Cry for the Wolf, Chapter 3. by Richard Walker

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In so far as this may also involve my handfasting and marriage, on the absence of mine father from this world, may he ever walk in the Light, I would be doubly beholden to thee for thine invaluable advice and most deep ponderings in return, pleaseth it thou whensoe'er thou mayest choose to retum a reply, by this or some other messenger, on this I await thy pleasure.
En primus, I would relate to thee sommat of the situation that occurred upon the event of my interview with my erstwhile good and faithful confidante of many years, Mother Olivia, with whom I know thou art well acquainted. It seems that, when last I spoke with Mother Olivia, a day and more agone, she must have had many other cares upon her mind, or I do not believe she would have unleashed upon me such a merciless onslaught of unconsidered, unvamished feeling and opinion, such as quite took my breath away, even to robbing my legs of the strength to hold me up. I am quite sure 'twas so done to break through the wall of innocuous pleasantries I am forced now to see and admit hath been my habit commonly to weave about me, and so in fact done with the tenderest of love and greatest consideration of heart, for mine own good, but no less did it rend me, for all her care.
In the good Mother's considered opinion, I walked as one who yet slept, with cares only for the land of dreams, that unreal society of scholars who live only among their own, in the universities and Church schools, quite apart from the cares and responsibilities of those who battle with strength of arms, or toil by the strength of their backs or by cunning art for their daily bread in the larger world. Her words jarred me most rudely and wholly awake, and stirred in me a great sorrow for what I see now as the wasted time and lost opportunities of which my blindness, my ignorant "sleep" hath deprived me, the greatest of which I feel must be love. Mother Olivia warned me of my ‘dangerous game', playing a simple-souled knight with sweet nature off against a noble knight with a kind, if secret, heart, despite my protestations that no game it was, not in the least, neither with they nor any others, such notions of my duplicitousness of character confounding me utterly with great consternations. In the way of the Dagorian philosophers, she pointed to my unreal life as a great cause of unhappiness to my wretched, sickly mother, a constant well-spring of ills that would forever smite her if I did not live up to my responsibilities, greatest among them the finding of a suitable man for husband and after the getting of his children, my sainted mother's grandchildren, and this I must admit to having taken very much to heart. At the very least, it is a course of action that I can pursue myself, with thine prudent advice to guide me, while waiting on others to act, and it may certainly give me pleasure enough 'midst my cares to divert me, betimes. There was once a period in my life when greatly I enjoyed the diligent pursuit of domestic duties, mayhap I may recapture it.