"come, then," said he; and they ran together to the cover of the
woods. as they gained the edge of the brushwood, alleyne,
looking back, saw his brother come running out of the house
again, with the sun gleaming upon his hair and his beard. he
held something which flashed in his right hand, and he stooped at
the threshold to unloose the black hound.
"this way!" the woman whispered, in a low eager voice. "through
the bushes to that forked ash. do not heed me; i can run as fast
as you, i trow. now into the stream--right in, over ankles, to
throw the dog off, though i think it is but a common cur, like
its master." as she spoke, she sprang herself into the shallow
stream and ran swiftly up the centre of it, with the brown water
bubbling over her feet and her hand out-stretched toward the
clinging branches of bramble or sapling. alleyne followed close
at her heels, with his mind in a whirl at this black welcome and
sudden shifting of all his plans and hopes. yet, grave as were
his thoughts, they would still turn to wonder as he looked at the
twinkling feet of his guide and saw her lithe figure bend this
way and that, dipping under boughs, springing over stones, with a
lightness and ease which made it no small task for him to keep up
with her. at last, when he was almost out of breath, she
suddenly threw herself down upon a mossy bank, between two holly-
bushes, and looked ruefully at her own dripping feet and
bedraggled skirt.
"holy mary!" said she, "what shall i do? mother will keep me to
my chamber for a month, and make me work at the tapestry of the
nine bold knights. she promised as much last week, when i fell
into wilverly bog, and yet she knows that i cannot abide needle-
work."
alleyne, still standing in the stream, glanced down at the
graceful pink-and-white figure, the curve of raven-black hair,
and the proud, sensitive face which looked up frankly and
confidingly at his own.
"we had best on," he said. "he may yet overtake us."
"not so. we are well off his land now, nor can he tell in this
great wood which way we have taken. but you--you had him at your
mercy. why did you not kill him?"
"kill him! my brother!"
"and why not?"--with a quick gleam of her white teeth. "he would
have killed you. i know him, and i read it in his eyes. had i
had your staff i would have tried--aye, and done it, too." she
shook her clenched white hand as she spoke, and her lips
tightened ominously.
"i am already sad in heart for what i have done," said he,
sitting down on the bank, and sinking his face into his hands.
"god help me!--all that is worst in me seemed to come uppermost.
another instant, and i had smitten him: the son of my own mother,
the man whom i have longed to take to my heart. alas! that i
should still be so weak."
"weak!" she exclaimed, raising her black eyebrows. "i do not
think that even my father himself, who is a hard judge of
manhood, would call you that. but it is, as you may think, sir,
a very pleasant thing for me to hear that you are grieved at what
you have done, and i can but rede that we should go back
together, and you should make your peace with the socman by
handing back your prisoner. it is a sad thing that so small a
thing as a woman should come between two who are of one blood."
simple alleyne opened his eyes at this little spurt of feminine
bitterness. "nay, lady," said he, "that were worst of all. what
man would be so caitiff and thrall as to fail you at your need?
i have turned my brother against me, and now, alas! i appear to
have given you offence also with my clumsy tongue. but, indeed,
lady, i am torn both ways, and can scarce grasp in my mind what
it is that has befallen."
"nor can i marvel at that," said she, with a little tinkling
laugh. "you came in as the knight does in the jongleur's
romances, between dragon and damsel, with small time for the
asking of questions. come," she went on, springing to her feet,
and smoothing down her rumpled frock, "let us walk through the
shaw together, and we may come upon bertrand with the horses. if
poor troubadour had not cast a shoe, we should not have had this
trouble. nay, i must have your arm: for, though i speak lightly,
now that all is happily over i am as frightened as my brave
roland. see how his chest heaves, and his dear feathers all
awry--the little knight who would not have his lady mishandled."
so she prattled on to her hawk, while alleyne walked by her side,
stealing a glance from time to time at this queenly and wayward
woman. in silence they wandered together over the velvet turf
and on through the broad minstead woods, where the old lichen-
draped beeches threw their circles of black shadow upon the
sunlit sward.
"you have no wish, then, to hear my story?" said she, at last.
"if it pleases you t
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