his finger, but, looking down on the ground, answered confusedly,
and said:

"Maybe: I wot not. I deem that it also leadeth into the Bear-
country by a roundabout road. It leadeth into the far land."

Walter answered nought: for a strange thought had come uppermost in
his mind, that the carle knew far more than he would say of that
pass, and that he himself might be led thereby to find the wondrous
three. He caught his breath hardly, and his heart knocked against
his ribs; but he refrained from speaking for a long while; but at
last he spake in a sharp hard voice, which he scarce knew for his
own: "Father, tell me, I adjure thee by God and All-hallows, was it
through yonder shard that the road lay, when thou must needs make
thy first stride over a dead man?"

The old man spake not a while, then he raised his head, and looked
Walter full in the eyes, and said in a steady voice: "NO, IT WAS
NOT." Thereafter they sat looking at each other a while; but at
last Walter turned his eyes away, but knew not what they beheld nor
where he was, but he was as one in a swoon. For he knew full well
that the carle had lied to him, and that he might as well have said
aye as no, and told him, that it verily was by that same shard that
he had stridden over a dead man. Nevertheless he made as little
semblance thereof as he might, and presently came to himself, and
fell to talking of other matters, that had nought to do with the
adventures of the land. But after a while he spake suddenly, and
said: "My master, I was thinking of a thing."

"Yea, of what?" said the carle.