hast me there; and whether
or no, these tales are nothing to us, who shall never leave Utterbol
again while we live, save in such a company as this." Then he held his
peace, but presently spake again: "Hast thou heard anything, then, of
those tales of the Well at the World's End? I mean others beside that
concerning the lord of Goldburg?"

"Yea, surely I have," said Ralph, nowise changing countenance. Said
David: "Deemest thou aught of them? deemest thou that it may be true
that a man may drink of the Well and recover his youth thereby?"

Ralph laughed and said: "Master, it is rather for me to ask thee
hereof, than thou me, since thou dwellest so much nigher thereto than I
have done heretofore."

David drew up close to him, and said softly: "Nigher? Yea, but belike
not so much nigher."

"How meanest thou?" said Ralph.

Said David: "Is it so nigh that a man may leave home and come thereto
in his life-time?"

"Yea," said Ralph, "in my tales it is."

Said the old man still softlier: "Had I deemed that true I had tried
the adventure, whatever might lie beyond the mountains, but (and he
sighed withal) I deem it untrue."

Therewith dropped the talk of that matter: and in sooth Ralph was
loath to make many words thereof, lest his eagerness shine through, and
all the story of him be known.

Anon it was noon, and the lord bade all men stay for meat: so his
serving men busied them about his dinner, and David went with them.
Then the men-at-arms bade Ralph sit among them and share their meat.
So they sat down all by the wayside, and they spake kindly and friendly
to Ralph, and especially their captain, a man somewhat low of stature,
but long-armed like the Lord, a man of middle age, beardless and spare
of body, but wiry and tough-looking, with hair of the hue of the dust
of the sandstone quarry. This man fell a-talking with Ralph, and asked
him of the manner of tilting and courteous jousting between knights in
the countries of knighthood, till that talk dropped between them. Then
Ralph looked round upon the land, which had now worsened again, and was
little better than rough moorland, little fed, and not at all tilled,
and he said: "This is but a sorry land for earth's increase."

"Well," said the captain, "I wot not; it beareth plover and whimbrel
and conies and hares; yea, and men withal, some few. And whereas it
beareth naught else, that cometh of my lord's will: for deemest thou
that he should suffer