or worse; but if rumour
runneth right it is much for the better. Hearken how I learned
thereof. One fair even of late March, a little before I set off
hither, as I was sitting before the door of my house, I saw the glint
of steel through the wood, and presently rode up a sort of knights and
men-at-arms, about a score; and at the head of them a man on a big
red-roan horse, with his surcoat blazoned with a white bull on a green
field: he was a man black-haired, but blue-eyed; not very big, but well
knit and strong, and looked both doughty and knightly; and he wore a
gold coronet about his basnet: so not knowing his blazonry, I wondered
who it was that durst be so bold as to ride in the lands of the Lord of
Utterbol. Now he rode up to me and craved a drink of milk, for he had
seen my goats; so I milked two goats for him, and brought whey for the
others, whereas I had no more goats in milk at that season. So the
bull-knight spake to me about the woodland, and wherefore I dwelt there
apart from others; somewhat rough in his speech he was, yet rather
jolly than fierce; and he thanked me for the bever kindly enough, and
said: "I deem that it will not avail to give thee money; but I shall
give thee what may be of avail to thee. Ho, Gervaise! give me one of
those scrolls!" So a squire hands him a parchment and he gave it me,
and it was a safe-conduct to the bearer from the Lord of Utterbol; but
whereas I saw that the seal bore not the Bear on the Castle-wall, but
the Bull, and that the superscription was unknown to me, I held the
said scroll in my hand and wondered; and the knight said to me: "Yea,
look long at it; but so it is, though thou trow it not, that I am
verily Lord of Utterbol, and that by conquest; so that belike I am
mightier than he was, for that mighty runagate have I slain. And many
there be who deem that no mishap, heathen though I be. Come thou to
Utterbol and see for thyself if the days be not changed there; and thou
shalt have a belly-full of meat and drink, and honour after thy
deserving." So they rested a while, and then went their ways. To
Utterbol I went not, but ere I departed to come hither two or three
carles strayed my way, as whiles they will, who told me that this which
the knight had said was naught but the sooth, and that great was the
change of days at Utterbol, whereas all men there, both bond and free,
were as merry as they deserved to be, or belike merrier."

Ralph pondered this tale,