held all
that has befallen me. So many strange things have I seen, that surely
my dreams shall be full of them; for even now I seem to see them,
though I waken.

So he lay down in his bed and slept, and dreamed that he was fishing
with an angle in a deep of Upmeads Water; and he caught many fish; but
after a while whatsoever he caught was but of gilded paper stuffed with
wool, and at last the water itself was gone, and he was casting his
angle on to a dry road. Therewith he awoke and saw that day was
dawning, and heard the minster clock strike three, and heard the
thrushes singing their first song in the Prior's garden. Then he
turned about and slept, and dreamed no more till he woke up in the
bright sunny morning.

CHAPTER 6

Ralph Goeth His Ways From the Abbey of St. Mary at Higham

It was the monk who had been his guide the day before who had now waked
him, and he stood by the bedside holding a great bowl of milk in his
hand, and as Ralph sat up, and rubbed his eyes, with all his youthful
sloth upon him, the monk laughed and said:

"That is well, lord, that is well! I love to see a young man so sleepy
in the morning; it is a sign of thriving; and I see thou art thriving
heartily for the time when thou shalt come back to us to lead my lord's
host in battle."

"Where be the bale-fires?" said Ralph, not yet fully awake.

"Where be they!" said the brother, "where be they! They be sunken to
cold coals long ago, like many a man's desires and hopes, who hath not
yet laid his head on the bosom of the mother, that is Holy Church.
Come, my lord, arise, and drink the monk's wine of morning, and then if
ye must need ride, ride betimes, and ride hard; for the Wood Perilous
beginneth presently as ye wend your ways; and it were well for thee to
reach the Burg of the Four Friths ere thou be benighted. For, son,
there be untoward things in the wood; and though some of them be of
those for whom Christ's Cross was shapen, yet have they forgotten hell,
and hope not for heaven, and their by-word is, 'Thou shalt lack ere I
lack.' Furthermore there are worse wights in the wood than they be--
God save us!--but against them have I a good hauberk, a neck-guard
which I will give thee, son, in token that I look to see thee again at
the lovely house of Mary our Mother."

Ralph had taken the bowl and was drinking, but he looked over the brim,
and saw how the monk drew from his frock a pair of beads, as like to
Dame Katherin