therein, which I were loth to awaken: nevertheless if thou ask, I will answer as I may, and in any case will tell thee nought save the truth.
Said Walter: Well then, hast thou been long here?
Yea, said the carle, since I was a young man, and a stalwarth knight.
Said Walter: This house, didst thou build it, and raise these garths, and plant orchard and vineyard, and gather together the neat and the sheep, or did some other do all this for thee?
Said the carle: I did none of all this; there was one here before me, and I entered into his inheritance, as though this were a lordly manor, with a fair castle thereon, and all well stocked and plenished.
Said Walter: Didst thou find thy foregoer alive here?
Yea, said the elder, yet he lived but for a little while after I came to him.
He was silent a while, and then he said: I slew him: even so would he have it, though I bade him a better lot.
Said Walter: Didst thou come hither of thine own will?
Mayhappen, said the carle; who knoweth?
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