"
"Even so, I thought," said he; "but afterwards what shall betide?"
Said I, "It grieves my heart to say that which I think. Yet hearken;
many a man's son shall die who is now alive and happy, and if the
soldiers be slain, and of them most not on the field, but by the
lawyers, how shall the captains escape? Surely thou goest to thy
death."
He smiled very sweetly, yet proudly, as he said: "Yea, the road is
long, but the end cometh at last. Friend, many a day have I been
dying; for my sister, with whom I have played and been merry in the
autumn tide about the edges of the stubble-fields; and we gathered the
nuts and bramble-berries there, and started thence the missel-thrush,
and wondered at his voice and thought him big; and the sparrow-hawk
wheeled and turned over the hedges and the weasel ran across the path,
and the sound of the sheep-bells came to us from the downs as we sat
happy on the grass; and she is dead and gone from the earth, for she
pined from famine after the years of the great sickness; and my
brother was slain in the French wars, and none thanked him for dying
save he that stripped him of his gear; and my unwedded wife with whom
I dwelt in love after I had taken the tonsure, and all men said she
was good and fair, and true she was and lovely; she also is dead and
gone from the earth; and why should I abide save for the deeds of the
flesh which must be done? Truly, friend, this is but an old tale that
men must die; and I will tell thee another, to wit, that they live:
and I live now and shall live.
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