“'Twas Monday evening, please you, my good lord; I left him when the fray was o'er and he had finished hanging up the knight.”
“And was his health then good?”
“Yea, sire, with God's help, and well disposed and gay.”
“Good Lord divine and full of glory,” cried the king with clasped hands, “grant of your grace that I behold him safe; for scant my pleasure and my joys will be till I have held him in these arms again!”
CHAPTER IV. THE YEOMAN.
We now return to Jaufry, who still wanders on, resolving not to stay for food or sleep before he meets with Taulat; for in his ears incessantly do ring the biting words of Quex: “Your courage will be higher when you're drunk,”—and he yet trusts to prove that lord did lie by beating Taulat fasting. Onward he therefore pricked till midnight hour, when he attained a narrow and dark gorge shut in on either side by mountains high. No other passage was there but this one. Sir Jaufry gave his horse the spur; when, at the very mouth of the defile, before him stood a yeoman, active, of stout build and large of limb, who held within his grasp three pointed darts that were as razors sharp. A large knife pended from his girdle, which enclosed an outer garment of good form and fashion.
“Halt, knight,” he cried; “I'll have a word with thee.”