Page:Wood Beyond the World.djvu/121

 he refrained him, though it were a hard matter.

The Maid had stayed her feet now close to where Walter lay, some five yards from him only, and he doubted whether she saw him not from where she stood. As to the King’s Son, he was so intent upon the Maid, and so greedy of her beauty, that it was not like that he saw anything.

Now moreover Walter looked, and deemed that he beheld something through the grass and bracken on the other side of those two, an ugly brown and yellow body, which, if it were not some beast of the foumart kind, must needs be the monstrous dwarf, or one of his kin; and the flesh crept upon Walter’s bones with the horror of him. But the King’s Son spoke unto the Maid: Sweetling, I shall take the gift thou givest me, neither shall I threaten thee any more, howbeit thou givest it not very gladly or graciously. She smiled on him with her lips alone, for her eyes were wandering and haggard. My lord, she said, is not this the manner of women?

Well, he said, I say that I will take thy love even so given. Yet let me hear again that thou lovest not that vile newcomer, and 115