Dwelt Thereby
Chapter II. Of Wethermel and the Child Osberne
Chapter III. Wolves Harry the Flock
Chapter IV. Surly John Falls Out with the Goodman
Chapter V. Osberne Slays the Wolves
Chapter VI. They Fare to the Cloven Mote
Chapter VII. Of a Newcomer, and His Gift to Osberne
Chapter VIII. The Goodman Gets a New Hired Man
Chapter IX. The Bight of the Cloven Knoll
Chapter X. Osberne and Elfhild Hold Converse Together
Chapter XI. Osberne Shoots a Gift Across the Flood
Chapter XII. Of a Guest Called Waywearer
Chapter XIII. Steelhead Gives Osberne the Sword Boardcleaver
Chapter XIV. The Gifts of Steelhead
Chapter XV. Surly John Brings a Guest to Wethermel
Chapter XVI. Hardcastle Would Seize Wethermel
Chapter XVII. The Slaying of Hardcastle
Chapter XVIII. Elfhild Hears of the Slaying
Chapter XIX. The Winter Passes and Elfhild Tells of the Death of Her
Kinswoman
Chapter XX. Osberne Fares to Eastcheaping and Brings Gifts for Elfhild
Chapter XXI. Warriors from Eastcheaping Ride into the Dale
Chapter XXII. Osberne Takes Leave of Elfhild
Chapter XXIII. Osberne Is Chosen Captain of the Dalesmen
Chapter XXIV. A Skirmish with the Baron of Deepdale in the Marshes
Chapter XXV. Stephen Tells of an Adventure in the Camp of the Foemen
Chapter XXVI. They Bring the Baron into Eastcheaping
Chapter XXVII. They Parley from the Walls
Chapter XXVIII. The Baron of Deepdale Makes Peace
Chapter XXIX. Osberne and His Men Return to Wethermel
Chapter XXX. Osberne Goes to the Trysting-Place
Chapter XXXI. They Meet Through Autumn and Winter
Chapter XXXII. Foemen Among the West Dalers
Chapter XXXIII. Osberne Seeks Tidings of Elfhild
Chapter XXXIV. Osberne Sorrows for the Loss of Elfhild
Chapter XXXV. Osberne Seeks Counsel of Steelhead
Chapter XXXVI. The Staves which Osberne Taught to the Dalesmen
Chapter XXXVII. Osberne Takes Leave of Wethermel
Chapter XXXVIII. Osberne Parts from Stephen the Eater
Chapter XXXIX. Osberne Gets Him a New Master
Chapter XL. Osberne Rides with Sir Godrick
Chapter XLI. They Joust with the Knight of the Fish
Chapter XLII. They Deliver the Thorp-Dwellers from the Black Skinners
Chapter XLIII. They Come to the Edge of the Wood Masterless
Chapter XLIV. They Reach Longshaw and Osberne Gets Him a New Name
Chapter XLV. The Red Lad Scatters the Host of the Barons
Chapter XLVI. Osberne Enters the City of the Sundering Flood
Chapter XLVII. The Battle in the Square
Chapter XLVIII. Sir Godrick Is Chosen Burgreve of the City
Chapter XLIX. Of the City King and the Outland King
Chapter L. The Red Lad Speaks Privily with Sir Godrick
Chapter LI. Osberne is Beguiled by Felons
Chapter LII. The Meeting of Osberne and Elfhild
Chapter LIII. Strangers Come to Wethermel
Chapter LIV. The Carline Beginneth Her Tale
Chapter LV. The Blue Knight Buys the Maiden of the Chapman
Chapter LVI. The Blue Knight Talks with the Maiden by the Way
Chapter LVII. They Come to Brookside
Chapter LVIII. Peaceful Days in the Castle of Brookside
Chapter LIX. Tidings of Longshaw and of the Hosting of the Barons'
League
Chapter LX. The Blue Knight Gathers Men and Departs from Brookside
Chapter LXI. The Maiden and the Carline Flee to the Grey Sisters
Chapter LXII. They Fall in with Three Chapmen
Chapter LXIII. They Escape from the Chapmen by the Carline's Wizardry
Chapter LXIV. The Carline Endeth Her Tale
Chapter LXV. Osberne and Elfhild Make Themselves Known to Their People
Chapter LXVI. The Lip of the Sundering Flood
Chapter LXVII. A Friend at Need
Chapter LXVIII. The Knight of Longshaw Gathereth Force
ILLUSTRATIONS
Map of the country of the Sundering Flood
THE SUNDERING FLOOD
Chapter I. Of a River Called the Sundering Flood, and of the Folk that
Dwelt Thereby
It is told that there was once a mighty river which ran south into the
sea, and at the mouth thereof was a great and rich city, which had
been builded and had waxed and thriven because of the great and most
excellent haven which the river aforesaid made where it fell into the
sea. And now it was like looking at a huge wood of barked and
smoothened fir-trees when one saw the masts of the ships that lay in
the said haven.
