"William Morris - The Wood Beyond the World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris William)

Said Walter: “Tell me this; why didst thou slay the man? did he any scathe to thee?”


Said the elder: “When I slew him, I deemed that he was doing me all scathe: but now I know that
it was not so. Thus it was: I would needs go where he had been before, and he stood in the path
against me; and I overthrew him, and went on the way I would.”


“What came thereof?” said Walter.


“Evil came of it,” said the carle.


Then was Walter silent a while, and the old man spake nothing; but there came a smile in his
face that was both sly and somewhat sad. Walter looked on him and said: “Was it from hence
that thou wouldst go that road?”


“Yea,” said the carle.


Said Walter: “And now wilt thou tell me what that road was; whither it went and whereto it led,
that thou must needs wend it, though thy first stride were over a dead man?”



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“I will not tell thee,” said the carle.


Then they held their peace, both of them, and thereafter got on to other talk of no import.


So wore the day till night came; and they slept safely, and on the morrow after they had broken
their fast, the more part of them set off with the carle to the hunting, and they went, all of them, a
three hours’ faring towards the foot of the cliffs, which was all grown over with coppice, hazel
and thorn, with here and there a big oak or ash-tree; there it was, said the old man, where the
venison was most and best.


Of their hunting need nought be said, saving that when the carle had put them on the track of the
deer and shown them what to do, he came back again with Walter, who had no great lust for the
hunting, and sorely longed to have some more talk with the said carle. He for his part seemed
nought loth thereto, and so led Walter to a mound or hillock amidst the clear of the plain, whence
all was to be seen save where the wood covered it; but just before where they now lay down
there was no wood, save low bushes, betwixt them and the rock-wall; and Walter noted that
whereas otherwhere, save in one place whereto their eyes were turned, the cliffs seemed wellnigh
or quite sheer, or indeed in some places beetling over, in that said place they fell away from each
other on either side; and before this sinking was a slope or scree, that went gently up toward the