At last he said: "Well, so be it for this adventure. Only I say
not that I shall give up this hermitage and my holiness for ever.
Come thou aside, wise man of Swevenham, and I shall tell thee wherefore."
"Yea," said Ralph, laughing, "and when he hath told thee, tell me not again;
for sure I am that he is right to go with us, and belike shall be wrong
in his reason therefore."
Roger looked a little askance at him, and he went without doors
with the Sage, and when they were out of earshot, he said to him:
"Hearken, I would have gone with my lord at the first word, and have
been fain thereof; but there is this woman that followeth him.
At every turn she shall mind me of our Lady that was; and I shall
loath her, and her fairness and the allurements of her body,
because I see of her, that she it is that hath gotten my Lady's luck,
and that but for her my Lady might yet have been alive."
Said the Sage: "Well quoth my lord that thou wouldst give me
a fool's reason! What! dost not thou know, thou that knowest so much
of the Lady of Abundance, that she it was who ordained this Ursula
to be Ralph's bedmate, when she herself should be gone from him,
were she dead or alive, and that she also should be a Friend
of the Well, so that he might not lack a fellow his life long?
But this thou sayest, not knowing the mind of our Lady, and how she
loved him in her inmost heart."
Roger hung his head and spake not for a while, and then he said:
"Well, wise man, I have said that I will go on this adventure,
and I will smooth my tongue for this while at least, and for what
may come hereafter, let it be.
Pages:
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655