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Richard held his peace and knit his brows as if pondering the matter, and Ralph abided till he spake: so he said: "Foster-son, so to call thee, thou knowest the manner of up-country carles, that tales flow forth from them the better if they come without over much digging and hoeing of the ground; that is, without questioning; so meseems better it will be if I go to Swevenham alone, and better if I be asked to go, than if I go of myself.
Where from finger to finger the shuttle flies fast, And the eyes of the singer look fain on the cast, As he singeth the story of summer undone And the barley sheaves hoary ripe under the sun. Then the maidens stay The light-hung sley, And the shuttles bide By the blue web's side, While hand in hand With the carles they stand.
Ralph held his peace, and Clement said in a cheerfuller voice: "Moreover, there shall be strange and goodly things to see; and the men of these parts be mostly goodly of body, and the women goodlier yet, as we carles deem." Ralph sighed, and answered not at once, but presently he said: "Master Clement, canst thou give me the order of our goings for these next days?" "Yea, certes," said Clement.
So Thiodolf stood on the top of the bent beside that same mound wherefrom he had blown the War-horn yester-eve, and which was called the Hill of Speech, and he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked around him; and even therewith the carles fell to yoking the beasts to the belated wains, and the warriors gathered together from out of the mixed throngs, and came from the Roof and the Man's-door and all set their faces toward the Hill of Speech.
Then she went away by a door at the lower end of the hall, and Wild- wearer came and sat down by Gold-mane, and fell a-talking with him about the ways of the Dalesmen, and their garths, and the pastures and growths thereof; and what temper the carles themselves were of; which were good men, which were ill, which was loved and which scorned; no otherwise than if he had been the goodman of some neighbouring dale; and Gold-mane told him whatso he knew, for he saw no harm therein.
When she had done her speech, she went up to the fairest of the women and kissed her; but the two carles made no more ado but came to Birdalone and kissed her one after other, and that as men who needed nought to compel them therein, and each thereafter took a hand of her and held it and caressed it.
In these days we have learned how to find companies of them; and forsooth every week they draw nigher to this Dale; and some day they should happen upon us if we were not to look to it, and then would there be a murder great and grim; therefore we scour the heaths round about, and the skirts of the woodland, and we fall upon these felons in divers guises, so that they may not know us for the same men; whiles are we clad in homespun, as to-day, and seem like to field- working carles; whiles in scarlet and gold, like knights of the Westland; whiles in wolf-skins; whiles in white glittering gear, like the Wights of the Waste: and in all guises these felons, for all their fierce hearts, fear us, and flee from us, and we follow and slay them, and so minish their numbers somewhat against the great day of battle.
"Here, Thorer," he said, "do thou guard my father, and hold thyself and the carles in readiness to push off. The day is lost, I see. I go to slay the King, and will return presently." He leaped away as he spoke, and regained the foredeck of the Dragon, where Glumm and his men were still engaged with the berserkers, just as the King came to the front.
Men marvelled at his greatness and his wonderful beauty, and to Gudruda he seemed like a God. "Here I see faces that are known to me," said Eric. "Greetings, comrades!" "Greetings, Brighteyes!" shouted the Middalhof folk and the company of Swanhild; but the carles of Ospakar laid hand on sword they too knew Eric.
Weel, if ye mean from Scotland, ye have the last yersel' in the letters of your honorable mither. What I am hearing from some Scot that cam oot o' the west country is that if the council does na maister the Covenanters, the dear carles will maister them, and then Scotland will be a gey ill place to live in.
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