[ BOOK FOUR The Road Home ]

1 [Ralph and Ursula Come Back Again Through the Great Mountains]
2 [They Hear New Tidings of Utterbol]
3 [They Winter With the Sage; and Thereafter Come Again to Vale Turris]
4 [A Feast in the Red Pavilion]
5 [Bull Telleth of His Winning of the Lordship of Utterbol]
6 [They Ride From Vale Turris. Redhead Tells of Agatha]
7 [Of Their Riding the Waste, and of a Battle Thereon]
8 [Of Goldburg Again, and the Queen Thereof]
9 [They Come to Cheaping Knowe Once More. Of the King Thereof]
10 [An Adventure on the Way to the Mountains]
11 [They Come Through the Mountains Into the Plain]
12 [The Roads Sunder Again]
13 [They Come to Whitwall Again]
14 [They Ride Away From Whitwall]
15 [A Strange Meeting in the Wilderness]
16 [They Come to the Castle of Abundance Once More]
17 [They Fall in With That Hermit]
18 [A Change of Days in the Burg of the Four Friths]
19 [Ralph Sees Hampton and the Scaur]
20 [They Come to the Gate of Higham By the Way]
21 [Talk Between Those Two Brethren]
22 [An Old Acquaintance Comes From the Down Country to See Ralph]
23 [They Ride to Bear Castle]
24 [The Folkmote of the Shepherds]
25 [They Come to Wulstead]
26 [Ralph Sees His Father and Mother Again]
27 [Ralph Holds Converse With Katherine His Gossip]
28 [Dame Katherine Tells of the Pair of Beads, and Whence She Had Them]
29 [They Go Down to Battle in Upmeads]
30 [Ralph Brings His Father and Mother to Upmeads]
31 [Ralph Brings Ursula Home to the High House]
32 [Yet a Few Words Concerning Ralph of Upmeads]

BOOK ONE

The Road Unto Love

CHAPTER 1

The Sundering of the Ways

Long ago there was a little land, over which ruled a regulus or kinglet, who was called King Peter, though his kingdom was but little. He had four sons whose names were Blaise, Hugh, Gregory and Ralph: of these Ralph was the youngest, whereas he was but of twenty winters and one; and Blaise was the oldest and had seen thirty winters.

Now it came to this at last, that to these young men the kingdom of their father seemed strait; and they longed to see the ways of other men, and to strive for life. For though they were king's sons, they had but little world's wealth; save and except good meat and drink, and enough or too much thereof; house-room of the best; friends to be merry with, and maidens to kiss, and these also as good as might be; freedom withal to come and go as they would; the heavens above them, the earth to bear them up, and the meadows and acres, the woods and fair streams, and the little hills of Upmeads, for that was the name of their country and the kingdom of King Peter.