came up with her, the moon ran out, and they saw that the woman was fair,
and that about her neck was a chaplet of gems that shone in the moon,
and they had a longing both for the jewel and the woman: but before they
laid hand on her they asked her of whence and whither, and she said:
From ruin and wrack to the Well at the World's End, and therewith turned
on them with a naked sword in her hand; so that they shrank from before her.

"'Hearken once more: the next year came a knight to Swevenham,
and guested in this same house, and he sat just where sitteth now yon
yellow-headed swain, and the talk went on the same road as it hath
gone to-night; and I told him all the tale as I have said it e'en now;
and he asked many questions, but most of the Lady with the pair of beads.
And on the morrow he departed and we saw him not again.

"Then she was silent, but the young man at whom she had pointed
blushed red and stared at her wide-eyed, but said no word.
But I spake: 'Well dame, but have none else gone from Swevenham,
or what hath befallen them?'

"She said: 'Hearken yet! Twenty years agone a great sickness lay
heavy upon us and the folk of Whitwall, and when it was at its worst,
five of our young men, calling to mind all the tales concerning
the Well at the World's End, went their ways to seek it, and swore
that back would they never, save they found it and could bear its
water to the folk of Swevenham; and I suppose they kept their oath;
for we saw naught either of the water or of them. Well, I deem that this
is the last that I have to tell thee, Richard, concerning this matter:
and now is come the time for thee to tell tales of thyself.'

"Thus for that time dropped the talk of the Well at the World's End,