When we came to the village I said that we would wait outside until she came back, and thought that Eldred would go along with her. But he stayed with me, and I looked round for a sunny seat where one could see all the long chain of bright hammer ponds that went in steps, as it were, down the valley before us.
"Nay," he said in a strange voice, "come over to the other side of the valley--there is a pleasant place there."
"The lady will miss us," said I.
"We need not be long," he said. "The place I would show you is not far. One of us can be back before she has done with these churls."
So, as I supposed that we might have to wait for half an hour, because every woman in the place would want to tell her ailments to the kindly young mistress most likely, we went together, passing over the brook, and going up the steep valley side beyond it, until we came to the rocks of the old quarry where we had rested before the fight with the outlaws.
A pleasant place enough it was, truly, for the rocks stood round in a little cliff, hemming in a lawn of short grass on every side but one, and the trees that hung on the bank of the stream closed that in. So when we were fairly within this circle of red cliff and green trees Eldred said:
"This will do. We will see which of us is to go back to Sexberga."
"Why, you will," said I, thinking that he had some device by which he might be free from my presence. "I spoil company for you both, and will go back to the hall by the lower track presently."
"You have spoilt company long enough," he said, his face growing very savage of a sudden. "Now I will end it, one way or the other."
"What is this foolishness?" I said, seeing now what he meant.