Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/293

 messenger. Nay, said the other carle, draw thy sword and smite the head from him, lord; make sure of him. The knight half-drew his sword from the scabbard; but then stayed his hand and said in a quavering voice: Nay, nay! let us begone! Dost thou not see? There is one sitting by him! It is a bush in the dusk, said the other; give me thy sword. But the knight for all answer ran swiftly down the ghyll, and they two that were left shrank and trembled, for there verily sat one by the wounded man in a scarlet kirtle, as they deemed, and a bright steel basnet. So they ran also after their master, and all three fell to climbing the side of the ghyll.

Now about a mile thence was a certain hermitage in a clearing of the Wood, and when the night was growing dark the door was smitten on, and when the hermit opened, there was before him a tall noble-looking man in scarlet kirtle and bright steel basnet, bearing in his arms another man dead or grievously hurt. And the tall man said: Canst thou leechdom? Yea, said the hermit, therein have I been well learned. See here then, here is a man grievously hurt, but he is not dead. Now I have done all I might for him, for by my craft I have staunched his blood; but I wot that he needeth long leechdom to be made whole. Now I may not come under thy roof, so take him of me, and lay him on thy bed and look to him, and do thy best; for if thou heal him thou shalt thrive, and if thou heal him not thou shalt dwindle. Fair sir, said the hermit, I need neither promise