The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris (best value ebook reader .TXT) 📕

The Wood Beyond the World

By William Morris.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint I: Of Golden Walter and His Father II: Golden Walter Takes Ship to Sail the Seas III: Walter Heareth Tidings of the Death of His Father IV: Storm Befalls the Bartholomew, and She Is Driven Off Her Course V: Now They Come to a New Land VI: The Old Man Tells Walter of Himself. Walter Sees a Shard in the Cliff-Wall VII: Walter Comes to the Shard in the Rock-Wall VIII: Walter Wends the Waste IX: Walter Happeneth on the First of Those Three Creatures X: Walter Happeneth on Another Creature in the Strange Land XI: Walter Happeneth on the Mistress XII: The Wearing of Four Days in the Wood Beyond the World XIII: Now Is the Hunt Up XIV: The Hunting of the Hart XV: The Slaying of the Quarry XVI: Of the King’s Son and the Maid XVII: Of the House and the Pleasance in the Wood XVIII: The Maid Gives Walter Tryst XIX: Walter Goes to Fetch Home the Lion’s Hide XX: Walter Is Bidden to Another Tryst XXI: Walter and the Maid Flee from the Golden House XXII: Of the Dwarf and the Pardon XXIII: Of the Peaceful Ending of That Wild Day XXIV: The Maid Tells of What Had Befallen Her XXV: Of the Triumphant Summer Array of the Maid XXVI: They Come to the Folk of the Bears XXVII: Morning Amongst the Bears XXVIII: Of the New God of the Bears XXIX: Walter Strays in the Pass and Is Sundered from the Maid XXX: Now They Meet Again XXXI: They Come Upon New Folk XXXII: Of the New King of the City and Land of Stark-Wall XXXIII: Concerning the Fashion of King-Making in Stark-Wall XXXIV: Now Cometh the Maid to the King XXXV: Of the King of Stark-Wall and His Queen XXXVI: Of Walter and the Maid in the Days of the Kingship Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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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 headman 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 her untruth and her hatred of him; yet would the sound of her voice, as she came and went in the house, make his heart beat; and the sight of her stirred desire within him, so that he longed for her to be sweet and kind with him, and deemed that, might it be so, he should forget all the evil gone by. But it was not so; for ever when she saw him, her face changed, and her hatred of him became manifest, and howsoever she were sweet with others, with him she was hard and sour.

So this went on a while till the chambers of his father’s house, yea the very streets of the city, became loathsome to him; and yet he called to mind that the world was wide and he but a young man. So on a day as he sat with his father alone, he spake to him and said: “Father, I was on the quays even now, and I looked on the ships that were nigh boun, and thy sign I saw on a tall ship that seemed to me nighest boun. Will it be long ere she sail?”

“Nay,” said his father, “that ship, which hight the Katherine, will they warp out of the haven in two days’ time. But why askest thou