Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/371

and when they had been delivered from a foul caitiff by a good Knight who had cherished them with all honour in his house, and all went well awhile, it endured not long, for needs must he go to the wars, and there was he slain: how they, to escape the malice of the mother of the said Knight, who was a proud and hard woman, and now that her son was dead neither loved nor feared aught, must needs flee away. But withal, said the Carline, even had that good and kind Knight lived and come back to us, needs must we have left his house and his kindness ere long. For this I must do you to wit, says she, that we deem we have a weird and a fortune abiding us, and that through all trouble we shall be brought thereto in the end, and that the said Knight's house of Brookside was over-far from it. This therefore we ask of you, since ye have shown such kindness unto us as the man of Samaria to him who fell amongst thieves. The Sub-prior smiled at her word and said: Well, dame, neither the priest nor the Levite pass by the poor souls. Father, she said, thou and thy house, are ye foes or friends to the Knight of Longshaw? The Sub-prior smiled: Friends forsooth, said he, so far as we may do him any good; but ye wot that we give him no carnal help with sword and spear, yea and little indeed might we give were we temporal lords, so far off as we be from Longshaw, and the river and the Wood Masterless lying all between us. And now indeed we begin to deem that the good Knight may yet come to