Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/340

 CHAPTER LVII. THE MAIDEN HEARS TIDINGS OF A YOUNG CHAMPION AT LONGSHAW

OW the Knight led the Maiden up to the dais, and thereon were squires and priests and ladies; for Sir Mark's mother was there, sitting on a very goodly chair beside his seat of honour, and when those two came on to the dais the said lady stood up to meet them, and put her arms about the knight's neck and kissed him. Then she turned to the Maiden and said: Thou also art welcome, and thy follower the old woman, since my son hath bidden you to the house which is his own. But look to it that thou be obedient to him, and take more heed of his honour and his welfare than thine own welfare; then shall I give thee what honour thou art worthy of, and thou shalt find in me a well-willer.

So the Maiden knelt before her and kissed her hand, but the lady looked no more on her, but on her son. She was a tall and goodly woman of some five and fifty winters; hawk-nosed and hawk-eyed, dark-haired, and her hair waved as the coat-armour of the house. She spoke in no very soft or kind voice, not even to her son, and the Maiden had feared her that while had it not been that even therewith her heart turned toward the man she loved and whom she sought, and all