Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/227

it and the Flood is a great waste and forest. As to the Flood, it is there, where it runs through this forest which is called the Masterless Wood, a mighty great river, whereon are barges and cutters and seagoing dromonds even, so that it sunders nought, but joins rather. Now besides my house of Longshaw, which is, as it were, the knop and ouch of my manors, I have other houses and strongholds, some of which be in the very forest itself, and none of them more than a little way thence. For, sooth to say, the said forest is a shield and a refuge to me, and I had been overcome long ago save for its warding. I must tell thee further, that the southernmost skirts of the said forest come down within a score of miles of the great city by the sea which men call the City of the Sundering Flood; and that the city-folk love the forest little, save they might master it and make it their own, wherein they have failed hitherto, praise be to Allhallows! For then were I their very outlaw; whereas now there be others of the knighthood who dwell anigh me who deem that I have the right of it in warding my lands and theirs from these king-ruled chapmen; more by token that the day may come when the folk of their own town, as the guilds of the Lesser Crafts and the husbandmen and simple mariners, may rise against them, deeming them, as the truth is, hard masters and tyrants. Wherefore, despite all their mastership, when I will and have occasion thereto, I may ride their streets in safety, for they wot that if they laid a hand on me or mine it would be Bills