The Well at the Worlds End | Page 6

slay them. "For," said he, "it is with these men
as with others, that they make prey of folk; yet these for the more part
prey on the rich, and the lawful prey on the poor. Otherwise it is with
these wolfheads as with lords and knights and franklins, that as there be
bad amongst them, so also there be good; and the good ones I happed
on, and so may another man."
Hereto paid Ralph little heed at that time, since he had heard the tale
and its morality before, and that more than once; and moreover his
mind was set upon his own matters and these was he pondering. Albeit
perchance the words abode with him. So came they to the House, and
Ralph's mother, who was a noble dame, and well-liking as for her years,
which were but little over fifty, stood in the hall-door to see which of
her sons should come back to her, and when she saw them coming
together, she went up to them, and cast her arms about Ralph and
kissed him and caressed him-- being exceeding glad that it was he and
not one of the others who had returned to dwell with them; for he was

her best-beloved, as was little marvel, seeing that he was by far the
fairest and the most loving. But Ralph's face grew troubled again in his
mother's arms, for he loved her exceeding well; and forsooth he loved
the whole house and all that dwelt there, down to the turnspit dogs in
the chimney ingle, and the swallows that nested in the earthen bottles,
which when he was little he had seen his mother put up in the eaves of
the out-bowers: but now, love or no love, the spur was in his side, and
he must needs hasten as fate would have him. However, when he had
disentangled himself from his mother's caresses, he enforced himself to
keep a cheerful countenance, and upheld it the whole evening through,
and was by seeming merry at supper, and went to bed singing.
CHAPTER 3
Ralph Cometh to the Cheaping-Town
He slept in an upper chamber in a turret of the House, which chamber
was his own, and none might meddle with it. There the next day he
awoke in the dawning, and arose and clad himself, and took his
wargear and his sword and spear, and bore all away without doors to
the side of the Ford in that ingle of the river, and laid it for a while in a
little willow copse, so that no chance-comer might see it; then he went
back to the stable of the House and took his destrier from the stall (it
was a dapple-grey horse called Falcon, and was right good,) and
brought him down to the said willow copse, and tied him to a tree till
he had armed himself amongst the willows, whence he came forth
presently as brisk-looking and likely a man-at-arms as you might see
on a summer day. Then he clomb up into the saddle, and went his ways
splashing across the ford, before the sun had arisen, while the
throstle-cocks were yet amidst their first song.
Then he rode on a little trot south away; and by then the sun was up he
was without the bounds of Upmeads; albeit in the land thereabout dwelt
none who were not friends to King Peter and his sons: and that was
well, for now were folk stirring and were abroad in the fields; as a band
of carles going with their scythes to the hay-field; or a maiden with her
milking-pails going to her kine, barefoot through the seeding grass; or a

company of noisy little lads on their way to the nearest pool of the
stream that they might bathe in the warm morning after the warm night.
All these and more knew him and his armour and Falcon his horse, and
gave him the sele of the day, and he was nowise troubled at meeting
them; for besides that they thought it no wonder to meet one of the
lords of Upmeads going armed about his errands, their own errands
were close at home, and it was little likely that they should go that day
so far as to Upmeads Water, seeing that it ran through the meadows a
half-score miles to the north-ward.
So Ralph rode on, and came into the high road, that led one way back
again into Upmeads, and crossed the Water by a fair bridge late builded
between King Peter and a house of Canons on the north side, and the
other way into a good cheaping-town hight Wulstead, beyond which
Ralph knew little of the world which lay to the south, and seemed to
him a wondrous