"
Thus she went on, though the damsel was long out of ear-shot of her curses;
and Ralph tarried not to get away from her spiteful babble, which he now
partly understood; and that all those yellow-clad damsels were thralls
to the folk of the Burg; and belike were of the kindred of those captives
late-taken whom he had seen amidst the host at its entering into the Burg.
So he wandered away thence thinking on what he should do till
the sun was set, and he had come into the open space underneath
the walls, and had gone along it till he came to the East Gate:
there he looked around him a little and found people flowing
back from the Great Place, whereto they had gathered to see
the host mustered and the spoil blessed; then he went on still
under the wall, and noted not that here and there a man turned
about to look upon him curiously, for he was deep in thought,
concerning the things which he had seen and heard of,
and pondered much what might have befallen his brethren since they
sundered at the Want-way nigh to the High House of Upmeads.
Withal the chief thing that he desired was to get him away
from the Burg, for he felt himself unfree therein; and he said
to himself that if he were forced to dwell among this folk,
that he had better never have stolen himself away from his
father and mother; and whiles even he thought that he would do
his best on the morrow to get him back home to Upmeads again.
But then when he thought of how his life would go in his old home,
there seemed to him a lack, and when he questioned himself
as to what that lack was, straightway he seemed to see that Lady
of the Wildwood standing before the men-at-arms in her scanty raiment
the minute before his life was at adventure because of them.
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