Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/15

 THE SUNDERING FLOOD.

CHAPTER I. OF A RIVER CALLED THE SUNDERING FLOOD, AND OF THE FOLK THAT DWELT THEREBY.

T is told that there was once a mighty river which ran south into the sea, and at the mouth thereof was a great and rich city, which had been builded and had waxed and thriven because of the great and most excellent haven which the river aforesaid made where it fell into the sea, and now it was like looking at a huge wood of barked and smoothened fir-trees when one saw the masts of the ships that lay in the said haven.

But up this river ran the flood of tide a long way, so that the biggest of dromonds and roundships might fare along it, and oft they lay amid pleasant up-country places, with their yards all but touching the windows of the husbandman's stead, and their bowsprits thrusting forth amongst the middens, and the routing swine, and querulous hens; and the uneasy lads and lasses sitting at high-mass of the Sunday in the grey village church would see the tall masts dimly amidst the painted saints of the aisle windows, and their minds would wander from the mass-hackled priest and the words and the gestures of him, and see visions of far countries and outlandish folk, and some would be heart-smitten with that desire of