“If you can, fair sir,” said Garin. Stepping back, he saw upon the earth the herd-girl’s distaff where she had dropped it when the knight came against her. The squire picked it up, came back to the captive’s side and thrust it between his tied hands. “Now,” he said, “let your men find you with no sword, but with a distaff!”
But the herd-girl moved at that from beneath the oak. Garin found her at his side, a slim, dark girl, with torn dress and long, black, loosened hair. “You are all alike!” she cried. “You would shame him with my distaff! But I tell you that it is my distaff that you shame!” With that she came to the bound man, caught the distaff from between his hands, and with it burst through the thicket and went again among her sheep.
There, presently, Garin found her, lying beneath a green bank, her head buried in her arms.
“You were right,” said Garin, standing with Paladin beside her, “to take your distaff away. I am sorry that I did that.—Now what will you do? He had those with him who will come to seek him.”
The girl stood up. “I have been a fool,” she said, succinctly. “But there! we learn by folly.” She looked about her. “Where will I go? Well, that is the question.”
“Where do you live?”
The herd-girl seemed to regard the horizon from west to east and from east to west. Then she said, “In a hut, two miles yonder. But his men went that way.”
“Then you cannot go there now.”
“No.—Not now.”
Garin pondered. “It is less than two leagues,” he said, “to the Convent of Our Lady in Egypt. I could take you there. The good nuns will give you shelter and send you safe to-morrow to your people.”