She said: "When I rode
away from thee on that happy day of my deliverance by thee,
my heart laughed for joy of the life thou hadst given me,
and of thee the giver, and I swore to myself that I would
set free the first captive or death-doomed creature that I
came across, in honour of my pleasure and delight:
now speedily I came to Hampton and the Scaur;
for it is not very far from the want-ways of the wood:
and there I heard how four of our folk had been led away by
the men of the Burg, therefore it was clear to me that I must
set these men free if I could; besides, it pleased me to think
that I could walk about the streets of the foemen safely,
who had been but just led thitherward to the slaughter.
Thou knowest how I sped therein. But when I came back again
to our people, after thou hadst ridden away from us with Roger,
I heard these tidings, that there was one new-come into
our prison, a woman to wit, who had been haled before our old
Queen for a spy and doomed by her, and should be taken forth
and slain, belike, in a day or two. So I said to myself that I
was not free of my vow as yet, because those friends of mine,
I should in any case have done my best to deliver them:
therefore I deemed my oath bound me to set that woman free.
So in the night-tide when all was quiet I went to the prison
and brought her forth, and led her past all the gates and wards,
which was an easy thing to me, so much as I had learned,
and came with her into the fields betwixt the thorp of
Hampton and the wood, when it was more daylight than dawn,
so that I could see her clearly, and no word as yet
had we spoken to each other.
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