Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/386

 as any man in the world, wedded to a fair wife, the lord of a stout and stalwart people who love thee above all things. And I have that in me that tells me that if I carry thee away I carry thee away to death. For I have seen thee in a dream of the night and in a dream of the day living at Wethermel and dying on the field near the City of the Sundering Flood. Said Osberne: And shall I choose dishonour then? Nay, he said, where is the dishonour? Besides, take this for a gibe, that whereas time agone I could do but ill without thee, now I can do without thee well, for I have three or four fellows will come to my call as soon as they know that my banner is in the field again. Wherefore, I tell thee, thou must either be my unfriend, or get thee back home my friend and my lad. So when Osberne saw it would no better be, he wept and bade farewell to the Lord of Longshaw, and went his ways back home. Six months hence he heard true tidings of the Lord, that he had gathered an host and fallen on his foes, and had fared nowhere save to thrive. And it is not said that he met the Lord of Longshaw face to face again in this life.

It is further to be told that once in every quarter Osberne went into that same dale wherein he first met Steelhead, and there he came to him, and they had converse together; and though Osberne changed the aspect of him from year to year, as for Steelhead he changed not at