So at last she sat down quietly beside him, and fell to speaking to him,
as a tale is told in the ingle nook on an even of Yule-tide.
CHAPTER 3
The Lady Telleth Ralph of the Past Days of Her Life
"Now shalt thou hear of me somewhat more than the arras and the book
could tell thee; and yet not all, for time would fail us therefor--
and moreover my heart would fail me. I cannot tell where I was
born nor of what lineage, nor of who were my father and mother;
for this I have known not of myself, nor has any told me.
But when I first remember anything, I was playing about a garden,
wherein was a little house built of timber and thatched with reed,
and the great trees of the forest were all about the garden save
for a little croft which was grown over with high grass and another
somewhat bigger, wherein were goats. There was a woman at the door
of the house and she spinning, yet clad in glittering raiment,
and with jewels on her neck and fingers; this was the first thing
that I remember, but all as it were a matter of every day,
and use and wont, as it goes with the memories of children.
Of such matters I will not tell thee at large, for thou
knowest how it will be. Now the woman, who as I came to know
was neither old nor young in those days, but of middle age,
I called mother; but now I know that she was not my mother.
She was hard and stern with me, but never beat me in those days,
save to make me do what I would not have done unbeaten; and as to
meat I ate and drank what I could get, as she did, and indeed was
well-fed with simple meats as thou mayest suppose from the aspect
of me to-day.
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