Still Ralph spake no word; but he wept. Quoth Richard: "Maybe I
may help thee to a hope, though thou mayest think my words wild.
In the land and the thorp where I was born and bred there was talk
now and again of a thing to be sought, which should cure sorrow,
and make life blossom in the old, and uphold life in the young."
"Yea," said Ralph, looking up from his tears, "and what was
that? and why hast thou never told me thereof before?"
"Nay," said Richard, "and why should I tell it to the merry
lad I knew in Upmeads? but now thou art a man, and hast seen
the face of sorrow, it is meet that thou shouldest hear of THE
WELL AT THE WORLD'S END."

Ralph sprang to his feet as he said the word, and cried out eagerly:
"Old friend, and where then wert thou bred and born?" Richard laughed
and said: "See, then, there is yet a deed and a day betwixt thee and death!
But turn about and look straight over the meadows in a line with
yonder willow-tree, and tell me what thou seest." Said Ralph:
"The fair plain spreading wide, and a river running through it,
and little hills beyond the water, and blue mountains beyond them,
and snow yet lying on the tops of them, though the year is in young July."
"Yea," quoth Richard; "and seest thou on the first of the little hills
beyond the river, a great grey tower rising up and houses anigh it?"
"Yea," said Ralph, "the tower I see, and the houses, for I am far-sighted;
but the houses are small." "So it is," said Richard; "now yonder tower
is of the Church of Swevenham, which is under the invocation of the Seven
Sleepers of Ephesus; and the houses are the houses of the little town.
And what has that to do with me? sayest thou: why this, that I was born
and bred at Swevenham. And indeed I it was who brought my lord Blaise
here to Whitwall, with tales of how good a place it was for chaffer,
that I might see the little town and the great grey tower once more.