"So wore the autumn, and winter came, and I fared as I
was wont, setting springes for fowl and small-deer. And
for all the roughness of the season, at that time it pleased
me better than the leafy days, because I had less memory
then of the sharpness of my fear on that day of the altar.
Now one day as I went under the snow-laden trees, I saw something
bright and big lying on the ground, and drawing nearer I saw
that it was some child of man: so I stopped and cried out,
'Awake and arise, lest death come on thee in this bitter cold,'
But it stirred not; so I plucked up heart and came up to it,
and lo! a woman clad in fair raiment of scarlet and fur,
and I knelt down by her to see if I might help her;
but when I touched her I found her cold and stiff, and dead,
though she had not been dead long, for no snow had fallen on her.
It still wanted more than an hour of twilight, and I by no
means durst go home till nightfall; so I sat on there and
watched her, and put the hood from her face and the gloves
from her hands, and I deemed her a goodly and lovely thing,
and was sorry that she was not alive, and I wept for her,
and for myself also, that I had lost her fellowship.
So when I came back to the house at dark with the venison,
I knew not whether to tell my mistress and tyrant concerning
this matter; but she looked on me and said at once:
'Wert thou going to tell me of something that thou hast seen?'
So I told her all, even as it was, and she said to me:
'Hast thou taken aught from the corpse?' 'Nay,' said I.
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