The Fellowship Comes to Whiteness
Two days thereafter the chapmen having done with their matters in
Cheaping Knowe, whereas they must needs keep some of their wares for
other places, and especially for Goldburg, they dight them to be gone
and rode out a-gates of a mid-morning with banners displayed.
It was some fifty miles thence to Whiteness, which lay close underneath
the mountains, and was, as it were, the door of the passes whereby men
rode to Goldburg. The land which they passed through was fair, both of
tillage and pasture, with much cattle therein. Everywhere they saw men
and women working afield, but no houses of worthy yeomen or vavassors,
or cots of good husbandmen. Here and there was a castle or
strong-house, and here and there long rows of ugly hovels, or whiles
houses, big tall and long, but exceeding foul and ill-favoured, such as
Ralph had not yet seen the like of. And when he asked of Clement
concerning all this, he said: "It is as I have told thee, that here be
no freemen who work afield, nay, nor villeins either. All those whom
ye have seen working have been bought and sold like to those whom we
saw standing on the Stone in the market of Cheaping Knowe, or else were
born of such cattle, and each one of them can be bought and sold again,
and they work not save under the whip. And as for those hovels and the
long and foul houses, they are the stables wherein this kind of cattle
is harboured."
Then Ralph's heart sank, and he said: "Master Clement, I prithee tell
me; were it possible that the damsel whom I seek may be come to such a
pass as one of these?" "Nay," quoth Clement, "that is little like to
be; such goodly wares are kept for the adornment of great men's houses.
True it is that whiles the house-thralls be sent into the fields for
their punishment; yet not such as she, unless the master be wholly
wearied of them, or if their wrath outrun their wits; for it is more to
the master's profit to chastise them at home; so keep a good heart I
bid thee, and maybe we shall have tidings at Whiteness."
So Ralph refrained his anxious heart, though forsooth his thought was
much upon the damsel and of how she was faring.
It was not till the third day at sunset that they came to Whiteness;
for on the last day of their riding they came amongst the confused
hills that lay before the great mountains, which were now often hidden
from their sight; but whenever they appeared through the openings of
the near hills, they seemed very great and terrible; dark and bare and
stony; and Clement said that they were little better than they looked
from afar. As to Whiteness, they saw it a long way off, as it lay on a
long ridge at the end of a valley: and so long was the ridge, that
behind it was nothing green; naught but the huge and bare mountains.
The westering sun fell upon its walls and its houses, so that it looked
white indeed against those great cliffs and crags; though, said
Clement, that these were yet a good way off. Now when, after a long
ride from the hither end of the valley, they drew nigh to the town,
Ralph saw that the walls and towers were not very high or strong, for
so steep was the hill whereon the town stood, that it needed not. Here
also was no great castle within the town as at Cheaping Knowe, and the
town itself nothing so big, but long and straggling along the top of
the ridge. Cheaping Knowe was all builded of stone; but the houses
here were of timber for the most part, done over with pargeting and
whitened well. Yet was the town more cheerful of aspect than Cheaping
Knowe, and the folk who came thronging about the chapmen at the gates
not so woe-begone, and goodly enough.
Of the lord of Whiteness, Clement told that he paid tribute to him of
Cheaping Knowe, rather for love of peace than for fear of him; for he
was no ill lord, and free men lived well under him.
So the chapmen lodged in the market-place; and in two days time Ralph
got speech of the Deacon of the Chapmen of the Town; who told him two
matters; first that the lord of Utterbol had not been in Whiteness
these six months; and next that the wild man had verily brought the
damsel into the market; but he had turned away thence suddenly with
her, without bringing her to the stone, and that it was most like that
he would have the lord of Utterbol buy her; who, since he would be
deeming that he might easily bend her to his will, would give him the
better penny for her. "At the last," quoth the Deacon, "the wild man
led her away toward the mountain pass that goeth to Goldburg, the
damsel and he alone, and she with her hands unbound and riding a little
horse." Of these tidings Ralph deemed it good that all traces of her
were not lost; but his heart misgave him when he thought that by this
time she must surely be in the hands of the lord of Utterbol.