“Hunger,” he said, “and longing for thee.”
“Well,” she said, “me thou hast; there is one ill quenched; take my hand, and we will see to the other one.”
So he took her hand, and to hold it seemed to him sweet beyond measure. But he looked up, and saw a little blue smoke going up into the air from beyond the thicket; and he laughed, for he was weak with hunger, and he said: “Who is at the cooking yonder?”
“Thou shalt see,” she said; and led him therewith into the said thicket and through it, and lo! a fair little grassy place, full of flowers, betwixt the bushes and the bight of the stream; and on the little sandy ere, just off the greensward, was a fire of sticks, and beside it two trouts lying, fat and red-flecked.
“Here is the breakfast,” said she; “when it was time to wash the night off me e’en now, I went down the strand here into the rippling shallow, and saw the bank below it, where the water draws together yonder, and deepens, that it seemed like to hold fish; and whereas I looked to meet thee presently, I groped the bank for them, going softly; and lo thou! Help me now, that we cook them.”
So they roasted them on the red embers, and fell to and ate well, both of them, and drank of the water of the stream out of each other’s hollow hands; and that feast seemed glorious to them, such gladness went with it.
But when they were done with their meat, Walter said to the Maid: “And how didst thou know that thou shouldst see me presently?”
She said, looking on him wistfully: “This needed no wizardry. I lay not so far from thee last night, but that I heard thy voice and knew it.”
Said he, “Why didst thou not come to me then, since thou heardest me bemoaning thee?”
She cast her eyes down, and plucked at the flowers and grass, and said: “It was dear to hear thee praising me; I knew not before that I was so sore desired, or that thou hadst taken such note of my body, and found it so dear.”