It reached her knees, was black as night, and straight as rain. It might have echoed Vincent's reproach. But the mistress of both was inexorable.
"Cut it to clear my shoulders, please."
He groaned, but remembered that there would be spoils, that he must even touch this hedged young goddess. So as she stood, doubleted, breeched, and in his long red hose, he hovered round her. Soon she was lightened of her load of glory, and as spruce as a chamber-page.
"Now," she said, "you must tell me the way to the nearest shelter. There is a place called St. Lucy's Precinct, I have heard. Where is that?"
He told her. Keep straight away from the moon. It was just there: he pointed with his hand. As long as the moon held she could not fail to hit it. Beyond the pine-wood there was an open shaw; she could keep through that, then cross a piece of common with bracken cut and stacked. Afterwards came a very deep wood, full of beech-timber. You crossed a brook at Four Mile Bottom,—you could hear the ripples of the ford a half-mile away,—and held straight for the top of Galley Hill. After that the trees began again, oaks mostly. A tall clump of firs would lead you there. Beyond them was the yew-tree wood. The precinct was there. But the moon was her best lamp. He was talking to her in language which she understood better than he. She could never miss the road now.
She thanked him. Then came a pause.
"I must go, Vincent," said she. "You have been my friend this night. I will tell my lord when I see him. He will reward you better than I."
"He can never reward me!" cried Vincent.
She sighed and turned to go, but he started forward and held her with both hands at her waist. She seemed so like a boy of his age, it gave him courage.
"Isoult," he stammered, "Isoult!"