e
in his mind no intent of a deed then, nor any tale of a deed he should
do thereafter. Yet belike in his mind were two thoughts, and though
neither softened his grief save a little, he did not shrink from them
as he did from all others; and these two were of his home at Upmeads,
which was so familiar to him, and of the Well at the World's End, which
was but a word.

CHAPTER 11

Ralph Cometh Out of the Wilderness

Long he stood letting these thoughts run through his mind, but at last
when it was now midmorning, he stirred and gat him slowly down the
green slope, and for very pity of himself the tears brake out from him
as he crossed the stream and came into the bushy valley. There he
stayed his feet a little, and said to himself: "And whither then am I
going?" He thought of the Castle of Abundance and the Champions of the
Dry Tree, of Higham, and the noble warriors who sat at the Lord Abbot's
board, and of Upmeads and his own folk: but all seemed naught to him,
and he thought: "And how can I go back and bear folk asking me
curiously of my wayfarings, and whether I will do this, that, or the
other thing." Withal he thought of that fair damsel and her sweet mouth
in the hostelry at Bourton Abbas, and groaned when he thought of love
and its ending, and he said within himself: "and now she is a wanderer
about the earth as I am;" and he thought of her quest, and the chaplet
of dame Katherine, his gossip, which he yet bore on his neck, and he
deemed that he had naught to choose but to go forward and seek that he
was doomed to; and now it seemed to him that there was that one thing
to do and no other. And though this also seemed to him but weariness
and grief, yet whereas he had ever lightly turned him to doing what
work lay ready to hand; so now he knew that he must first of all get
him out of that wilderness, that he might hear the talk of folk
concerning the Well at the World's End, which he doubted not to hear
again when he came into the parts inhabited.

So now, with his will or without it, his feet bore him on, and he
followed up the stream which the Lady had said ran into the broad river
called the Swelling Flood; "for," thought he, "when I come thereabout I
shall presently find some castle or good town, and it is like that
either I shall have some tidings of the folk thereof, or else they will
compel me to do something, and that will irk me less than doing deeds
of mine own will."

He went his ways