aid: "Yet belike a Friend of the Well may
overcome this also; and withal the hall shall be far other to-day when
it was."

She looked about on the warriors as they lay on the grass or loitered
by their horses; then she smiled, and her face lightened, and she
reddened and cast down her eyes and said: "Yea, that is sooth; that day
there were few men in the hall, and they old and evil of semblance. It
was a band of women who took me in the thorp and brought me up into the
Castle, and mishandled me there, and cast me into prison there; whereas
these be good fellows, and frank and free of aspect. But O, my heart,
look thou how fearful the piled-up rocks rise from the plain and the
walls wind up amongst them; and that huge tower, the crown of all!
Surely there is none more fearful in the world."

He kissed her and laughed merrily, and said: "Yea, sweetheart, and
there will be another change in the folk of the hall when we come there
this time, to wit, that thou shouldst not be alone therein, even were
all these champions, and Richard and the Sage away from thee. Wilt
thou tell me how that shall be?"

She turned to him and kissed him and caressed him, and then they turned
back again toward their fellows, for by now they had walked together a
good way along the ridge.

So then they gat to horse again and rode into the thorp, where men and
women stood about to behold them, and made them humble reverence as
they passed by. So rode they to the bailly of the Castle; and if that
stronghold looked terrible from the ridge above, tenfold more terrible
of aspect it was when the upper parts were hidden by the grey rocks,
and they so huge and beetling, and though the sun was bright about
them, and they in the midst of their friends, yet even Ralph felt
somewhat of dread creep over him: yet he smiled cheerfully as Ursula
turned an anxious face on him. They alighted from their horses in the
bailly, for over steep for horse-hoofs was the walled way upward; and
as they began to mount, even the merry Champions hushed their holiday
clamour for awe of the huge stronghold, and Ralph took Ursula by the
hand, and she sidled up to him, and said softly: "Yea, it was here
they drave me up, those women, thrusting and smiting me; and some would
have stripped off my raiment, but one who seemed the wisest, said,
'Nay, leave her till she come before the ancient Lady, for her gear may
be a token of whence she is, and whither, if she be come as a