For I can see in thine eyes and thy gait, and in thine also,
maiden, that ye have drunk of the Well at the World's End.
Therefore I pray you gently and heartily that ye come home
with me to Utterbol."
Ralph shook his head, and answered: "Lord of Utterbol,
I bid thee all thanks for thy friendliness, but it may not be."
"But take note," said Bull, "that all is changed there, and it hath
become a merry dwelling of men. We have cast down the Red Pillar,
and the White and the Black also; and it is no longer a place of torment
and fear, and cozening and murder; but the very thralls are happy
and free-spoken. Now come ye, if it were but for a moon's wearing:
I shall be there in eight days' time. Yea, Lord Ralph, thou would'st
see old acquaintance there withal: for when I slew the tyrant,
who forsooth owed me no less than his life for the murder
of my brother, I made atonement to his widow, and wedded her:
a fair woman as thou wottest, lord, and of good kindred, and of no
ill conditions, as is well seen now that she lives happy days.
Though I have heard say that while she was under the tyrant she
was somewhat rough with her women when she was sad. Eh, fair sir!
but is it not so that she cast sheep's eyes on thee, time was,
in this same dale?"
Ralph reddened and answered naught; and Bull spake again, laughing:
"Yea, so it is: she told me that much herself, and afterwards I heard more
from her damsel Agatha, who told me the merry tale of that device they made
to catch thee, and how thou brakest through the net.
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