"
He laughed gaily and said: "What! is it all so soon forgotten,
our deeds beyond the Mountains? Belike because we had no minstrel
to rhyme it for us. Or is it all but a dream? and has the last
pass of the mountains changed all that for us? What then! hast
thou never become my beloved, nor lain in one bed with me?
Thou whom I looked to deliver from the shame and the torment
of Utterbol, never didst thou free thyself without my helping,
and meet me in the dark wood, and lead me to the Sage who rideth
yonder behind us! No, nor didst thou ride fearless with me,
leaving the world behind; nor didst thou comfort me when my
heart went nigh to breaking in the wilderness! Nor thee did I
deliver as I saw thee running naked from the jaws of death.
Nor were we wedded in the wilderness far from our own folk.
Nor didst thou deliver me from the venom of the Dry Tree.
Yea verily, nor did we drink together of the Water of the Well!
It is all but tales of Swevenham, a blue vapour hanging on
the mountains yonder! So be it then! And here we ride together,
deedless, a man and a maid of whom no tale may be told.
What next then, and who shall sunder us?"
Therewith he drew his sword from the sheath, and tossed it into the air,
and caught it by the hilts as it came down, and he cried out:
"Hearken, Ursula! By my sword I swear it, that when I come home to
the little land, if my father and my mother and all my kindred fall not
down before thee and worship thee, then will I be a man without kindred,
and I will turn my back on the land I love, and the House wherein I was born,
and will win for thee and me a new kindred that all the world shall tell of.
Pages:
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611