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