he was, had gone to seek the Well at the World’s End; though may-happen it was not so.  Then the next spring after thy departure, Richard, comes home Arnold Wright from the wars, and asks after Alice; and when he heard what had befallen, he takes a scrip with a little meat for the road, lays his spear on his shoulder, and is gone seeking the lost, and the thing which they found not—­that, I deem, was the end of him.  Again the year after that, as I deem, three of our carles fell in with two knights riding east from Whitwall, and were questioned of them concerning the road to the said Well, and doubted not but that they were on that quest.  Furthermore (and some of you wot this well enough, and more belike know it not) two of our young men were faring by night and cloud on some errand, good or bad, it matters not, on the highway thirty miles east of Whitwall:  it was after harvest, and the stubble-fields lay on either side of the way, and the moon was behind thin clouds, so that it was light on the way, as they told me; and they saw a woman wending before them afoot, and as they came up with her, the moon ran out, and they saw that the woman was fair, and that about her neck was a chaplet of gems that shone in the moon, and they had a longing both for the jewel and the woman:  but before they laid hand on her they asked her of whence and whither, and she said:  From ruin and wrack to the Well at the World’s End, and therewith turned on them with a naked sword in her hand; so that they shrank from before her.

“’Hearken once more:  the next year came a knight to Swevenham, and guested in this same house, and he sat just where sitteth now yon yellow-headed swain, and the talk went on the same road as it hath gone to-night; and I told him all the tale as I have said it e’en now; and he asked many questions, but most of the Lady with the pair of beads.  And on the morrow he departed and we saw him not again.

“Then she was silent, but the young man at whom she had pointed blushed red and stared at her wide-eyed, but said no word.  But I spake:  ’Well dame, but have none else gone from Swevenham, or what hath befallen them?’

“She said:  ’Hearken yet!  Twenty years agone a great sickness lay heavy upon us and the folk of Whitwall, and when it was at its worst, five of our young men, calling to mind all the tales concerning the Well at the World’s End, went their ways to seek it, and swore that back would they never, save they found it and could bear its water to the folk of Swevenham; and I suppose they kept their oath; for we saw naught either of the water or of them.  Well, I deem that this is the last that I have to tell thee, Richard, concerning this matter:  and now is come the time for thee to tell tales of thyself.’