Chapter VI: The old man tells Walter of himself. The Wood Beyond the World, by William Morris.

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.