ded and had waxed and thriven because of the great and most
excellent haven which the river aforesaid made where it fell into the
sea. And now it was like looking at a huge wood of barked and
smoothened fir-trees when one saw the masts of the ships that lay in
the said haven.

But up in this river ran the flood of tide a long way, so that the
biggest of dromonds and round-ships might fare up it, and oft they lay
amid pleasant up-country places, with their yards all but touching the
windows of the husbandman's stead, and their bowsprits thrusting forth
amongst the middens, and the routing swine, and querulous hens. And
the uneasy lads and lasses sitting at high-mass of the Sunday in the
grey church would see the tall masts amidst the painted saints of the
aisle windows, and their minds would wander from the mass-hackled
priest and the words and the gestures of him, and see visions of far
countries and outlandish folk, and some would be heart-smitten with
that desire of wandering and looking on new things which so oft the
sea-beat board and the wind-strained pine bear with them to the
dwellings of the stay-at-homes: and to some it seemed as if, when they
went from out the church, they should fall in with St. Thomas of India
stepping over the gangway, and come to visit their uplandish Christmas
and the Yule-feast of the field-abiders of midwinter frost. And
moreover, when the tide failed, and there was no longer a flood to
bear the sea-going keels up-stream (and that was hard on an hundred of
miles from the sea), yet was this great river a noble and
wide-spreading water, and the downlong stream thereof not so heavy nor
so fierce but that the barges and lesser keels might well spread their
sails when the south-west blew, and fare on without beating; or if the
wind were fouler for them, they that were loth to reach from shore to
shore might be tracked up by the draught of horses and bullocks, and
bear the wares of the merchants to many a cheaping.

Other rivers moreover not a few fell into this main flood, and of the
some were no lesser than the Thames is at Abingdon, where I, who
gathered this tale, dwell in the House of the Black Canons; blessed be
St. William, and St. Richard, and the Holy Austin our candle in the
dark! Yea and some were even bigger, so that the land was well
furnished both of fisheries and water-ways.

Now the name of this river was the Sundering Flood, and the city at
the mouth thereof was called the