第97章 The Water's Own

The water's own arrived at the gate one autumn in the third century in the shape of a flood that took the lower fields and the lane to the mill, and the valley, whose whole history had been the argument between its water and its wall, stood at the gate and watched the flood pass through and did not fight it, because the gate was open and the water was free, and a free water, the valley had learned in two centuries of keeping, passes through a gate without destroying it, the way a tide passes through a harbor without taking the harbor with it, and the flood passed in a week and left behind a channel slightly changed, a bank newly bare, and a third stone at the seaward field, washed up by the retirement of the water, and the third stone carried the same sentence in the same hand, and the hand was the water's own, cut by the current into the stone the way the first hand had cut it into the bark, and the valley, reading the water's own sentence in the water's own stone, understood that the covenant had never been written by the four houses, that the four houses had merely copied it from the water, and the water had been keeping it, in its own stone, since before the houses had names. The third stone was set beside the first two at the seaward field, and the three stones made the gate's full reading, the first leaf, the fourth coast's commentary, and the water's own, and the three together said the same thing, and the same thing was the whole of the law, that the water is free and the gate is the keeping of it and the keeping is the four coasts and the four coasts are the water's own, and the water's own, the valley understood, reading the three stones together, was the four coasts, because the four coasts had been keeping the water's sentence since before they had known they were four, and the not knowing had been the water's own joke, the way a river laughs at the bridge that believes it controls the flow, and the four coasts, discovering themselves to be the water's own, laughed with it, and the laughter was the third century's first free sound, and the free sound was the keeping, and the keeping was the laughter, and the laughter went on. The fourth coast's keeper, who was the girl of sixteen grown now to a woman, said at the feast that the water had always been keeping itself, and the four houses had been, in the whole long history of the keeping, the water's own hands, and the hands had been doing the water's own work, and the work was the gate, and the gate was the free water, and the free water was the sentence, and the sentence was the water's own, and the water's own was the four coasts, and the four coasts, being the water's own hands, were also the water's own keepers, and the keepers were the kept, and the kept were the keepers, and the whole of it was the water's own, and the water's own was the whole of it, and the keeping of it was the whole of the sea's round, and the sea's round was the sentence, and the sentence was the water, and the water was free, and the free was the gate, and the gate was open, and the three stones held it, and the three stones were the whole of the keeping, and the keeping went on, in the water's own time, forever. The water's own stones were three at the seaward field after the flood, and the third stone, the water's own, was the plainest proof the keeping had ever had that the sentence had preceded the houses, that the covenant had preceded the gates, that the free water had preceded the keepers, and that the whole apparatus of the first and second centuries, the suits and the deeds and the courts and the registers and the rounds, had been the brief scaffolding of a people learning to hold up a sentence the water had already written, and the holding up had been the keeping, and the keeping had been the learning, and the learning had been the whole of the two centuries, and the third century, holding up the water's own stone, had finished the learning and could let the scaffolding go. The letting go was the settling, and the settling was the third century's whole work, and the work was done at the seaward field on the morning the valley laid the third stone beside the first two and did not read the sentence aloud, because the sentence was no longer something to be read, it was something to be heard, and the water was speaking it, and the four coasts stood at the field and heard it, and the hearing was the reading, and the reading was the hearing, and the two were the same thing at last, the sentence spoken by the water and heard by the coast, the covenant written by the water and held by the houses, the free water running through the gate and the gate standing open and the open being the whole of the law, and the law being the water's own, and the water's own being the four coasts, and the four coasts being free, and the free being the settling, and the settling going on, in the water's own time, forever. The girl of the fourth coast, grown to a woman and keeper in her turn, came to the seaward field in the year of the third stone and said the plain thing the valley had been learning all century, that a sentence that has become the water's own no longer needs the keepers' voices, that the water speaks it to itself and the coasts hear it the way coasts hear their own weather, without ceremony and without the reopening of any book, and the hearing was the settling, and the settling was the recognition, and the recognition was the whole of the third century, and the whole of the third century was the water's own, and the water's own was the four coasts, and the four coasts were the free water, and the free water was the sentence, and the sentence was the water, and the water was the keeping, and the keeping was the settling, and the settling was the living, and the living was the whole of the law, ordinary, unhurried, at the gate, in the open, on the low, with both hands, in the water's own time, forever.