The old man laughed. Said he: "When I said that I was alone, I
meant that I was alone in the land and not only alone in this stead.
There is no house save this betwixt the sea and the dwellings of the
Bears, over the cliff-wall yonder, yea and a long way over it."

"Yea," quoth the shipmaster grinning, "and be the bears of thy
country so manlike, that they dwell in builded houses?"

The old man shook his head. "Sir," said he, "as to their bodily
fashion, it is altogether manlike, save that they be one and all
higher and bigger than most. For they be bears only in name; they
be a nation of half wild men; for I have been told by them that
there be many more than that tribe whose folk I have seen, and that
they spread wide about behind these mountains from east to west.
Now, sir, as to their souls and understandings I warrant them not;
for miscreants they be, trowing neither in God nor his hallows."

Said the master: "Trow they in Mahound then?"

"Nay," said the elder, "I wot not for sure that they have so much as
a false God; though I have it from them that they worship a certain
woman with mickle worship."

Then spake Walter: "Yea, good sir, and how knowest thou that? dost
thou deal with them at all?"

Said the old man: "Whiles some of that folk come hither and have of
me what I can spare; a calf or two, or a half-dozen of lambs or
hoggets; or a skin of wine or cyder of mine own making: and they
give me in return such things as I can use, as skins of hart and