"
David drew up close to him, and said softly: "Nigher? Yea, but belike
not so much nigher."
"How meanest thou?" said Ralph.
Said David: "Is it so nigh that a man may leave home and come
thereto in his life-time?"
"Yea," said Ralph, "in my tales it is."
Said the old man still softlier: "Had I deemed that true I had
tried the adventure, whatever might lie beyond the mountains, but
(and he sighed withal) I deem it untrue."
Therewith dropped the talk of that matter: and in sooth Ralph was
loath to make many words thereof, lest his eagerness shine through,
and all the story of him be known.
Anon it was noon, and the lord bade all men stay for meat:
so his serving men busied them about his dinner, and David went with them.
Then the men-at-arms bade Ralph sit among them and share their meat.
So they sat down all by the wayside, and they spake kindly and friendly
to Ralph, and especially their captain, a man somewhat low of stature,
but long-armed like the Lord, a man of middle age, beardless and spare
of body, but wiry and tough-looking, with hair of the hue of the dust
of the sandstone quarry. This man fell a-talking with Ralph, and asked
him of the manner of tilting and courteous jousting between knights
in the countries of knighthood, till that talk dropped between them.
Then Ralph looked round upon the land, which had now worsened again,
and was little better than rough moorland, little fed, and not at all tilled,
and he said: "This is but a sorry land for earth's increase.
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