ight eyes, and that the skin of his face and hands
was nowise wrinkled: but about his neck was a pair of beads like unto
his own gossip's gift.

So now they mounted at once, and with no more words he led them about
the bent, and they came in a little while into the wood again, but this
time it was of beech, with here and there an open place sprinkled about
with hollies and thorns; and they rode down the wide slope of a long
hill, and up again on the other side.

Thus they went for an hour, and the elder spake not again, though it
might have been deemed by his eyes that he was eager and fain. They
also held their peace; for the hope and fear of their hearts kept them
from words.

They came to the hill-top, and found a plain land, though the close
wood still held on a while; but soon they rode into a clearing of some
twelve acres, where were fenced crofts with goats therein, and three
garths of tillage, wherein the wheat-shocks were yet standing, and
there were coleworts and other pot-herbs also. But at the further end,
whereas the wood closed in again, was a little house builded of timber,
strong and goodly, and thatched with wheat-straw; and beside it was a
bubbling spring which ran in a brook athwart the said clearing; over
the house-door was a carven rood, and a bow and short spear were leaned
against the wall of the porch.

Ralph looked at all closely, and wondered whether this were perchance
the cot wherein the Lady of Abundance had dwelt with the evil witch.
But the elder looked on him, and said: "I know thy thought, and it is
not so; that house is far away hence; yet shalt thou come thereto.
Now, children, welcome to the house of him who hath found what ye seek,
but hath put aside the gifts which ye shall gain; and who belike shall
remember what ye shall forget."

Therewith he brought them into the house, and into a chamber, the
plenishing whereof was both scanty and rude. There he bade them sit,
and brought them victual, to wit, cheese and goats' milk and bread, and
they fell to speech concerning the woodland ways, and the seasons, and
other unweighty matters. But as for the old man he spoke but few
words, and as one unused to speech, albeit he was courteous and
debonair. But when they had eaten and drunk he spake to them and said:

"Ye have sought to me because ye would find the Well at the World's
End, and would have lore of me concerning the road thereto; but before
I tell you what ye would, let