"So I went out a-doors with him to see after his nag and saddle-bags; and I led the horse into the same stall where was winter quarters for our two horses; but this was a very big stark beast, grey of colour, such as we have not in this land; and I gave him hay and barley, but the saddle-bags he brought back with him into the chamber. And he kept ever by my side on the way there and back, and looked at me oft in the failing light, though I was but in my sorry old raiment with bare feet, in such guise as thou hast not seen me for years, my dear. Howsoever, I heeded it not at the time, and we both came back into the chamber, where Dame Anna had now lighted the candles. Shortly to say, we put what meat and drink we might before our guest, and he seemed well content therewith; and he was merry with us, and showed himself a man of many words deftly strung together, and spared not to tell us many things about tidings of far and noble countries, and the ways of men both great and small therein. And he said that he was a chapman journeying after gain, and looked to buy wares in the Dale, and therewith he asked us if we had aught to sell him, but Anna laughed and said: 'Fair sir, were ye to buy all this and all that is in it, from groundsell to roofridge, and all our kine and sheep and horses to boot, little would the tide of gold ebb in thy bags yonder.' 'I wot not,' said he; 'who may say what treasure ye have been hoarding here this long while?' He looked on me as he spake, and I reddened and looked down, for in my heart I was thinking of the pipe and the gemmed necklace which the Dwarfs had given me. And yet more than all, of thy gifts, Osberne, which have been so dear to me: for soothly to say, of these matters I had never told Dame Anna, though she knoweth that I go oft to look upon thee here and that I love thee. However, that talk ran off, and presently the chapman got to asking Anna about the matters of the Dale, and the ways of its folk, and amongst other things as to how wealthy they were, and she answered him simply as she could. He asked her also if they loved their bairns and children well, and also if they had any custom thereabout of casting any of their women-children forth, if it happened to be their fortune to have many daughters and little meat, and that especially when the years were bad. But thereat she cried out Haro! and said that such a deed was unheard of, and that when times were bad and there was lack, then hand helped foot and foot hand.
"'Well,' says he, smiling, 'that failed Hamdir's Sons once, and may do others again.' Then he asked withal if it were not true that things had run short in the Dale this last season; and she answered, as was true of this west side of the Dale, where was no man called to war, that so it was. And again that talk dropped. But the carline, methought, looked keenly at him. After a while Anna asked the guest if he had will to go to bed, and he answered, No, he would wake the meat well into his belly. Then she bade me fare to bed, which I did, nought loth, for when all was said, I scarce liked the looks of the man. As for my bed, it was a shut-bed, and opened not out of the chamber wherein we were, but out of an inner one, rather long than wide. There I lay down and went to sleep before long, but deemed I heard no little talk going on betwixt Anna and the guest ere I forgat it all. And moreover Anna came to me and waved her hands over me before I went off sound.
"But when I woke again it seemed to me that I had slept long, but I slipped out of bed and laid hold of my smock to do it on, and even therewith I shrank aback, for there before me, naked in his shirt and holding the door of my shut-bed with one hand and his whittle in the other, was the stranger. But therewithal came Dame Anna and said: 'Heed him not, for as yet he is asleep though his eyes be open. Do on thy raiment speedily, my Elfhild, and come forth with me, and let him wake up by himself.' Even so I did, not rightly understanding her words. But when we were gotten into the garth and the mead Anna told me all, to wit, how that this wretch, after I had gone to sleep, had bidden her a price for me to bear me off safely and wholly with him. And that may easily be done, says he, as I see of thee that thou art wise in wizardry and canst throw the maiden into a sleep which she will not awake from till due time is; for, says he, I want two things, to have her in mine arms to do as I will with, and thereafter to bear her home with me, will she nill she. 'Now,' said Anna, 'I would not wholly gainsay him at once, for I would have my fox safe in my trap; so I hemmed and hawed, and said that he might belike rue his bargain unless he were full sure what it were worth; and to be short, I so egged him on and drew him back, and drew him back and egged him on, that at last he took off his outer raiment, gat his bare whittle in one hand, and laid the other on the door. Now, my dear, I have long known thy door that I may so do that it will do my will in many matters; so when I saw the chapman's hand on the edge thereof, I spake a few words to it and went to bed myself, whereas I wotted that runagate could not move hand from door-board, or foot from floor-board, till the time which I had appointed to him; and thee also I had sent to sleep till the very time when thou didst awaken e'en now.' 'But what shall we do now?' said I. Said Anna: 'We will abide here in the shaw: there is meat on the board for the guest, and his raiment will not be hard to find, and he knows where are his horse and his gear and his saddle-bags. I doubt me he will not be eager to say farewell either to thee or to me; for he is not man enough to take his sword in his fist against even an old carline and a young maiden.' So in the shaw we gat us; as I have told thee, it is at the back of our houses but a furlong off. And there we lay till a little past noon, when we heard a horse going not far off. So we crept to the very edge of the wood and looked forth privily, and presently we saw our chapman riding off west with his saddle-bags and all, and his face was worn and doleful; at that Anna grinned spitefully, nor for my part might I altogether refrain my laughter. But thou dost not laugh, Osberne?" He sprang up and cried out fiercely: "I would I had been there to cleave his skull! Many a better man I have slain for less cause."
