from a thicket and finds her young grazing in the glade, she lifted
her head and looked with brightest eyes away to the high road whence the
call had come. Then, though they were yet far asunder, his eyes met hers,
and hers met his, and they uplifted their arms, as though some invisible
power had moved them both, and flew to meet each other. There was no
doubt nor pause; and I plainly perceived that they were borne along as
flowers are in a raging torrent; albeit she, or ever she reached him; was
overcome by maiden shamefacedness, and her arms fell and her head was
bent. But the little bird had ventured too far into the springe, and the
fowler was not the man to let it escape; before Ann could foresee such a
deed he had both his arms round her, and she did not hinder him, nay, for
she could not. So she clung to him and let him lift up her head and kiss
her eyes and then her mouth, and that not once, no, but many a time and
again, and so long that I, a sixteen-year-old maid, was in truth
affrighted.
There stood I; my knees quaked, and I weened that this which was doing
was a thing that beseemed not a pious maid, and that must ill-please the
heart of a virtuous daughter's mother; yea, it was a grief to me that it
should have been done, and that I knew that of my Ann which she would
fain hide from the light. Nevertheless I could not but find a joy in it,
and meseemed it was a cruel act to fetch her away so soon from such sweet
bliss.
When presently their lips were free, and at last he spoke a few words to
her, methought it was now time for me to greet my brother. I called up
all my strength and while I walked toward them my spirit's sense came
back to me, for indeed it had altogether left me, and a voice within
asked: "What shall come of this?"
He put forth his arm to hold her to him again, and forasmuch as I was
abashed to think of coming in to their secret, before I stepped forth,
from the thicket, I hailed Herdegen by name. And soon I was in his arms;
but although that he kissed me lovingly, meseemed that something strange
was on his lips which pleased me not, and I yet remember that I put my
kerchief to my mouth to wipe that from it.
And then we walked homeward. Herdegen led his horse by the bridle, and
Ann went between him and me and gazed up into his face with shining eyes,
for in these two years he had grown in stature and in manhood. She
listened wide-eared to all his tidings, but once, when his horse grew
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