"
"What!" said Ralph, "hast thou heard of something new?"
Said Clement: "There has been a man here seeking thee,
who said that he wotted of a wise man who could tell thee much
concerning the Well at the World's End. And when I asked him
of the Damsel and the Lord of Utterbol, if he knew anything of her,
he said yea, but that he would keep it for thy privy ear.
So I bade him go and come again when thou shouldst be here.
And I deem that he will not tarry long."
Now they were sitting on a bench outside the hall of the hostel,
with the court between them and the gate; and Ralph said:
"Tell me, didst thou deem the man good or bad?" Said Clement:
"He was hard to look into: but at least he looked not
a fierce or cruel man; nor indeed did he seem false or sly,
though I take him for one who hath lost his manhood--
but lo you! here he comes across the court."
So Ralph looked, and saw in sooth a man drawing nigh, who came
straight up to them and lowted to them, and then stood before
them waiting for their word: he was fat and somewhat short,
white-faced and pink-cheeked, with yellow hair long
and curling, and with a little thin red beard and blue eyes:
altogether much unlike the fashion of men of those parts.
He was clad gaily in an orange-tawny coat laced with silver,
and broidered with colours.
Clement spake to him and said: "This is the young knight
who is minded to seek further east to wot if it be mere lies
which he hath heard of the Well at the World's End.
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