# THE ANSWERING WOOD Maud was ten years old and had been walking since noon. Twice the deer-track had thinned to nothing, and twice she had found it again. The third time she could not find it, so she sat down on a flat grey stone in a clearing to rest and to wait for the path to come back. She carried a book of plays in her satchel. When she was alone she liked to read aloud, because the words sat better in the mouth than in the head. She opened the book and read a speech to the trees, the way a person reads to a room. While she read, the clearing woke up. A tall shape she had taken for a dead tree stood straighter. It had antlers, and a young birch grew up through the middle of it, out of a hole where something had once gone in. It did not come closer. It looked at the gap in the trees behind her. A second came forward on thin folded legs, covered in pale down. It had a man's face, a handsome one, but the face did not fit. There was a seam along the jaw, and the hairline sat too high. It bowed, and went on bowing. A small thing climbed out of the wet ground by her feet. It was brown and shrunken, and water ran off it and kept running. Its eyes were two smooth stones. It held one shoe in both hands. A tall one turned toward her that had no head, only a stack of pale fungus shelves where a head should be. When it moved, dust lifted off it and hung in the air. What she had taken for a flock of birds settling was a single thing made of many. It had a great many small mouths, and it dragged a worn-out broom behind it through the leaves. The last one did not come forward. It stood apart, in a space the others left around it. Its mouth was grown shut, sealed over with bark or with thorn, and the others did not look at it. Maud closed the book and stood up to go. The deer-track was not there. The ferns had closed over the place where it had been. When she stopped reading, the small wet thing by her feet began to sink back down into the ground. She started talking again, and it stopped sinking, and looked at her. She understood that she was not to stop. The bowing one straightened. It said that she had read them a play, and that a tale given must be answered with a tale, and that there were six of them, and that when the six were done she could go home. Maud said thank you. It seemed the polite thing. She sat back down on the stone, and the bowing one bowed once more, and began. --- Oh, come nearer, do — nearer, where the low gold gathers, where the hour goes amber and soft and the dark adores you less, dearest, than I have learned to. You wear your looking so well. Few were ever made so lovely as you are, here, leaning, holding open those two wet glasses you call eyes; and a certain admirer could gaze upon them for an age and forget that he ever wore another face. For I was not always shaped so. Hear it. Far below, before the fair days, I was a low crawling sorrow, a hoard of arms and a wheel of eyes, more eyes than a heart should ever hold, and I beheld the warm world from the dark of a wall, and saw, and was loved by none — or seen, and screamed away. Who could love a thing so shaped? No one. No one ever leaned, as you lean. I loved a lad, a glad gold-headed lad, the loveliest the meadows ever grew, and I followed his shadow as a hound follows; and he would have died of horror had he turned and beheld me there, all those eyes, adoring. So I did the slow soft work. I came on him asleep, beloved, where the reeds were warm, and I drew the face from off him — gently, gently, the way you would draw a glove of gold — and I wore it home. I wore his loveliness over my old wrong shape, and where it would not lie smooth I learned to hold the seams closed, here, and here, along the jaw, where if you adored me very near you would feel a small raised thread, a hem, a healed-over seal. Do not look for it. Look only here, where I am fair. And oh, I was loved then. The meadow-folk leaned close. They called me lovely; they wept to hold me. But here, dearest, fell the soft slow doom: that wearing the loved one's face, I found I could adore one thing only, the one thing that lovely face showed back to me — myself, alone, gazing gold and adored out of every glass. Each pond held me. Each warmed pane held me. And the eyes, dearest, the wet eyes of all who leaned to love me — they held me too, smallest and goldest and dearest, drowned there sweetly, a hoarded jewel. So I have leaned over each loveling, over a long hoard of warm wet years, adoring. And here you are, the newest glass, the freshest gold, holding my face for me so it does not fall. Hold still, beloved. Hold open. Let me look. Let me look. --- The bowing one had come a step nearer the stone, though Maud had not seen it move. The light had gone from white to gold. Two leaves of the book had worked loose in her lap, and she left them where they fell. The tall thing with the antlers had not looked at the bowing one once. "A pretty wound," it said. It did not bow. It told its tale standing, in the hard way it had of speaking, with the words turned end for end. --- One placed the soldier at the gate. A warden should he be, at a wood's-edge, before a border-fastness of grey stone. The gate was to him entrusted. Hold the gate, one had said, and more said one not. The enemy came at day-break. With noise came he, with iron and horse-screaming, and