be wholly wearied of them, or if their wrath outrun their wits;
for it is more to the master's profit to chastise them at home;
so keep a good heart I bid thee, and maybe we shall have
tidings at Whiteness."

So Ralph refrained his anxious heart, though forsooth his thought
was much upon the damsel and of how she was faring.

It was not till the third day at sunset that they came to Whiteness;
for on the last day of their riding they came amongst the confused
hills that lay before the great mountains, which were now often
hidden from their sight; but whenever they appeared through
the openings of the near hills, they seemed very great and terrible;
dark and bare and stony; and Clement said that they were little
better than they looked from afar. As to Whiteness, they saw it
a long way off, as it lay on a long ridge at the end of a valley:
and so long was the ridge, that behind it was nothing green;
naught but the huge and bare mountains. The westering sun fell
upon its walls and its houses, so that it looked white indeed
against those great cliffs and crags; though, said Clement,
that these were yet a good way off. Now when, after a long ride
from the hither end of the valley, they drew nigh to the town,
Ralph saw that the walls and towers were not very high or strong,
for so steep was the hill whereon the town stood, that it needed not.
Here also was no great castle within the town as at Cheaping Knowe,
and the town itself nothing so big, but long and straggling along
the top of the ridge. Cheaping Knowe was all builded of stone;
but the houses here were of timber for the most part, done over
with pargeting and whitened well. Yet was the town more cheerful
of aspect than Cheaping Knowe, and the folk who came thronging