So they stood there together till the Sage came up to them and kissed them both, and said:  “I am glad that ye are come at last; for I looked for you no later than this.  So now mount your horses and come with me straightway; because life is short to them who have not yet drunk of the Well at the World’s End.  Moreover if ye chance to come on the riders of Utterbol, it shall go hard with you unless I be at hand.”

Ralph saw of him that though he was an old hoar man to look on, yet he was strong and sturdy, tall, and of goodly presence, with ruddy cheeks, and red lips and bright eyes, and that the skin of his face and hands was nowise wrinkled:  but about his neck was a pair of beads like unto his own gossip’s gift.

So now they mounted at once, and with no more words he led them about the bent, and they came in a little while into the wood again, but this time it was of beech, with here and there an open place sprinkled about with hollies and thorns; and they rode down the wide slope of a long hill, and up again on the other side.

Thus they went for an hour, and the elder spake not again, though it might have been deemed by his eyes that he was eager and fain.  They also held their peace; for the hope and fear of their hearts kept them from words.

They came to the hill-top, and found a plain land, though the close wood still held on a while; but soon they rode into a clearing of some twelve acres, where were fenced crofts with goats therein, and three garths of tillage, wherein the wheat-shocks were yet standing, and there were coleworts and other pot-herbs also.  But at the further end, whereas the wood closed in again, was a little house builded of timber, strong and goodly, and thatched with wheat-straw; and beside it was a bubbling spring which ran in a brook athwart the said clearing; over the house-door was a carven rood, and a bow and short spear were leaned against the wall of the porch.

Ralph looked at all closely, and wondered whether this were perchance the cot wherein the Lady of Abundance had dwelt with the evil witch.  But the elder looked on him, and said:  “I know thy thought, and it is not so; that house is far away hence; yet shalt thou come thereto.  Now, children, welcome to the house of him who hath found what ye seek, but hath put aside the gifts which ye shall gain; and who belike shall remember what ye shall forget.”

Therewith he brought them into the house, and into a chamber, the plenishing whereof was both scanty and rude.  There he bade them sit, and brought them victual, to wit, cheese and goats’ milk and bread, and they fell to speech concerning the woodland ways, and the seasons, and other unweighty matters.  But as for the old man he spoke but few words, and as one unused to speech, albeit he was courteous and debonair.  But when they had eaten and drunk he spake to them and said: 

“Ye have sought to me because ye would find the Well at the World’s End, and would have lore of me concerning the road thereto; but before I tell you what ye would, let me know what ye know thereof already.”