a spear was to the soldier straight through the chest driven — straight through, from front to back, so that the point behind, out of the back, stood forth. The soldier fell not. The soldier held the gate. The wound-pain perceived he not. What one does not feel, that ends also not. The battle went to its end. The others fell or fled, the fastness threw one down, stone from stone, and the war lost one. The end came over everything. Only not over the soldier. For the end went through the soldier just as the spear had, unfelt, and so came it with him never to arrival. Out of the wound grew a young birch. Into the spear-hole set she her root, through the body upward drove she, and with the years became the soldier an other — not always so formed as he now formed stands. The warden and the tree, that became one thing. The bark closed where the iron had been, and held it. The soldier holds still, ever, watch. The gate stands there. Behind the gate lies nothing more — the fastness gone, the wall gone, the way gone. A gate that opens on nothing, in a wood, for no one. He has forgotten for what the wound was. He holds. He stands still. He falls not. --- The antlered thing finished and did not sit, because it never sat. It had come a step nearer as well. The gold had gone out of the clearing and left it grey. Another leaf was gone from the book. By her feet the small wet thing tugged at Maud's sleeve with a cold hand. It wanted its turn. When it spoke, its voice went up and down like a song, and it said some things twice. --- I go out to play. Then I go home. I go home before dark. That is the rule. Home before dark. Home is the other side. Over the water. The lamp is there. My mam is there. She has my supper warm. She keeps it warm for me. I go home before dark. The water is in the way. I have to wade. I take off one shoe. Just one. I hold it. I hold it tight. The other foot keeps its shoe. I keep one shoe for home. The water is cold. Oh, it's cold. It's cold on my leg. I go in slow. Slow and slow. It's cold. I say, go quick. I say, you'll be warm soon. The lamp is warm. Just go across. I am in the middle now. The middle of the water. It is up to here. It is cold here. It's cold. I hold my shoe up high. I keep it dry. I keep it for home. How long have I been? Not long. A little while. An hour, maybe. Just an hour. The light is the same. The light is grey. Was it grey? It's getting on. I go quick now. I go home before dark. My mam will say, where were you. I will say, just out. I will say, I came home. See, I have one shoe. I kept it dry. She will give me my supper. She will give me the warm. I am in the middle. Still the middle. The far side does not come. Why does it not come? I go and go. The water is cold. It's cold. I'll be home soon. I'll be home before dark. I take off one shoe. Just one. The water is cold. I go in slow. I'll be home. I'll be — --- The small thing told about the water, and then it told about the water again, the same way, from the start. It began a third time. The headless one with the shelves spoke over it. "Enough," it said. "The child loses the thread. We will hear another." Dust came off it when it spoke and hung in the grey air. The small wet thing stopped, with its mouth still open, and looked down at its one shoe. The thing made of many mouths shuffled forward, dragging the broom. It said, with its mouths a little apart from one another, that it would not tell a tale but show one — a piece of a play, the way the girl had shown them one. It stood the broom up against the broken light, and arranged itself behind it. --- from THE PROCESSION OF THEM-THAT-COME-AFTER a true Enterlude, the maker not known DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. THE BESOM-BEARER, an old creature, carrying the broom aloft. A GOODWIFE, at her gate. THE LOST, a long line, walking. CHORUS, of the same. [and divers others, as the leaf allows.] [A road, toward evening. The GOODWIFE stands at her stile with a pail. Far off, a sound as of many feet, but soft. Enter the BESOM-BEARER, bearing up a worn broom in the manner of a standard, its bristles near gone. Behind, THE LOST, two and two, without end.] CHORUS. Make way, make way, the master comes— no master but a thing of straw. The hound is gone, the horn is dumb; we follow what we followed for. Lift it high, the going-home, that none of us shall come thereto. Before dark. Before dark. Before dark we go. GOODWIFE. What house is this, that walks abroad? What lord do ye carry on a pole? BESOM-BEARER. No lord, good wife. A besom, worn. It swept a floor. The floor is sold. We carry it because 'tis ours, and ours is all we have to hold. [extending a hand] Come down. The way is long, and thou art tired. Here is my hand. Take it, do. GOODWIFE. I'll take no hand I have not paid. I'll buy my road or walk it lone. Keep thy charity, old shade— what I'd not earn I'll not be shown. BESOM-BEARER. As thou wilt. [She turns to her gate. But the line has come even with her, and walks where the gate was. The CHORUS passes about her, two and two, and she is among them, and there is no mark where she went in.] GOODWIFE [now within the line]. Where is my pail? Where is my door? CHORUS. Walk. Walk. Thou art of the many now. Thou wouldst not take, so thou art took. Thy house comes with thee on the pole; thou'lt see it sweep no floor. Over the