nd he
praised them much, save the women. Ralph answered him with good cheer
in likewise; and thus they came to the cot of the old woman, and both
she and the maiden were without the house, the old carline hithering
and thithering on some errand, the maiden leaning against a tree as if
pondering some matter. As they passed by, the priest blessed them in
words, but his eyes scowled on them, whereat the carline grinned, but
the damsel heeded him not, but looked wistfully on Ralph. The priest
muttered somewhat as he passed, which Ralph caught not the meaning of,
and fell moody again; and when he was a little past the ford he drew
rein and said: "Now, son, I must to my cell hard by the church yonder:
but yet I will say one word to thee ere we sunder; to wit, that to my
mind the Holy Lady will love no one but the saints of heaven, save it
be some man with whom all women are in love."

Therewith he turned away suddenly, and rode smartly towards his church;
and Ralph deemed that he was weeping once more. As for Ralph, he went
quietly home toward the castle, for the sun was setting now, and as he
went he pondered all these things in his heart.

CHAPTER 21

Ralph Weareth Away Three Days Uneasily

He read again in the book that night, till he had gotten the whole tale
into his head, and he specially noted this of it, that it told not
whence that Lady came, nor what she was, nor aught else save that there
she was in the wood by herself, and was found therein by the king's
son: neither told the tale in what year of the world she was found
there, though it told concerning all the war and miseries which she had
bred, and which long endured. Again, he could not gather from that
book why she had gone back to the lone place in the woods, whereas she
might have wedded one of those warring barons who sorely desired her:
nor why she had yielded herself to the witch of that place and endured
with patience her thralldom, with stripes and torments of her body,
like the worst of the thralls of the ancient heathen men. Lastly, he
might not learn from the book where in the world was that lone place,
or aught of the road to the Well at the World's End. But amidst all
his thinking his heart came back to this: "When I meet her, she will
tell me of it all; I need be no wiser than to learn how to meet her and
to make her love me; then shall she show me the way to the Well at the
World's End, and I shall drink thereof and never grow ol