face to face, and they were very nigh
to each other, she standing close to her horse. Her face was pale to
his deeming and there was a piteous look in her eyes, so that he yearned
towards her in his bowels, and reached his hand toward her; but she
shrank aback, leaning against her horse, and said in a trembling voice,
looking full at him, and growing yet paler: "Forester, dost thou think
it seemly that thou shouldst ride with us, thou such as thou hast told
thyself to be, in this lordly raiment, which they gave thee yonder as
part of the price for thy leading us away into the wild-wood?"

"Lady," said he, "whether it be seemly or not, I see that it is thy will
that I should go clad as a woodland churl; abide a little, and thy will
shall be done."

Therewith he did off the burden from the sumpter horse, and set the
chests on the earth; then he took her horse gently, and led him with
the other two in under the oak trees, and there he tethered them so that
they could bite the grass; and came back thereafter, and took his old
raiment out of the chest, and said: "What thou wilt have me do, I
will do now; and this all the more as to-morrow I should have done it
unbidden, and should have prayed thee to do on garments less glorious
than now thou bearest; so that we may look the less strange in the
woodland if we chance to fall in with any man."

Nought she answered as he turned toward the hazel copse; she had been
following him with her eyes while he was about that business, and when
his back was turned, she stood a moment till her bosom fell a-heaving,
and she wept; then she turned her about to the chest wherein was her
raiment, and went hastily and did off her glorious array, and did on the
green gown wherewith she had fled, and left her feet bare withal.
Then she looked up and saw Christopher, how he was coming from out the
hazel-thicket new clad in his old raiment, and she cried out aloud, and
ran toward him. But he doubted that some evil had betid, and that she
was chased; so he drew out his sword; but she ran up to him and cried
out: "Put up thy sword, here is none save me."

But he stood still, gazing on her in wonderment, and now she was drawn
near to him she stood still before him, panting. Then he said: "Nay,
Lady, for this night there was no need of thy disguising thee, to-morrow
it had been soon enough."

She said: "I were fain if thou wouldst take my hand, and lead me back to
our resting-place."

Even so he