Spake Ralph: “Nay; go look on her closely, and tell me thy deeming of her.”
So the carle went up to Ursula, and peered closely into her face, and took her hand and looked on it, and knelt down and took her foot out of the stirrup, and kissed it, and then came back to Ralph, and said: “Fair Sir, I wot not but it may be her sister; for yonder old wise man I have seen here erst with our heavenly Lady. But though this fair woman may be her sister, it is not she. So tell me what is become of her, for it is long since we have seen her; and what thou tellest us, that same shall we trow, even as if thou wert her angel. For I spake with thee, it is nigh two years agone, when thou wert abiding the coming of our Lady in the castle yonder. But now I see of thee that thou art brighter-faced, and mightier of aspect than aforetime, and it is in my mind that the Lady of Abundance must have loved thee and holpen thee, and blessed thee with some great blessing.”
Said Ralph: “Old man, canst thou feel sorrow, and canst thou bear it?” The carle shook his head. “I wot not,” said he, “I fear thy words.” Said Ralph: “It were naught to say less than the truth; and this is the very truth, that thou shalt never see thy Lady any more. I was the last living man that ever saw her alive.”
Then he spake in a loud voice and said: “Lament, ye people! for the Lady of Abundance is dead; yet sure I am that she sendeth this message to you, Live in peace, and love ye the works of the earth.”
But when they heard him, the old man covered up his face with the folds of his gown, and all that folk brake forth into weeping, and crying out: “Woe for us! the Lady of Abundance is dead!” and some of the younger men cast themselves down on to the earth, and wallowed, weeping and wailing: and there was no man there that seemed as if he knew which way to turn, or what to do; and their faces were foolish with sorrow. Yet forsooth it was rather the carles than the queans who made all this lamentation.
At last the old man spake: “Fair sir, ye have brought us heavy tidings, and we know not how to ask you to tell us more of the tale. Yet if thou might’st but tell us how the Lady died? Woe’s me for the word!”
Said Ralph: “She was slain with the sword.”
The old man drew himself up stiff and stark, the eyes of him glittered under his white hair, and wrath changed his face, and the other men-folk thronged them to hearken what more should be said.
But the elder spake again: “Tell me who it was that slew her, for surely shall I slay him, or die in the pain else.”
Said Ralph: “Be content, thou mayst not slay him; he was a great and mighty man, a baron who bore a golden sun on a blue field. Thou mayst not slay him.” “Yea,” said the old man, “but I will, or he me.”
“Live in peace,” said Ralph, “for I slew him then and there.”
The old man held his peace a while, and then he said: “I know the man, for he hath been here aforetime, and not so long ago. But if he be dead, he hath a brother yet, an exceeding mighty man: he will be coming here to vex us and minish us.”
Said Ralph: “He will not stir from where he lies till Earth’s bones be broken, for my sword lay in his body yesterday.”
The old man stood silent again, and the other carles thronged him; but the women stood aloof staring on Ralph. Then the elder came up to Ralph and knelt before him and kissed his feet; then he turned and called to him three of the others who were of the stoutest and most stalwarth, and he spake with them awhile, and then he came to Ralph again, and again knelt before him and said: “Lord, ye have come to us, and found us void of comfort, since we have lost our Lady. But we see in thee, that she hath loved thee and blessed thee, and thou hast slain her slayer and his kindred. And we see of thee also that thou art a good lord. O the comfort to us, therefore, if thou wouldest be our Lord! We will serve thee truly so far as we may: yea, even if thou be beset by foes, we will take bow and bill from the wall, and stand round about thee and fight for thee. Only thou must not ask us to go hence from this place: for we know naught but the Plain of Abundance, and the edges of the wood, and the Brethren of the House of the Thorn, who are not far hence. Now we pray thee by thy fathers not to naysay us, so sore as thou hast made our hearts. Also we see about thy neck the same-like pair of beads which our Lady was wont to bear, and we deem that ye were in one tale together.”
Then was Ralph silent awhile, but the Sage spake to the elder: “Old man, how great is the loss of the Lady to you?” “Heavy loss, wise old man,” said the carle, “as thou thyself mayst know, having known her.”
“And what did she for you?” said the Sage. Said the
