Florimell’s golden hair flew behind her (page 102)
But when they saw the ugly robber on his panting horse, they knew that he was real enough. They rode hard after him, and frightened him so much that he hid himself in the thickest part of the forest.
Florimell passed the knights without seeing them. And even after the robber had ceased to follow her, she fancied that she heard his rough voice and the thud of his horse’s hoofs, and made her white palfrey go faster and yet more fast.
At last, as the palfrey tossed its head in its stride, it jerked the reins from out her tired little hands, and went on where it pleased.
All through the night they fled. The wild deer ran, startled, before them, and all the other beasts of the woods wondered at the sight of a white palfrey that galloped where it would under the grey boughs of the forest, carrying a lady whose hair gleamed like gold in the light of the stars. When rosy dawn had come, the horse stopped at last, too tired to do anything but stand and pant with foam-flecked mouth and heaving sides.
Then Florimell got off his back and coaxed him slowly on.
When they had wandered thus for hours, they came to a hill that shaded a thickly wooded valley. Over the tops of the tall trees in the valley Florimell saw a little blue curl of smoke. Glad at heart to think of finding a shelter and resting-place for her horse and herself, she led her palfrey towards it.
In a gloomy glen she found a little cottage built of sticks and reeds and turf. A wicked, ugly old witch and her wicked, ugly son lived in this hut. When Florimell came to the door, the old woman was sitting on the dusty floor, busy with some of her evil magic. When she looked up and saw beautiful Florimell, with her golden hair, and her face like a drooping white lily, she got a great fright. For she thought that Florimell was a good spirit come to punish her for all the bad things she had done.
But Florimell, with tears trickling down and making her face look like a lily in the dew, begged her, in gentle, pleading words, to give her shelter.