"
"Where be the bale-fires?" said Ralph, not yet fully awake.
"Where be they!" said the brother, "where be they! They be sunken
to cold coals long ago, like many a man's desires and hopes,
who hath not yet laid his head on the bosom of the mother,
that is Holy Church. Come, my lord, arise, and drink
the monk's wine of morning, and then if ye must need ride,
ride betimes, and ride hard; for the Wood Perilous beginneth
presently as ye wend your ways; and it were well for thee
to reach the Burg of the Four Friths ere thou be benighted.
For, son, there be untoward things in the wood; and though
some of them be of those for whom Christ's Cross was shapen,
yet have they forgotten hell, and hope not for heaven,
and their by-word is, 'Thou shalt lack ere I lack.'
Furthermore there are worse wights in the wood than they be--
God save us!--but against them have I a good hauberk,
a neck-guard which I will give thee, son, in token that I look
to see thee again at the lovely house of Mary our Mother."
Ralph had taken the bowl and was drinking, but he looked over
the brim, and saw how the monk drew from his frock a pair of beads,
as like to Dame Katherine's gift as one pea to another,
save that at the end thereof was a little box shapen crosswise.
Ralph emptied the bowl hastily, got out of bed, and sat on
the bed naked, save that on his neck was Dame Katherine's gift.
He reached out his hand and took the beads from the monk and reddened
therewith, as was his wont when he had to begin a contest in words:
but he said:
"I thank thee, father; yet God wot if these beads will lie
sweetly alongside the collar which I bear on my neck as now,
which is the gift of a dear friend.
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