世界尽头的那口井-CHAPTER 2 They Hear New Tidings of Utterbol
It was on a fair evening of later autumn-tide that they won their way
out of the Gates of the Mountains, and came under the rock of the
Fighting Man. There they kissed and comforted each other in memory of
the terror and loneliness wherewith they had entered the Mountains that
other time; though, sooth to say, it was to them now like the reading
of sorrow in a book.
But when they came out with joyful hearts into the green plain betwixt
the mountains and the River of Lava, they looked westward, and beheld
no great way off a little bower or cot, builded of boughs and rushes by
a blackthorn copse; and as they rode toward it they saw a man come
forth therefrom, and presently saw that he was hoary, a man with a long
white beard. Then Ralph gave a glad cry, and set spurs to his horse
and galloped over the plain; for he deemed that it could be none other
than the Sage of Swevenham; and Ursula came pricking after him laughing
for joy. The old man abode their coming, and Ralph leapt off his horse
at once, and kissed and embraced him; but the Sage said: "There is no
need to ask thee of tidings; for thine eyes and thine whole body tell
me that thou hast drunk of the Well at the World's End. And that shall
be better for thee belike than it has been for me; though for me also
the world has not gone ill after my fashion since I drank of that
water."
Then was Ursula come up, and she also lighted down and made much of the
Sage. But he said: "Hail, daughter! It is sweet to see thee so, and
to wot that thou art in the hands of a mighty man: for I know that
Ralph thy man is minded for his Father's House, and the deeds that
abide him there; and I think we may journey a little way together; for
as for me, I would go back to Swevenham to end my days there, whether
they be long or short."
But Ralph said: "As for that, thou mayst go further than Swevenham,
and as far as Upmeads, where there will be as many to love and cherish
thee as at Swevenham."
The old man laughed a little, and reddened withal, but answered nothing.
Then they untrussed their sumpter-beast, and took meat and drink from
his burden, and they ate and drank together, sitting on the green grass
there; and the twain made great joy of the Sage, and told him the whole
tale; and he told them that he had been abiding there since the
spring-tide, lest they might have turned back without accomplishing
their quest, and then may-happen he should have been at hand to comfort
them, or the one of them left, if so it had befallen. "But," quoth he,
"since ye have verily drunk of the Well at the World's End, ye have
come back no later than I looked for you."
That night they slept in the bower there, and on the morrow betimes,
the Sage drove together three or four milch goats that he pastured
there, and went their ways over the plain, and so in due time entered
into the lava-sea. But the first night that they lay there, though it
was moonless and somewhat cloudy, they saw no glare of the distant
earth-fires which they had looked for; and when on the morrow they
questioned the Sage thereof, he said: "The Earth-fires ceased about the
end of last year, as I have heard tell. But sooth it is that the
foreboding of the Giant's Candle was not for naught. For there hath
verily been a change of masters at Utterbol."
"Yea," said Ralph, "for better or worse?"
Said the Sage: "It could scarce have been for worse; but if rumour
runneth right it is much for the better. Hearken how I learned
thereof. One fair even of late March, a little before I set off
hither, as I was sitting before the door of my house, I saw the glint
of steel through the wood, and presently rode up a sort of knights and
men-at-arms, about a score; and at the head of them a man on a big
red-roan horse, with his surcoat blazoned with a white bull on a green
field: he was a man black-haired, but blue-eyed; not very big, but well
knit and strong, and looked both doughty and knightly; and he wore a
gold coronet about his basnet: so not knowing his blazonry, I wondered
who it was that durst be so bold as to ride in the lands of the Lord of
Utterbol. Now he rode up to me and craved a drink of milk, for he had
seen my goats; so I milked two goats for him, and brought whey for the
others, whereas I had no more goats in milk at that season. So the
bull-knight spake to me about the woodland, and wherefore I dwelt there
apart from others; somewhat rough in his speech he was, yet rather
jolly than fierce; and he thanked me for the bever kindly enough, and
said: "I deem that it will not avail to give thee money; but I shall
give thee what may be of avail to thee. Ho, Gervaise! give me one of
those scrolls!" So a squire hands him a parchment and he gave it me,
and it was a safe-conduct to the bearer from the Lord of Utterbol; but
whereas I saw that the seal bore not the Bear on the Castle-wall, but
the Bull, and that the superscription was unknown to me, I held the
said scroll in my hand and wondered; and the knight said to me: "Yea,
look long at it; but so it is, though thou trow it not, that I am
verily Lord of Utterbol, and that by conquest; so that belike I am
mightier than he was, for that mighty runagate have I slain. And many
there be who deem that no mishap, heathen though I be. Come thou to
Utterbol and see for thyself if the days be not changed there; and thou
shalt have a belly-full of meat and drink, and honour after thy
deserving." So they rested a while, and then went their ways. To
Utterbol I went not, but ere I departed to come hither two or three
carles strayed my way, as whiles they will, who told me that this which
the knight had said was naught but the sooth, and that great was the
change of days at Utterbol, whereas all men there, both bond and free,
were as merry as they deserved to be, or belike merrier."
Ralph pondered this tale, and was not so sure but that this new lord
was not Bull Shockhead, his wartaken thrall; natheless he held his
peace; but Ursula said: "I marvel not much at the tale, for sure I am,
that had Gandolf of the Bear been slain when I was at Utterbol, neither
man nor woman had stirred a finger to avenge him. But all feared him,
I scarce know why; and, moreover, there was none to be master if he
were gone."
Thereafter she told more tales of the miseries of Utterbol than Ralph
had yet heard, as though this tale of the end of that evil rule had set
her free to utter them; and they fell to talking of others matters.