternal. He’s eternal, too. And so am I. Eternity--Eternity--Eternity.” She went off upon the word into her own visions. May and June. “And it was a good day when you came!” quoth the old man in his throaty, under-earth voice. “Came to the palace, king smith and queen lace-woman!” July, and the wold very rich, and the sunshine strong and the starry nights soft, immense, musing, brooding, tender. The wold was a world, away in space from sister worlds, yet throwing bridges across, invisible as spider’s thread in sunshine. July--August. Gold on the wold, gold in the sky, gold and sapphire. September. Said Emmy, “I see some one coming, riding a bay horse.” They were walking the wold. “Maybe ’tis to-morrow,” said Emmy, “maybe next day, maybe next week. I cannot see his face but he means to ride to the smithy on great wold.” The day was golden, golden September. Everything spread wider, everything lifted higher. All things had their roots down, down, but all things climbed and broadened, inviting the air and the wind and the sun. “Ah, warmth in light! Ah, light in warmth!” “Aye, aye!” said Emmy. “The world’s no so bad if you take it large.”