nor
hath the Court any great force to meet you in the field; ye shall cast
fear and trembling into their hearts."

"Even so, I thought," said he; "but afterwards what shall betide?"

Said I, "It grieves my heart to say that which I think. Yet hearken;
many a man's son shall die who is now alive and happy, and if the
soldiers be slain, and of them most not on the field, but by the
lawyers, how shall the captains escape? Surely thou goest to thy
death."

He smiled very sweetly, yet proudly, as he said: "Yea, the road is
long, but the end cometh at last. Friend, many a day have I been
dying; for my sister, with whom I have played and been merry in the
autumn tide about the edges of the stubble-fields; and we gathered the
nuts and bramble-berries there, and started thence the missel-thrush,
and wondered at his voice and thought him big; and the sparrow-hawk
wheeled and turned over the hedges and the weasel ran across the path,
and the sound of the sheep-bells came to us from the downs as we sat
happy on the grass; and she is dead and gone from the earth, for she
pined from famine after the years of the great sickness; and my brother
was slain in the French wars, and none thanked him for dying save he
that stripped him of his gear; and my unwedded wife with whom I dwelt
in love after I had taken the tonsure, and all men said she was good
and fair, and true she was and lovely; she also is dead and gone from
the earth; and why should I abide save for the deeds of the flesh which
must be done? Truly, friend, this is but an old tale that men must
die; and I will tell thee another, to wit, that they live: and I live
now and shall live. Tell me then what shall befall."

Somehow I could not heed him as a living man as much as I had done, and
the voice that came from me seemed less of me as I answered:

"These men are strong and valiant as any that have been or shall be,
and good fellows also and kindly; but they are simple, and see no great
way before their own noses. The victory shall they have and shall not
know what to do with it; they shall fight and overcome, because of
their lack of knowledge, and because of their lack of knowledge shall
they be cozened and betrayed when their captains are slain, and all
shall come to nought by seeming; and the king's uncles shall prevail,
that both they and the king may come to the shame that is appointed for
them. And yet when the lords have vanquished, and all England lieth