and there we hold us against the Burg of the Four Friths
which hath thriven greatly; there is none so great as the Burg
in all the lands about.'

"I said: 'And the Land of the Tower, thriveth the folk thereof at all?'
'Nay,' he said, 'they have been rent to pieces by folly and war
and greediness: in the Great City are but few people, grass grows
in its streets; the merchants wend not the ways that lead thither.
Naught thriveth there since thou stolest thyself away from them.'

"'Nay,' I said, 'I fled from their malice, lest I should have been brought
out to be burned once more; and there would have been none to rescue then.'
'Was it so?' said old Geoffrey; 'well it is all one now; their day is done.'

"'Well,' I said, 'come into my house, and eat and drink therein and sleep
here to-night, and to-morrow I shall tell thee what I will do.'

"Even so they did; and on the morrow early I spake to Geoffrey and said:
'What hath befallen the Land of Abundance, and the castle my lord built
for me there; which we held as our refuge all through the War of the Tower,
both before we joined us to you in the wildwood, and afterwards?' He said:
'It is at peace still; no one hath laid hand on it; there is a simple folk
dwelling there in the clearing of the wood, which forgetteth thee not;
though forsooth strange tales are told of thee there; and the old men
deem that it is but a little since thou hast ceased to come and go there;
and they are ready to worship thee as somewhat more than the Blessed Saints,
were it not for the Fathers of the Thorn who are their masters.'

"I pondered this a while, and then said: 'Geoffrey, ye shall bring me
hence away to the peopled parts, and on the way, or when we are come