d him along without any delay, and were glad at his
rejoicing; and words failed him to tell of his gladness.

But as he went, the thoughts of his coming converse with his beloved
curled sweetly round his heart, so that scarce anything had seemed so
sweet to him before; and he fell a-pondering what they twain, he and the
Hostage, should do when they came together again; whether they should
abide on the Glittering Plain, or go back again to Cleveland by the Sea
and dwell in the House of the Kindred; and for his part he yearned to
behold the roof of his fathers and to tread the meadow which his scythe
had swept, and the acres where his hook had smitten the wheat. But he
said to himself, "I will wait till I hear her desire hereon."

Now they went into the wood at the back of the King's pavilion and
through it, and so over the hill, and beyond it came into a land of hills
and dales exceeding fair and lovely; and a river wound about the dales,
lapping in turn the feet of one hill-side or the other; and in each dale
(for they passed through two) was a goodly house of men, and tillage
about it, and vineyards and orchards. They went all day till the sun was
near setting, and were not weary, for they turned into the houses by the
way when they would, and had good welcome and meat and drink and what
they would of the folk that dwelt there. Thus anigh sunset they came
into a dale fairer than either of the others, and nigh to the end where
they had entered it was an exceeding goodly house. Then said the damsel:

"We are nigh-hand to our journey's end; let us sit down on the grass by
this river-side whilst I tell thee the tale which the King would have
thee know."

So they sat down on the grass beside the brimming river, scant two
bowshots from that fair house, and the damsel said, reading from a scroll
which she drew from her bosom:

"O Spearman, in yonder house dwelleth the woman foredoomed to love thee:
if thou wouldst see her, go thitherward, following the path which turneth
from the river-side by yonder oak-tree, and thou shalt presently come to
a thicket of bay-trees at the edge of an apple-orchard, whose trees are
blossoming; abide thou hidden by the bay-leaves, and thou shalt see
maidens come into the orchard, and at last one fairer than all the
others. This shall be thy love fore-doomed, and none other; and thou
shalt know her by this token, that when she hath set her down on the
grass beside the bay-tree, she shall