But when they had done their meat
and drink the master and the shipmen went about the watering of the ship, and
the others strayed off along the meadow, so that presently Walter was left
alone with the carle, & fell to speech with him and said: Father, meseemeth
thou shouldest have some strange tale to tell, & as yet we have asked thee
of nought save meat for our bellies: now if I ask thee concerning thy life, and
how thou camest hither, & abided here, wilt thou tell me aught?
The old man smiled on him and said:
Son, my tale were long to tell; and mayhappen concerning much therof my memory
should fail me; and withal there is grief therein, which I were loth to awaken:
nevertheless if thou ask, I will answer as I may, & in any case will tell
thee nought save the truth.
Said Walter: Well then, hast thou
been long here? * Yea, said the carle, since I was a young man, and a salwarth
knight. * Said Walter: This house, didst thou build it, and raise these garths,
and plant orchard and vineyard, and gather together the neat & the sheep,
or did some other do all this for thee? * Said the carle: I did none of all
this; there was one here before me, and I entered into his inheritance, as
though this were a lordly manor, with a fair castle thereon, and all
wellstocked and plenished. * Said Walter: didst thou find thy foregoer alive
here? * Yea, said the elder, yet he lived but for a little while after I came
to him.
He was silent a while, and then he
said: I slew him: even so would he have it, though I bade him a better lot. *
Said Walter: Didst thou come hither of thine own will? * Mayhappen, said the
carle; who knoweth? Now have I no will to do either this or that. It is wont
that maketh me do, or refrain. * Said Walter: Tell me this; why didst thou slay
the man? did he any scathe to thee? * Said the elder: When I slew him, I deemed
that he was doing me all scathe: but now I know that it was not so. Thus it
was; I would needs go where he had been before, and he stood in the path
against me; and I overthrew him, and went on the way I would. * What came
thereof? said Walter. * Evil came of it, said the carle.
Then was Walter silent a while, and
the old man spake nothing; and there came a smile on his face that was both sly
and somewhat sad. Walter looked on him and said: Was it from hence that thou
wouldst go that road? * Yea, said the carle. * Said Walter: And now wilt thou
tell me what that road was; whither it went and whereto it led, that thou must
needs wend it, though thy first stride were over a dead man? * I will not tell
thee, said the carle. * Then they held their peace, both of them, and
thereafter got on to other talk of no import.
