Ramon Alonzo they abjured to stop, calling him by the names of certain famous devils; but he no more heeded them than would these devils have done. Only he noticed that, though they fought or pursued, as their cries indicated, for the Faith, for St. Michael, for St. Joseph, for St. Judas not Iscariot, for all the Saints, for the King, they none of them cried “for a Shadow.” And yet that was all that the fuss was about, he reflected irritably. There are always two views, even over a trifle.
He had been gaining a little ever since he dropped his cloak; but now one runner seemed to be ahead of the crowd again. He heard his feet above the sound of their shouts and their running. On his left ran a little lane among deep hedges, joining the wider road. And now was come the time to put the lantern to the purpose for which he carried it. He ran down the lane till he found a gap in the hedge on his right, then he put the lantern high up on the hedge on his left and stuck it there still alight. He then crawled through the gap on his right and ran softly towards the road he had left, over a corner of a wild field.
They soon came to the lantern. They did not hear him run softly over the field, but gathered round the lantern, and pulled it down; and, finding he was not there, they pursued in every direction, some of them going across the field to the road and following Ramon Alonzo. But they had wasted too many moments and could no longer hear him running. Following that lantern had been too easy, and now that it guided them no longer they did not immediately use their wits or their ears.
For some while Ramon Alonzo heard voices behind him; then they dropped off and mingled with the far noises of night. He ran leisurely on. And presently the various parties turned back from their roads and lanes and gathered again in the village, and there was talk till a late hour of what they had done for the Faith. And many a guess there was of whence he had come, and many of where he had gone; and many a tale there was of the same thing differently seen, and these tales were checked by the wisdom of elder men who had not been there but could make some shrewd guesses. And when all was compared it was seen there had been more magic than one could easily credit if it had not actually happened. And a wise old man who had not spoken as yet was seen to be shaking his head; and when all were listening he spoke: “Well, it is gone,” he said, “The Saints be praised.”
“Aye, it is gone,” said they all.
So they went to bed.
XV
Ramon Alonzo Talks of Technique and Muddles His Father
Ramon Alonzo ran on in the night, then dropped to a walk, and soon he no more than sauntered along the road, whose greyness before him seemed the only light on earth. Above him the whiteness of the Milky Way seemed to suggest other roads, and his thoughts rambled awhile through the mazes of this idea until they were quite lost in it, then they came back bitterly to earth. The charwoman had been right! All this ridiculous fuss about a trifle, and not a trifle that they even set any store by themselves; for who prizes his shadow, who compares it with that of others, who shows it, who boasts of it? A trifle that they knew to be a trifle, the least useful thing on earth; a thing that nobody sold in the meanest shop and that nobody would if they could, and that nobody would buy, a thing without even a sentimental value, soundless and weightless and useless. Far more than this Ramon Alonzo thought, and believed he had definitely proved, to the detriment of shadows. No doubt he exaggerated a shadow’s worthlessness. And yet the folk of that village that had turned out sword in hand had by their action exaggerated the other side of the argument, and extremes are made by extremes. Nor was Ramon Alonzo in any way checked in his furious exposure of shadows by any wistful yearning that he had often felt for his own since the day that he lost it, and was often to feel again. Logic indeed had been flouted upon either side in this business, and it is for just such situations as these that swords are made. Ramon Alonzo had used his well, and he wiped it now on a handful of leaves and returned it to the scabbard.
How late it was he did not know, but it was full time for sleep, so he lay down by the road; but without his cloak he found it too cold, even in the summer night, so he rose and sauntered on. On the way he met a stream and drank from it, and noticed the vivifying effect of water, perhaps for the first time.
Neither his lonely walk nor his lonely thoughts are
