her cheek
flushed, and she said: "Lord King, be these some others of thy men?"

"Yea, sweetling," said he, "to live and die with me."

She looked on him, and said softly: "Maybe it were an ill wish to wish
that I were thou; yet if it might be for one hour!"

Said he: "Shall it not be for more than one hour? Shall it not be for
evermore, since we twain are become one?"

"Nay," she said, "this is but a word; I am but thine handmaid: and now I
can scarce refrain my body from falling before thy feet."

He laughed in her face for joy, and said: "Abide a while, until these
men have looked on thee, and then shalt thou see how thou wilt be a
flame of war in their hearts that none shall withstand."

Now were the dale-dwellers all come together in their weapons, and they
were glad of their King and his loveling; and stout men were they all,
albeit some were old, and some scarce of man's age. So they were ranked
and told over, and the tale of them was over six score who had obeyed
the war-arrow, and more and more, they said, would come in every hour.
But now the Captains of them bade the Toft-folk eat with them; and they
yea-said the bidding merrily, and word was given, and sacks and
baskets brought forth, and barrels to boot, and all men sat down on the
greensward, and high was the feast and much the merriment on the edge of
Hazeldale.

CHAPTER XXIX. TIDINGS COME TO HAZELDALE.

But they had not done their meat, and had scarce begun upon their drink,
ere they saw three men come riding on the spur over the crown of the
bent before them; these made no stay for aught, but rode straight
through the ford of the river, as men who knew well where it was, and
came on hastily toward the feasters by the wood-edge. Then would some
have run to meet them, but Jack of the Tofts bade them abide till he had
heard the tidings; whereas they needed not to run to their weapons, for,
all of them, they were fully dight for war, save, it might be, the doing
on of their sallets or basnets. But Jack and Christopher alone went
forward to meet those men; and the foremost of them cried out at once:
"I know thee, Jack of the Tofts! I know thee! Up and arm! up and arm!
for the foemen are upon thee; and so choose thee whether thou wilt fight
or flee."

Quoth Jack, laughing: "I know thee also, Wat of Whiteend; and when thou
hast told me how many and who be the foemen, we will look either to
fighting or fleeing."

Said Wat: "Thou knowest the