beloved! But I say that well
will it be in those days if I love the folk then as well as now I love
these trees and the wild things whose house they are."

And she rose up therewith and threw her arms about the oak-bole and
kissed its ruggedness, while Ralph as he lay kissed the sleekness of
her feet. And there came a robin hopping over the leaves anigh them,
for in that wood most of the creatures, knowing not man, were tame to
him, and feared the horses of those twain more than their riders. And
now as Ursula knelt to embrace Ralph with one hand, she held out the
other to the said robin who perched on her wrist, and sat there as a
hooded falcon had done, and fell to whistling his sweet notes, as if he
were a-talking to those new-comers: then Ursula gave him a song-reward
of their broken meat, and he flew up and perched on her shoulder, and
nestled up against her cheek, and she laughed happily and said: "Lo
you, sweet, have not the wild things understood my words, and sent this
fair messenger to foretell us all good?"

"It is good," said Ralph laughing, "yet the oak-tree hath not spoken
yet, despite of all thy kissing: and lo there goes thy friend the
robin, now thou hast no more meat to give him."

"He is flying towards the Well at the World's End," she said, "and
biddeth us onward: let us to horse and hasten: for if thou wilt have
the whole truth concerning my heart, it is this, that some chance-hap
may yet take thee from me ere thou hast drunk of the waters of the
Well."

"Yea," said Ralph, "and in the innermost of my heart lieth the fear
that mayhappen there is no Well, and no healing in it if we find it,
and that death, and the backward way may yet sunder us. This is the
worst of my heart, and evil is my coward fear."

But she cast her arms about him and kissed and caressed him, and cried
out: "Yea, then fair have been the days of our journeying, and fair
this hour of the green oak! And bold and true thine heart that hath
led thee thus far, and won thee thy desire of my love."

So then they armed them, and mounted their horses and set forward.
They lived well while they were in the wood, but on the third day they
came to where it thinned and at last died out into a stony waste like
unto that which they had passed through before they came to the House
of the Sorceress, save that this lay in ridges as the waves of a great
sea; and these same ridges they were bidden to cross over at their
highest, lest t