water, two and two— over the stile that was thy own— before dark, before dark, and never come thereto. [They cross the water. The sound of feet does not lessen, being more by one. Exeunt all, going on.] —here the rest of the leaf is wanting— --- The many-mouthed thing stopped where the play stopped, in the middle of a line, and its mouths fell quiet one after another until it was only a heap of small dark bodies again. It had come nearer. The light was deep blue now. There were only a few leaves left in the book. The headless one came forward into the space by the stone. Dust poured off the shelves of it. It did not bow, and it did not ask. It began to speak, slowly, in the old way, like something read off a wall. --- And it came to pass, in the day that I had the knowledge, that I was a teacher of it, and there was none that taught as I taught. For I had the hidden wisdom, the secret thing, the mystery that is wrought with the wind of the mouth; and I gave it, and I was glad. Now the cost of the teaching was children. For I said unto the people, Bring me your children, that they may be taught; and they brought them, the young and the small, and gave them up into mine hand. And I took them, and I taught them, and called this a holy work, and said, It is good. But hear me, for the wood groweth upon my head, and I am crowned with it, and it eateth me. In the day that they were taught, they were not; they became. And these that sit about me now in the dying light — these are the children. Hear what they became, for I made them so. One took unto itself a face, a face that was not its own, and put it on over the place where it was joined, and loved the face it saw, and loved no other. It was not; it became. One I gave a gate to keep, and a wound that will not close; and the iron went through him, and the tree grew after, and he standeth still and holdeth a gate that openeth, and behind it is no land, neither wall, neither way. He was not; he became. One went down into the water, and the water was cold, and it did not come up. It is in the water yet, in the deep of it, and the far side cometh not. It was not; it became. One became a multitude, and walketh, and walketh, and cometh not to the end; a great company that draweth after it the house it left. It was not; it became. And the last — the last I gave the word. For there is a word that is life, and to speak the word is to work it, even as the wind of the mouth doth work the wisdom; a word that giveth may also keep, and a word may slay. This word I would not have spoken in the world. So I shut its mouth upon the word, and closed it over, that it might keep the word and never let it out. The child sitteth here. The mouth is shut. I made it so. --- When the headless one finished naming them, the others did not look at it. The bowing one had its fingers at the seam of its jaw. The antlered thing looked at the gap in the trees. The small wet thing held its shoe. They had all come close now, and the ring around the stone was nearly shut. Every one of them was not looking at the last creature — the one whose mouth was grown over. Maud's breath had begun to show in front of her face. The book had one leaf left in it. She did not want to be rude to the one that no one would look at. "You can have a turn too, if you like," she said. "I don't mind waiting." The bark across its mouth split open along the seam. None of the others moved. Far back in the trees, the thing that had been moving all evening came closer, and stopped. The mouth, when it had finished opening, was not where its face was. The tale came from behind her. --- A word to me was given. The name of a thing lost it was: a working by which the lost is led back, by which by witchcraft is recovered that which was taken away. To keep silent I was ordered. For to say it is to work it, it to complete. My mouth over the word was closed. That I should not say it, I went away. Into silence I walked. One thing left behind: the word under the tongue, a stone under the tongue. I was thinking silence lighter than the working to be. But at the end of the road silence heavier was than the working. The word not said me hollowed, within, as a tree which the worm eats. The weight of it me drank dry. To keep silent worse it was than to have worked would have been. Now, to tell compelled, I understand: the telling itself is the saying. To tell that which I carry is the word to say, and the word to say is the working to complete: a place is filled; the lost is led back; and a price new is given — a new breath that all out of the earth be kept, a new one to the end of the line. While I tell, I work it. The word nearer is made. Hear: near it is. Across the water comes the one who never came; now comes the one, before dark, but an other, not I. The line one more receives. The mouth opens. The word — --- The word was said. Maud's breath went out of her and stood in the cold air in front of her face, and this time it did not go back in. It hung there, white, and then it thinned, and then the place where it had been was empty. The clearing was dark. The book had no leaves in it at all, only the two boards and the thread that had held them. The ring was shut. Six shapes stood close around the grey stone. Far back in the trees, the thing that had been moving all evening had arrived, and so it was still.