t; but the words would not out of his
mouth.

She looked at him and smiled, as though she had a guess of his thought,
and at last she said to him: "Thy tongue is tied to-day. Hast thou,
after all, seen something strange in the wood?" He shook his head for
naysay. Said she: "Why, then, dost thou not ask more concerning the
Well at the World's End?"

He laughed, and said: "Maybe because I think that thou canst not tell
me thereof." "Well," she said, "if I cannot, yet the book may, and
this evening, when the sun is down, thou shalt have it."

"I thank thee, mother," said he; "but this is now the last day that
Roger bade me wait. Dost thou think that he will come back to-night?"
and he reddened therewith. "Nay," she said, "I know not, and thou
carest not whether he will come or not. Yet I know that thou wilt
abide here till some one else come, whether that be early or late."
Again he reddened, and said, in a coaxing way: "And wilt thou give me
guesting, mother, for a few more summer days?"

"Yea," she said, "and till summer is over, if need be, and the corn is
cut and carried, and till the winter is come and the latter end of
winter is gone." He smiled faintly, though his heart fell, and he
said: "Nay, mother, and can it by any chance be so long a-coming?"

"O, fair boy," she said, "thou wilt make it long, howsoever short it
be. And now I will give thee a rede, lest thou vex thyself sick and
fret thy very heart. To-morrow go see if thou canst meet thy fate
instead of abiding it. Do on thy war-gear and take thy sword and try
the adventure of the wildwood; but go not over deep into it." Said he:
"But how if the Lady come while I am away from this house?"

"Sooth to say," said the carline, "I deem not that she will, for the
way is long betwixt us and her."

"Dost thou mean," said Ralph, standing up from the board, "that she
will not come ever? I adjure thee not to beguile me with soft words,
but tell me the very sooth." "There, there!" said she, "sit down,
king's son; eat thy meat and drink thy wine; for to-morrow is a new
day. She will come soon or late, if she be yet in the world. And now
I will say no more to thee concerning this matter."

Therewith she went her ways from the hall, and when she came back with
hand-basin and towel, she said no word to him, but only smiled kindly.
He went out presently into the meadow (for it was yet but early
afternoon) and came among the haymaking folk and spake w