Then indeed the men of the Burg
gave back and drew out of the battle as best they might:
yet were they little chased, save by the new-comers of the Dry Tree,
for the others were over weary, and moreover the leaders had no
mind to let the new-made warriors leave their vantage-ground
lest the old and tried men-at-arms of the Burg should turn upon
them and put them to the worse.
"Men looked for battle again the next day; but it fell not out so;
for the host of the Burg saw that there was more to lose
than to gain, so they drew back towards their own place.
Neither did they waste the land much; for the riders of the Dry
Tree followed hard at heel, and cut off all who tarried,
or strayed from the main battle.
"When they were gone, then at last did the Wheat-wearers give themselves
up to the joy of their deliverance and the pleasure of their new lives:
and one of their old men that I have spoken with told me this;
that before when they were little better than the thralls of the Burg,
and durst scarce raise a hand against the foemen, the carles were but slow
to love, and the queans, for all their fairness, cold and but little kind.
However, now in the fields of the wheat-wearers themselves all this
was changed, and men and maids took to arraying themselves gaily
as occasion served, and there was singing and dancing on every green,
and straying of couples amongst the greenery of the summer night;
and in short the god of love was busy in the land, and made the eyes
seem bright, and the lips sweet, and the bosom fair, and the arms
sleek and the feet trim: so that every hour was full of allurement;
and ever the nigher that war and peril was, the more delight had man
and maid of each other's bodies.
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