Then they were silent a while, and she sat looking on him fondly, till she spake at last: "Sweetheart, art thou angry with me for telling this tale?"
"Nay, nay," he said; "how might I live save thou told me everything that befel thee? Yet I must tell thee that I well-nigh wish I had not heard this one; for there thou dwellest, with none other to ward thee than a carline stricken in years; and though I wot well from all thou hast said of her, and this last tale in special, that she has mickle might in her, yet she cannot be always with thee, nor belike ever thinking of thee. God forbid, sweetheart, that I should speak to thee in the tongue of the courts and the great houses and lords' palaces, whenas for a fashion of talking they say of their lemans, and they not always nor often exceeding fair, that they be jewels beyond all price, whom an host of men were not enough to ward. But this I will say," and he blushed very red at the word, "that thou art so lovely and so dear that thy man, thy love, and the stout and good friends who love him, were not over many for thy guarding even in this lonely place. And with all that I can be of no more use thereto than if I were a wooden man."
She stood up also, and he saw that the tears ran over her cheeks, and he stretched out his arms to her; but she said: "Grieve not too much, my friend; and know, as thou saidst e'en now of thyself, that these tears are not wholly for sorrow of thy grief, but O! so much and so much for joy of thy kindness. And one thing I must tell thee, that if I am alone in my house, I am at least alone with a friend, and one who loves me. And this shall come of it, that now every day I shall come down to the tryst, for the carline will hinder me in no way. But I know that oft thou wilt come to meet me: yet belike often thou wilt not, because I wot how thou hast work to do and things wherein folk call for thee to serve them. So any day if thou come not it shall be well, and if thou come it shall be better."
Now at last he seemed to be learning the full sweetness of her. But she held up her band and said: "Now I bid thee tarry no longer, but fail to and tell me the tale of thy deeds; for soon shall the short autumn day be waning, and the moment of parting shall steal upon us ere we be ware." Even so he did now; but at first, to say sooth, he made but a poor minstrel, so much his mind was turned unto what she had been telling him; but after a while his scaldship quickened him, and he told her much in a manner like life, so that she might see the tidings going on before her. And he held her enwrapped in his tale till the dark and the dusk began to rise up over the earth, and then for that time they parted, and there was to be more of the war of Eastcheaping on the day after tomorrow.
So went Osberne home to Wethermel, and at first it seemed to him as if this first meeting after so long a while had scarce been so good as he had looked for; for both his longing to be close to his love, and the fear which had arisen in him as to the stealing of her, were somewhat of a weight on his heart. But after a little, when he had first been among folk and then alone, all that doubt and trouble melted away in the remembrance of her, as she had been really standing before his eyes, and there was now little pain and much sweetness in the longing wherewith he longed for her.
So on the said day appointed he went to meet her, smiling and happy and fresh as a rose; and she was of like mien, and when they faced each other she smote her palms together as in the old childish time, and cried out: "Ah! now the warrior is all ready, and the minstrel is stuffed full of his tale, and happy shall be the hour." And even so it was.