THE WOOD BEYOND THE WORLD




CHAPTER I: OF GOLDEN WALTER AND HIS FATHER



Awhile ago there was a young man dwelling in a great and goodly city
by the sea which had to name Langton on Holm. He was but of five
and twenty winters, a fair-faced man, yellow-haired, tall and
strong; rather wiser than foolisher than young men are mostly wont;
a valiant youth, and a kind; not of many words but courteous of
speech; no roisterer, nought masterful, but peaceable and knowing
how to forbear: in a fray a perilous foe, and a trusty war-fellow.
His father, with whom he was dwelling when this tale begins, was a
great merchant, richer than a baron of the land, a head-man of the
greatest of the Lineages of Langton, and a captain of the Porte; he
was of the Lineage of the Goldings, therefore was he called
Bartholomew Golden, and his son Golden Walter.

Now ye may well deem that such a youngling as this was looked upon
by all as a lucky man without a lack; but there was this flaw in his
lot, whereas he had fallen into the toils of love of a woman
exceeding fair, and had taken her to wife, she nought unwilling as
it seemed. But when they had been wedded some six months he found
by manifest tokens, that his fairness was not so much to her but
that she must seek to the foulness of one worser than he in all
ways; wherefore his rest departed from him, whereas he hated her for