'
'Sweet friend,' he said, 'what thou sayest is better than well: for
time shall be, if we come alive out of this pass of battle and bitter
strife, when I shall lead thee into Burgdale to dwell there. And
thou wottest of our people that there is little strife and grudging
amongst them, and that they are merry, and fair to look on, both men
and women; and no man there lacketh what the earth may give us, and
it is a saying amongst us that there may a man have that which he
desireth save the sun and moon in his hands to play with: and of
this gladness, which is made up of many little matters, what story
may be told? Yet amongst it shall I live and thou with me; and ill
indeed it were if it wearied thee and thou wert ever longing for some
day of victorious strife, and to behold me coming back from battle
high-raised on the shields of men and crowned with bay; if thine ears
must ever be tickled with the talk of men and their songs concerning
my warrior deeds. For thus it shall not be. When I drive the herds
it shall be at the neighbours' bidding whereso they will; not necks
of men shall I smite, but the stalks of the tall wheat, and the boles
of the timber-trees which the woodreeve hath marked for felling; the
stilts of the plough rather than the hilts of the sword shall harden
my hands; my shafts shall be for the deer, and my spears for the
wood-boar, till war and sorrow fall upon us, and I fight for the
ceasing of war and trouble.
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