r the
fairest and the most loving. But Ralph's face grew troubled again in
his mother's arms, for he loved her exceeding well; and forsooth he
loved the whole house and all that dwelt there, down to the turnspit
dogs in the chimney ingle, and the swallows that nested in the earthen
bottles, which when he was little he had seen his mother put up in the
eaves of the out-bowers: but now, love or no love, the spur was in his
side, and he must needs hasten as fate would have him. However, when
he had disentangled himself from his mother's caresses, he enforced
himself to keep a cheerful countenance, and upheld it the whole evening
through, and was by seeming merry at supper, and went to bed singing.

CHAPTER 3

Ralph Cometh to the Cheaping-Town

He slept in an upper chamber in a turret of the House, which chamber
was his own, and none might meddle with it. There the next day he
awoke in the dawning, and arose and clad himself, and took his wargear
and his sword and spear, and bore all away without doors to the side of
the Ford in that ingle of the river, and laid it for a while in a
little willow copse, so that no chance-comer might see it; then he went
back to the stable of the House and took his destrier from the stall
(it was a dapple-grey horse called Falcon, and was right good,) and
brought him down to the said willow copse, and tied him to a tree till
he had armed himself amongst the willows, whence he came forth
presently as brisk-looking and likely a man-at-arms as you might see on
a summer day. Then he clomb up into the saddle, and went his ways
splashing across the ford, before the sun had arisen, while the
throstle-cocks were yet amidst their first song.

Then he rode on a little trot south away; and by then the sun was up he
was without the bounds of Upmeads; albeit in the land thereabout dwelt
none who were not friends to King Peter and his sons: and that was
well, for now were folk stirring and were abroad in the fields; as a
band of carles going with their scythes to the hay-field; or a maiden
with her milking-pails going to her kine, barefoot through the seeding
grass; or a company of noisy little lads on their way to the nearest
pool of the stream that they might bathe in the warm morning after the
warm night. All these and more knew him and his armour and Falcon his
horse, and gave him the sele of the day, and he was nowise troubled at
meeting them; for besides that they thought it no wonder