But there is this for thy comfort, that whereas she is so fair a woman,
she will be well with my lord. For I warrant me that she will not dare
to be proud with him, as she was with the folk here."
"Yea," said Ralph, "and what is this lord of Utterbol that
all folk, men and women, fear him so?" Said the merchant:
"Fair sir, thou must pardon me if I say no more of him.
Belike thou mayst fall in with him; and if thou dost,
take heed that thou make not thyself great with him."
So Ralph thanked the merchant and departed with Clement, of whom presently
he asked if he knew aught of this lord of Utterbol. Said Clement:
"God forbid that I should ever meet him, save where I were many and he few.
I have never seen him; but he is deemed by all men as the worst of the tyrants
who vex these lands, and, maybe, the mightiest."
So was Ralph sore at heart for the damsel, and anon he spake
to Bull again of her, who deemed somewhat, that his kinsman had
been minded at the first to sell her to the lord of Utterbol.
And Ralph thinks his game a hard one, yet deems that if he could
but find out where the damsel was, he might deliver her,
what by sleight, what by boldness.
CHAPTER 25
The Fellowship Comes to Whiteness
Two days thereafter the chapmen having done with their matters
in Cheaping Knowe, whereas they must needs keep some of
their wares for other places, and especially for Goldburg,
they dight them to be gone and rode out a-gates of a mid-morning
with banners displayed.
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