Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/296

 to thee, noble; whence art thou last? Her voice was clear and good, and now as he looked in her face he deemed he saw no evil in it, but good-will rather. But he said: Hail to thee, dame; I am last from a sick-bed, where guile and felony had laid me. Well, said she, but there is something else than guile and felony in the world, is there not? I know not, said he shortly. I have seen something else, if only once, she said. I have seen truth and good-faith and constancy and hope without reward; and five years have worn no whit of that away. Hah, said he; was it a man, a warrior? Meseems I know one such, were it not for the hope. Nay, said she, it is a woman. And what like is she to look on? said he. She answered: If thou wilt come with me, she is no great way hence abiding my home-coming. Said Osberne: But what or who is it she is true to? or for whom doth she long, hoping against hope? Is it father, brother, son, sister, or what? Said the carline: It is her troth-plight man; and verily I, as well as she, deem that he is worthy of it; or was when last she saw him.

Osberne laughed, and said: Good dame, if this be so, what profit were it to me to see her? I am not her troth-plight man, and if it be as thou sayest, I shall be unto her as one of the trees of the Wood. There will be this profit, said the carline, that thou wilt set eyes on one of the fairest creatures that God ever made. Small profit therein, said Osberne, laughing again, if I set eyes on her beauty and am ensnared thereby; then maybe