United States or Yemen ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
What are ye?" Quoth Ralph: "We be peaceful wayfarers save to them that would fall on us, and we seek toward Upmeads." "Yea?" said the man, "belike ye shall find something less than peace betwixt here and Upmeads, for rumour goes that there are alien riders come into the lands of Higham, and for aught I know the said unpeace may spread further on.
As for Christopher, he spake to many, and said to them that wheresoever his banner was, he at least should be at the forefront whenso they came upon unpeace; and so soon as they gat to the road, he went from company to company, speaking to many, and that so sweetly and friendly that all praised him, and said that here forsooth was a king who was all good and nothing bad, whereas hitherto men had deemed them lucky indeed if their king were half good and half bad.
Now the King spake and said: "Friends, now is it time to get to the board, and the feast which hath been stayed this while; and I pray you let it be as merry as if there were no striving and unpeace betwixt us and the winning of peace.
Ah, lad! time was when I would have bid thee come home, thou and thy sweetling, to my house with me, and abide there in ease and feastfully; but now the best rede I can give thee is to get thee gone from the land, for there is all unpeace in it. And yet, forsooth, friend, I know not where to send thee to seek for peace, since Upmeads hath failed us."
Yea, yea, said the townsman, we were beginning to end the unpeace then, and it was the darkest hour before the dawn; for five years agone we and the good knights of the Castle of the Quest were lying before the walls of the Red Hold. Forsooth we cleared out that den of devils then and there. What betid unto it after ye won it? said Birdalone, and she trembled withal.
But as to thy tidings, I set not much by them; for of the same message was this word that they had already fallen on Higham by the Way; and we know that this cannot be true; since though forsooth the Abbot has had unpeace on his hands, we know where his foemen came from, the West to wit, and the Banded Barons." "Yea, yea," quoth the Sage, "but may not the Burgers have taken service with them?"
"Alas!" said Dermot, "for the iniquitous contest that ye have waged against me, seeing that it is Ireland's good I pursue, and to preserve her discipline and royal right; but it is Ireland's unpeace and murderousness ye endeavor after." * * I quote this from Mr. Rollerstone's book. Which was true. The same trouble came up in England six centuries later, and might have ended in the same way.
"Lo you, my friend, the beginnings of evil in those long past days, and the seeds of ill-hap sown in the field of my new life even before the furrow was turned. "Well, we came soon into my lord's country, and fair and rich and lovely was it in those days; free from trouble and unpeace, a happy abode for the tillers of the soil, and the fashioners of wares.
I deemed that thou hadst fled away from all of us to live in the wilds." "So it was, lad," said Roger, "but times change from good to bad and back again; and now am I of this good lord's company; and I shall tell thee, Stephen, that though he rideth but few to-day, yet merry shall he be that rideth with him to-morrow if unpeace be in the land.
So now as she looked across the meadow, she saw one with light and fluttering raiment come forth from the trees, and look toward her whereas she stood flashing and gleaming in the sun like an image of the God of Love turned warrior. She stood where she was, so as to be nigh unto her ferry in case they willed her unpeace; for though they were weaponless by seeming, they were a many.
Word Of The Day