"
"Even so it was, lady," said Redhead; "but, as thou wottest belike, she had
got it spread abroad that she was cunning in sorcery, and that her spell
would not end when her life ended; nay, that he to whom her ghost should
bear ill-will, and more especially such an one as might compass her death,
should have but an ill time of it while he lived, which should not be long.
This tale, which, sooth to say, I myself helped to spread, the Lord
of Utterbol trowed in wholly, so cunningly was it told; so that, to make
a long story short, he feared her, and feared her more dead than living.
So that when he came home, and found thee gone, lady, he did indeed
deem that thy flight was of Agatha's contrivance. And this the more
because his nephew (he whom thou didst beguile; I partly guess how)
told him a made-up tale how all was done by the spells of Agatha.
For this youth was of all men, not even saving his uncle, most full of malice;
and he hated Agatha, and would have had her suffer the uttermost of torments
and he to be standing by the while; howbeit his malice overshot itself,
since his tale made her even more of a witch than the lord deemed before."
"Yea," said Ursula, "and what hath befallen that evil
young man, Captain?" Said Redhead: "It is not known
to many, lady; but two days before the slaying of his uncle,
I met him in a wood a little way from Utterbol, and, the mood
being on me I tied him neck and heels and cast him, with a stone
round his neck, into a deep woodland pool hight the Ram's Bane,
which is in that same wood.
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