CHAPTER VI: THE OLD MAN TELLS WALTER OF HIMSELF. WALTER SEES A
SHARD IN THE CLIFF-WALL



But when they had done their meat and drink the master and the
shipmen went about the watering of the ship, and the others strayed
off along the meadow, so that presently Walter was left alone with
the carle, and fell to speech with him and said: "Father, meseemeth
thou shouldest have some strange tale to tell, and as yet we have
asked thee of nought save meat for our bellies: now if I ask thee
concerning thy life, and how thou camest hither, and abided here,
wilt thou tell me aught?"

The old man smiled on him and said: "Son, my tale were long to
tell; and mayhappen concerning much thereof my memory should fail
me; and withal there is grief therein, which I were loth to awaken:
nevertheless if thou ask, I will answer as I may, and in any case
will tell thee nought save the truth."

Said Walter: "Well then, hast thou been long here?"

"Yea," said the carle, "since I was a young man, and a stalwarth
knight."

Said Walter: "This house, didst thou build it, and raise these
garths, and plant orchard and vineyard, and gather together the neat
and the sheep, or did some other do all this for thee?"

Said the carle: "I did none of all this; there was one here before