Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/25

 his grandsire sought him he found him at last half way between grass and water above the fierce swirling stream of the river; for he had clomb down the sheer rock of the bank, which all along the water is fashioned into staves, as it were organ-pipes, but here and there broken by I wot not what mighty power. There then was my lad in an ingle-nook of the rock, and not able either to go down or come up, till the goodman let a rope down to him and hauled him on to the grass.

Belike he was a little cowed by the peril, and the beating he got for putting his folk in such fear; but though he was somewhat moved by his gran-dame's tears and lamentation over him, and no less by the old carline's bewailing for his days that he would so surely shorten, yet this was not by a many the last time he strayed from the stead away into peril. On a time he was missing again night-long, but in the morning came into the house blithe and merry, but exceeding hungry, and when the goodman asked him where he had been and bade him whipping-cheer, he said that he cared little if beaten he were, so merry a time he had had; for he had gone a long way up the Dale, and about twilight, this was in mid-May, had fallen in with a merry lad somewhat bigger than himself, who had shown him many merry plays, and at last had brought him to his house, which is not builded of stone and turf, like to ours, saith he, but is in a hole in the rock; and there we wore away the night, and there was no one there but we two, and