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. Nations stood with bated breath to see her pass in the starlit mist of her children’s tears; a monarch—greatest of her time; an empress—conquered men called mother; a woman—Englishmen cried queen; still the crowned captive of her people’s heart—the prisoner of love. The night-goers passed under my window in silence, neither song nor shout broke the welcome dark; next morning the workmen who went by were strangely quiet. ‘VICTORIA DEI GRATIA BRITANNIARUM REGINA.’ Did they think of how that legend would disappear, and of all it meant, as they paid their pennies at the coffee-stall? The feet rarely know the true value and work of the head; but all Englishmen have been and will be quick to acknowledge and revere Victoria by the grace of God a wise woman, a great and loving mother. Years ago, I, standing at a level crossing, saw her pass. The train slowed down and she caught sight of the gatekeeper’s little girl who had climbed the barrier. Such a smile as she gave her! And then I caught a quick startled gesture as she slipped from my vision; I thought afterwards it was that she feared the child might fall. Mother first, then Queen; even so rest came to her—not in one of the royal palaces, but in her own home, surrounded by the immediate circle of her nearest and dearest, while the world kept watch and ward.