CHAPTER 5
Yet More of the Lady's Story
"Lo thou, beloved," she said, "thou hast seen me in the wildwood
with little good quickened in me: doth not thine heart
sink at the thought of thy love and thy life given over to
the keeping of such an one?" He smiled in her face, and said:
"Belike thou hast done worse than all thou hast told me:
and these days past I have wondered often what there was
in the stories which they of the Burg had against thee:
yet sooth to say, they told little of what thou hast done:
no more belike than being their foe." She sighed and said:
"Well, hearken; yet shall I not tell thee every deed that I
have been partaker in.
"I sat in the Dale that next day and was happy, though I longed
to see that fair man again: sooth to say, since my mistress
was dead, everything seemed fairer to me, yea even mine own face,
as I saw it in the pools of the stream, though whiles I wondered
when I should have another mistress, and how she would deal with me;
and ever I said I would ask the carline when she came again to me.
But all that day she came not: nor did I marvel thereat.
But when seven days passed and still she came not, I fell
to wondering what I should do: for my bread was all gone,
and I durst not go back to the house to fetch meal; though there
was store of it there. Howbeit, I drank of the milk of the goats,
and made curds thereof with the woodland roots, and ate
of the wood-berries like as thou hast done, friend, e'en now.
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