"So that without more ado I took the road to Utterbol,
and wheresoever I came, I had what was to be had that I would;
neither did any man fall on me, or on my lion. For though they
might have shot him or slain him with many spear-thrusts, yet
besides that they feared him sorely, they feared me still more;
deeming me some mighty sending from their Gods.
"Thus came I to Utterness, and found it poor and wretched,
(as forsooth, it yet is, but shall not be so for long). But
the House of Utterbol is exceeding fair and stately (as thou
mightest have learned from others, my master,) and its gardens,
and orchards, and acres, and meadows as goodly as may be.
Yea, a very paradise; yet the dwellers therein as if it were hell,
as I saw openly with mine own eyes.
"To be short, the fame of me and my beast had somehow gone before me, and when
I came to the House, I was dealt with fairly, and had good entertainment:
and this all the more, as the Lord was away for a while, and the life
of folk not so hard by a great way as it had been if he had been there:
but the Lady was there in the house, and on the morrow of my coming by
her command, I brought my lion before her window and made him come and go,
and fetch and carry at my bidding, and when I had done my play she bade me up
into her bower, and bade me sit and had me served with wine, while she asked
me many questions as to my country and friends, and whence and whither I was;
and I answered her with the very sooth, so far as the sooth was handy;
and there was with her but one of her women, even thy friend Agatha, fair sir.
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