And therewith her foot was in the stirrup, and anon
she sat in the saddle, and her palfrey was ambling
briskly on the way she would.
Little is to tell of Birdalone’s journey unto
the knoll above the Black Valley of the Greywethers.
It was about noon when she came there, and had met
but few folk on the way, and those few were husbandmen,
or carlines, or maidens wending afield betimes not
far from the Castle of the Quest.
Now she sat on her horse and looked down into the
dale and its stony people once more, and saw nought
stirring save three ravens who, not far off, were
flapping about from stone to stone of the Greywethers,
and croaking loud to each other as if some tidings
were toward. She watched their play for a little,
and then gat off her horse, and sat down on the grass
of the knoll, and drew forth her victual, and ate
and drank; for she deemed it happier to eat and drink
there than in the very jaws of the Black Valley.
Soon was her dinner done, and then she got to her
saddle again, and rode slowly down to the little stream,
and along it toward the valley and the gates of the
mountains, which she had been fain to pass through;
but now, as had happed with her that morning when she
was boun for the Sending Boat, somewhat she hung back
from the adventure, and when she lacked but some five
score yards from the very dale itself, she lighted
down again, and let her way-beast bite the grass,
while she sat down and watched the rippling water.
In a while she drew off shoon and hosen, and stood
in the shallow ripple, and bathed her hands and face
withal, and stooped up-stream and drank from the hollow
of her hands, and so stepped ashore and was waxen
hardier; then she strung her bow and looked to the
shafts in her quiver, and did on her foot-gear, and
mounted once more, and so rode a brisk amble right
on into the dale, and was soon come amongst the Greywethers;
and she saw that they were a many, and that all the
bottom of the dale was besprinkled with them on either
side of the stream, and some stood in the very stream
itself, the ground whereof was black even as the rest
of the valley, although the water ran over it as clear
as glass.
As for the dale, now she was fairly within it, she
could see but a little way up it, for it winded much,
and at first away from her left hand, and the sides
of it went up in somewhat steep screes on either side,
which were topped with mere upright staves and burgs
of black rock; and these were specially big and outthrusting
on the right hand of her; and but a furlong ahead
of where she was, one of these burgs thrust out past
the scree and came down sheer into the dale, and straitened
it so much that there was but little way save by the
stream itself, which ran swift indeed, but not deep,
even there where it was straitened by the sheer rocks.