But up in this river ran the flood of tide a long way, so that the
biggest of dromonds and round-ships might fare up it, and oft they lay
amid pleasant up-country places, with their yards all but touching the
windows of the husbandman's stead, and their bowsprits thrusting forth
amongst the middens, and the routing swine, and querulous hens. And
the uneasy lads and lasses sitting at high-mass of the Sunday in the
grey church would see the tall masts amidst the painted saints of the
aisle windows, and their minds would wander from the mass-hackled
priest and the words and the gestures of him, and see visions of far
countries and outlandish folk, and some would be heart-smitten with
that desire of wandering and looking on new things which so oft the
sea-beat board and the wind-strained pine bear with them to the
dwellings of the stay-at-homes: and to some it seemed as if, when they
went from out the church, they should fall in with St. Thomas of India
stepping over the gangway, and come to visit their uplandish Christmas
and the Yule-feast of the field-abiders of midwinter frost. And
moreover, when the tide failed, and there was no longer a flood to
bear the sea-going keels up-stream (and that was hard on an hundred of
miles from the sea), yet was this great river a noble and
wide-spreading water, and the downlong stream thereof not so heavy nor
so fierce but that the barges and lesser keels might well spread their
sails when the south-west blew, and fare on without beating; or if the
wind were fouler for them, they that were loth to reach from shore to
shore might be tracked up by the draught of horses and bullocks, and
bear the wares of the merchants to many a cheaping.
Other rivers moreover not a few fell into this main flood, and of the
some were no lesser than the Thames is at Abingdon, where I, who
gathered this tale, dwell in the House of the Black Canons; blessed be
St. William, and St. Richard, and the Holy Austin our candle in the
dark! Yea and some were even bigger, so that the land was well
furnished both of fisheries and water-ways.
Now the name of this river was the Sundering Flood, and the city at
the mouth thereof was called the City of the Sundering Flood. And it
is no wonder, considering all that I have told concerning the wares
and chaffer that it bore up-country, though the folk of the City and
its lands (and the city-folk in special) knew no cause for this name.
Nay, oft they jested and gibed and gabbed, for they loved their river
much and were proud of it; wherefore they said it was no sunderer but
a uniter; that it joined land to land and shore to shore; that it had
peopled the wilderness and made the waste places blossom, and that no
highway for wheels and beasts in all the land was so full of blessings
and joys as was their own wet Highway of the Flood. Nevertheless, as
meseemeth that no name is given to any town or mountain or river
causeless, but that men are moved to name all steads for a remembrance
of deeds that have been done and tidings that have befallen, or some
due cause, even so might it well be with the Sundering Flood, and
whereas also I wot something of that cause I shall now presently show
you the same.
For ye must know that all this welfare of the said mighty river was
during that while that it flowed through the plain country anigh the
city, or the fertile pastures and acres of hill and dale and down
further to the north. But one who should follow it up further and
further would reach at last the place where it came forth from the
mountains. There, though it be far smaller than lower down, yet is it
still a mighty great water, and it is then well two hundred miles from
the main sea. Now from the mountains it cometh in three great forces,
and many smaller ones, and perilous and awful it is to behold; for
betwixt those forces it filleth all the mountain ghyll, and there is
no foothold for man, nay for goat, save at a hundred foot or more
above the water, and that evil and perilous; and as is the running of
a winter millstream to the beetles and shrew-mice that haunt the
greensward beside it, so is the running of that flood to the sons of
Adam and the beasts that serve them: and none has been so bold as to
strive to cast a bridge across it.
