Page:Wood Beyond the World.djvu/223

 So he took her hand, and to hold it seemed to him sweet beyond measure. But he looked up, and saw a little blue smoke going up into the air from beyond the thicket; and he laughed, for he was weak with hunger, and he said: Who is at the cooking yonder?

Thou shalt see, she said; and led him therewith into the said thicket and through it, and lo! a fair little grassy place, full of flowers, betwixt the bushes and the bight of the stream; and on the little sandy ere, just off the green-sward, was a fire of sticks, and beside it two trouts lying, fat and red-flecked.

Here is the breakfast, said she; when it was time to wash the night off me e’en now, I went down the strand here into the rippling shallow, and saw the bank below it, where the water draws together yonder, and deepens, that it seemed like to hold fish; and, whereas I looked to meet thee presently, I groped the bank for them, going softly; and lo thou! Help me now, that we cook them.

So they roasted them on the red embers, and fell to and ate well, both of them, and drank of the water of the stream out of each