; for meek
and holy indeed she is, as oft we have heard it."

The Lady put her hand on his shoulder, as if to bid him silence, and
then set herself down on the grass beside the Knight of the Sun, and
fell to talking sweetly and blithely to the three men. The Friar
answered her with many words, and told her of the deer and fowl of the
wood and the water that he was wont to see nigh to his hermitage; for
of such things she asked him, and at last he said: "Good sooth, I
should be shy to say in all places and before all men of all my
dealings with God's creatures which live about me there. Wot ye what?
E'en now I had no thought of coming hitherward; but I was sitting
amongst the trees pondering many things, when I began to drowse, and
drowsing I heard the thornbushes speaking to me like men, and they bade
me take my boat and go up the water to help a man who was in need; and
that is how I came hither; benedicite."

So he spake; but the Knight of the Sun did but put in a word here and
there, and that most often a sour and snappish word. As for Ralph, he
also spake but little, and strayed somewhat in his answers; for he
could not but deem that she spake softlier and kinder to him than to
the others; and he was dreamy with love and desire, and scarce knew
what he was saying.

Thus they wore away some two hours, the Friar or the Lady turning away
at whiles to heed the wounded man, who was now talking wildly in his
fever.

But at last the night was grown as dark as it would be, since cloud and
storm came not, for the moon had sunk down: so the Lady said: "Now,
lords, our candle hath gone out, and I for my part will to bed; so let
us each find a meet chamber in the woodland hall; and I will lie near
to thee, father, and the wounded friend, lest I be needed to help thee
in the night; and thou, Baron of Sunway, lie thou betwixt me and the
wood, to ward me from the wild deer and the wood-wights. But thou,
Swain of Upmeads, wilt thou deem it hard to lie anear the horses, to
watch them if they be scared by aught?"

"Yea," said the Knight of the Sun, "thou art Lady here forsooth; even
as men say of thee, that thou swayest man and beast in the wildwood.
But this time at least it is not so ill-marshalled of thee: I myself
would have shown folk to chamber here in likewise."

Therewith he rose up, and walked to and fro for a little, and then
went, and sat down on a root of the oak-tree, clasping his knees with
his hands, but la