There he bade them sit, and brought them victual, to wit,
cheese and goats' milk and bread, and they fell to speech concerning
the woodland ways, and the seasons, and other unweighty matters.
But as for the old man he spoke but few words, and as one
unused to speech, albeit he was courteous and debonair.
But when they had eaten and drunk he spake to them and said:
"Ye have sought to me because ye would find the Well at the World's End,
and would have lore of me concerning the road thereto; but before I tell
you what ye would, let me know what ye know thereof already."
Quoth Ralph: "For me, little enough I know, save that I must
come to the Rock of the Fighting Man, and that thou knowest
the way thither."
"And thou, damsel," quoth the long-hoary, "what knowest thou?
Must I tell thee of the way through the mountains and the Wall
of the World, and the Winter Valley, and the Folk Innocent,
and the Cot on the Way, and the Forest of Strange Things
and the Dry Tree?"
"Nay," she said, "of all this I wot somewhat, but it may be not enough."
Said the Sage: "Even so it was with me, when a many years ago
I dwelt nigh to Swevenham, and folk sought to me for lore,
and I told them what I knew; but maybe it was not enough, for they
never came back; but died belike or ever they had seen the Well.
And then I myself, when I was gotten very old, fared thither
a-seeking it, and I found it; for I was one of those who bore
the chaplet of the seekers.
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