THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
said Sir Roger. "If it please you to the wife of John-ap-Griffith," answered she. "And what would you do with her?" asked the Knight, for he felt curious, he knew not why. "Why I would be with her in her labour and ease her of her first child," answered the old woman, and this reply set Sir Roger a-thinking, though as I have said he was no great clerk. But it seemed very plain to him that if he waited much longer before begetting a lawful heir of his body the business was likely to fall through and the castle and manors would pass to his cousin, whose conversation he did not much relish. Wherefore he determined to set this matter in train as soon as might be, and to cast his eyes round the castles of Gwent for a pretty modest maiden to be his wife and to bear him (if God willed) a son, who should succeed him. On this behalf he consulted Gilbert, but not to any great purpose, forasmuch as the esquire was not addicted to the company of ladies, and even in his youth had had as little to do with them as he was able, and "I suppose we can't very well do without them" was the best word he had ever said of women-folk. But Sir Roger looked about him and took stock of all the noble marriageable maidens in Gwent, and found out as far as he could their virtues and defects, for he was determined that his wife should be somewhere near perfection (that is so near as a woman can be expected to attain) and it would have grieved him to have thrown himself and all his experience away on a girl that was at all flighty or misdemeanant in her habits. And as he had still that
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