Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/310

 look over the Flood on to the field of deed, as if he were seeking after me dead amongst the corpses of the foe. And to-morrow he shall come down to the water's edge while the dead yet lie there, and stand looking to see if I be not coming to meet him, as now I have been wont so many years. And the morrow of that morrow will he come, yea, and many a morrow, till his heart shall be outworn with longing and grief, and he will go away out of the Dale to escape from his sorrow, and shall nowise escape it. Ah, and how shall I know whither he will wend, or the place of the shifting dwelling of his wanderings? And I, and I, I wend away from him.

Sore grieved was the Carline at her grief, and she said: O, my child, I pray thee keep up a good heart within thee, lest thou die of sorrow, and endure not the chances of the meeting. Who knows whether thou be wending away from him? Nay, to my mind thou art wending toward him, and he to thee; for never had ye come together hadst thou abided in thine old home and he in his.

But the Maiden wept. But therewith rode along by them one of the men, and smote the Carline on the shoulders with his spear-staff, and bade her hold her peace, and not go on like a crazy hen. So they rode their ways till they had passed the straiter part of the pass that led through the fells, and there night began to fall on them (it was April-tide in those days); so the men-at-arms chose a place where was grass and