CHAPTER 20

They Come to the Mid-Mountain Guest-House


On that night they slept in their tents which they had pitched
on the field of a little thorp beside a water; and there
they had meat and drink and all things as they needed them.
And in likewise it befell them the next day; but the third
evening they set up their tents on a little hillside by a road
which led into a deep pass, even the entry of the mountains,
a road which went betwixt exceeding high walls of rock.
For the mountain sides went up steep from the plain.
There they kept good watch and ward, and naught befell them
to tell of.

The next morning they entered the pass, and rode through it up to the heaths,
and rode all day by wild and stony ways and came at even to a grassy valley
watered by a little stream, where they guested, watching their camp well;
and again none meddled with them.

As they were departing the next morn Ralph asked of Clement
if he yet looked for onset from the waylayers. Said Clement:
"It is most like, lord; for we be a rich prey, and it is but seldom
that such a company rideth this road. And albeit that the wild
men know not to a day when we shall pass through their country,
yet they know the time within a four and twenty hours or so.
For we may not hide our journey from all men's hearing;
and when the ear heareth, the tongue waggeth. But art thou