But when ye have journeyed with much toil and no little peril over the
mountain-necks (for by the gorge of the river, as aforesaid, no man
may go) and have come out of the mountains once more, then again ye
have the flood before you, cleaving a great waste of rocks mingled
with sand, where groweth neither tree nor bush nor grass; and now the
flood floweth wide and shallow but swift, so that no words may tell of
its swiftness, and on either side the water are great wastes of
tumbled stones that the spates have borne down from the higher ground.
And ye shall know that from this place upward to its very wells in the
higher mountains, the flood decreaseth not much in body or might,
though it be wider or narrower as it is shallower or deeper, for
nought but mere trickles of water fall into it in the space of this
sandy waste, and what feeding it hath is from the bents and hills on
either side as you wend toward the mountains to the north, where, as
aforesaid, are its chiefest wells.
Now when ye have journeyed over this waste for some sixty miles, the
land begins to better, and there is grass again, yet no trees, and it
rises into bents, which go back on each side, east and west, from the
Flood, and the said bents are grass also up to the tops, where they
are crested with sheer rocks black of colour. As for the Flood itself,
it is now gathered into straiter compass, and is deep, and exceeding
strong; high banks it hath on either side thereof of twenty foot and
upward of black rock going down sheer to the water; and thus it is for
a long way, save that the banks be higher and higher as the great
valley of the river rises toward the northern mountains.
But as it rises the land betters yet, and is well grassed, and in
divers nooks and crannies groweth small wood of birch and whiles of
quicken tree; but ever the best of the grass waxeth nigh unto the lips
of the Sundering Flood, where it rises a little from the Dale to the
water; and what little acre-land there is, and it is but little, is up
on knolls that lie nearer to the bent, and be turned somewhat
southward; or on the east side of the Flood (which runneth here nigh
due north to south), on the bent-side itself, where, as it windeth and
turneth, certain slopes lie turned to southwest. And in these places
be a few garths, fenced against the deer, wherein grow rye, and some
little barley whereof to make malt for beer and ale, whereas the folk
of this high-up windy valley may have no comfort of wine. And it is to
be said that ever is that land better and the getting more on the east
side of the Sundering Flood than on the west.
As to the folk of this land, they are but few even now, and belike
were fewer yet in the time of my tale. There was no great man amongst
them, neither King, nor Earl, nor Alderman, and it had been hard
living for a strong-thief in the Dale. Yet folk there were both on the
east side and the west of the Flood. On neither side were they utterly
cut off from the world outside the Dale; for though it were toilsome,
it was not perilous to climb the bents and so wend over the necks east
and west, where some forty miles from the west bank and fifty from the
east you might come down into a valley fairly well peopled, wherein
were two or three cheaping-towns: and to these towns the dalesmen had
some resort, that they might sell such of their wool as they needed
not to weave for themselves, and other small chaffer, so that they
might buy wrought wares such as cutlery and pots, and above all boards
and timber, whereof they had nought at home.
But this you must wot and understand, that howsoever the Sundering
Flood might be misnamed down below, up in the Dale and down away to
the southern mountains it was such that better named it might not be,
and that nought might cross its waters undrowned save the fowl flying.
Nay, and if one went up-stream to where it welled forth from the great
mountains, he were no nearer to passing from one side to the other,
for there would be nought before him but a wall of sheer rock, and
above that rent and tumbled crags, the safe strong-houses of erne and
osprey and gerfalcon. Wherefore all the dealings which the folk on the
east Dale and the west might have with each other was but shouting and
crying across the swirling and gurgling eddies of the black water,
which themselves the while seemed to be talking together in some dread
and unknown tongue.
True it is that on certain feast days and above all on Midsummer
night, the folk would pluck up a heart, and gather together as gaily
clad as might be where the Flood was the narrowest (save at one place,
whereof more hereafter), and there on each side would trundle the
fire-wheel, and do other Midsummer games, and make music of
string-play and horns, and sing songs of old time and drink to each
other, and depart at last to their own homes blessing each other. But
never might any man on the east touch the hand of any on the west,
save it were that by some strange wandering from the cheaping-towns
aforesaid they might meet at last, far and far off from the Dale of
the Sundering Flood.