Ralph Cometh Out of the Wilderness
Long he stood letting these thoughts run through his mind, but at last
when it was now midmorning, he stirred and gat him slowly down the
green slope, and for very pity of himself the tears brake out from him
as he crossed the stream and came into the bushy valley. There he
stayed his feet a little, and said to himself: "And whither then am I
going?" He thought of the Castle of Abundance and the Champions of the
Dry Tree, of Higham, and the noble warriors who sat at the Lord Abbot's
board, and of Upmeads and his own folk: but all seemed naught to him,
and he thought: "And how can I go back and bear folk asking me
curiously of my wayfarings, and whether I will do this, that, or the
other thing." Withal he thought of that fair damsel and her sweet mouth
in the hostelry at Bourton Abbas, and groaned when he thought of love
and its ending, and he said within himself: "and now she is a wanderer
about the earth as I am;" and he thought of her quest, and the chaplet
of dame Katherine, his gossip, which he yet bore on his neck, and he
deemed that he had naught to choose but to go forward and seek that he
was doomed to; and now it seemed to him that there was that one thing
to do and no other. And though this also seemed to him but weariness
and grief, yet whereas he had ever lightly turned him to doing what
work lay ready to hand; so now he knew that he must first of all get
him out of that wilderness, that he might hear the talk of folk
concerning the Well at the World's End, which he doubted not to hear
again when he came into the parts inhabited.
So now, with his will or without it, his feet bore him on, and he
followed up the stream which the Lady had said ran into the broad river
called the Swelling Flood; "for," thought he, "when I come thereabout I
shall presently find some castle or good town, and it is like that
either I shall have some tidings of the folk thereof, or else they will
compel me to do something, and that will irk me less than doing deeds
of mine own will."
He went his ways till he came to where the wood and the trees ended,
and the hills were lower and longer, well grassed with short grass, a
down country fit for the feeding of sheep; and indeed some sheep he
saw, and a shepherd or two, but far off. At last, after he had left
the stream awhile, because it seemed to him to turn and wind round over
much to the northward, he came upon a road running athwart the down
country, so that he deemed that it must lead one way down to the
Swelling Flood; so he followed it up, and after a while began to fall
in with folk; and first two Companions armed and bearing long swords
over their shoulders: he stopped as they met, and stared at them in the
face, but answered not their greeting; and they had no will to meddle
with him, seeing his inches and that he was well armed, and looked no
craven: so they went on.
Next he came on two women who had with them an ass between two
panniers, laden with country stuff; and they were sitting by the
wayside, one old and the other young. He made no stay for them, and
though he turned his face their way, took no heed of them more than if
they were trees; though the damsel, who was well-liking and somewhat
gaily clad, stood up when she saw his face anigh, and drew her gown
skirt about her and moved daintily, and sighed and looked after him as
he went on, for she longed for him.
Yet again came two men a-horseback, merchants clad goodly, with three
carles, their servants, riding behind them; and all these had weapons
and gave little more heed to him than he to them. But a little after
they were gone, he stopped and said within himself: "Maybe I had better
have gone their way, and this road doubtless leadeth to some place of
resort."
But even therewith he heard horsehoofs behind him, and anon came up a
man a-horseback, armed with jack and sallet, a long spear in his hand,
and budgets at his saddle-bow, who looked like some lord's man going a
message. He nodded to Ralph, who gave him good-day; for seeing these
folk and their ways had by now somewhat amended his mind; and now he
turned not, but went on as before.
At last the way clomb a hill longer and higher than any he had yet
crossed, and when he had come to the brow and looked down, he saw the
big river close below running through the wide valley which he had
crossed with Roger on that other day. Then he sat down on the green
bank above the way, so heavy of heart that not one of the things he saw
gave him any joy, and the world was naught to him. But within a while
he came somewhat to himself, and, looking down toward the river, he saw
that where the road met it, it was very wide, and shallow withal, for
the waves rippled merrily and glittered in the afternoon sun, though
there was no wind; moreover the road went up white from the water on
the other side, so he saw clearly that this was the ford of a highway.
The valley was peopled withal: on the other side of the river was a
little thorp, and there were carts and sheds scattered about the hither
side, and sheep and neat feeding in the meadows, and in short it was
another world from the desert.