THE KING OF ELFLAND’S DAUGHTER
That innocent surprise, thought Alveric, must be real; but at least he knew where it had been; it used to be only two fields away from his door.
“Elfland was in the next field once,” said Alveric.
And the old man’s eyes roved back into the past, and he gazed as it were on old days awhile, then he shook his head. And Alveric fixed him with his eye.
“You knew Elfland,” he exclaimed.
Still the old man did not answer.
“You knew where the border was,” said Alveric.
“I am old,” said the leather-worker, “and I have no one to ask.”
When he said that, Alveric knew that he was thinking of his old wife, and he knew too that had she been alive and standing there at that moment yet he would have had no news of Elfland: there seemed little more to say. But a certain petulance held him to the subject after he knew it to be hopeless.
“Who lives to the East of here?” he said.
“To the East?” the old man replied. “Master, are there not North and South and West that you needs must look to the East?”
There was a look of entreaty in his face but Alveric did not heed it. “Who lives to the East?” he said,
“Master, no one lives to the East,” he answered. And that indeed was true.
“What used to be there?” said Alveric.
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