Now that we are friends and
fellows, it is no hurt for thee to know the shortest way to Shadowy
Vale. What thou shalt tell concerning us in Burgdale I leave the
tale thereof to thee; yet belike thou wilt not tell everything till I
come to Burgstead at the spring market-tide. Now must I presently to
bed; for before daylight to-morrow must I be following the hunt along
with two score good men of ours.'
'What beast is afield then?' said Gold-mane.
Said Folk-might: 'The beasts that beset our lives, the Dusky Men.
In these days we have learned how to find companies of them; and
forsooth every week they draw nigher to this Dale; and some day they
should happen upon us if we were not to look to it, and then would
there be a murder great and grim; therefore we scour the heaths round
about, and the skirts of the woodland, and we fall upon these felons
in divers guises, so that they may not know us for the same men;
whiles are we clad in homespun, as to-day, and seem like to field-
working carles; whiles in scarlet and gold, like knights of the
Westland; whiles in wolf-skins; whiles in white glittering gear, like
the Wights of the Waste: and in all guises these felons, for all
their fierce hearts, fear us, and flee from us, and we follow and
slay them, and so minish their numbers somewhat against the great day
of battle.
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