Bethink thee, child, there are they that love thee in Upmeads
and thereabout, were it but thy gossip, my wife, dame Katherine."
Said Ralph: "Master Clement, I thank thee for all
that thou hast said, and thy behest, and thy deeds.
Thy rede is good, and in all ways will I follow it save one;
to wit, that if I have not found the damsel ere ye turn back,
I must needs abide in this land searching for her.
And I pray the pardon both of thee and of thy gossip, if I
answer not your love as ye would, and perchance as I should.
Yea, and of Upmeads also I crave pardon. But in doing as I do,
my deed shall be but according to the duty bounden on me
by mine oath, when Duke Osmond made me knight last year,
in the church of St. Laurence of Upmeads."
Said Clement: "I see that there is something else in it than that;
I see thee to be young, and that love and desire bind thee in closer bonds
than thy knightly oath. Well, so it must be, and till thou hast her,
there is but one woman in the world for thee."
"Nay, it is not so, Master Clement," said Ralph, "and I will tell
thee this, so that thou mayst trow my naysay; since I departed
from Upmeads, I have been taken in the toils of love, and desired
a fair woman, and I have won her and death hath taken her.
Trowest thou my word?"
"Yea," said Clement, "but to one of thy years love is not plucked up
by the root, and it soon groweth again." Then said Ralph, sadly:
"Now tell my gossip of this when thou comest home.
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