should share thy gift, and belike
thy luck also, if thou wert to do it into two halves, and keep one
thyself and shoot me the other over the flood?" He leapt up and fell
a-dancing for joy as she spake, and cried out: "O, but thou art wise!
Now I can see that this is what my mother meant me to do, to share the
gold and the luck."

Therewith he took the penny out of its wrapping and drew forth his
whittle, and gat a big stone and set the gold on the steel and smote
it, deftly enough; for he was no ill smith for his years. Then he
stood up and cried out: "There, it is done, and neither of the
warriors is scathed, for there was a waste place betwixt them. Now
then for the shaft and the bow!" The maiden looked eagerly with
knitted brows, and soon saw Osberne take up the shaft and nock it on
the bowstring.

Then he said: "Take heed and stand still and the halfling shall be
thine. Look now, I will send the shaft so that it shall go in the
grass-grown cleft betwixt the two big stones behind thee to thy right
hand." He raised his bow therewith, and saw how she gathered her
skirts about her, as if she would not have them hinder the shaft. Then
he loosed, and the shaft flew, but she abode still a little; and he
laughed and said: "Go, maiden, and find the shaft and the gold." Then
she turned and ran to the cleft, and took out the arrow, and did off
the wrapping with trembling fingers, and gat the gold and looked on
it, and cried out: "O the fair warrior! such like shalt thou be on a
penny, dear child."

Then she came forward again and said: "Now this is strange, that
neither last time nor now have we told each other our names: now I
will tell thee that my name is Elfhild, of Hartshaw Knolls. What is
thine?"

"Elfhild my child," said he, "my name is Osberne Wulfgrim's son, and I
am of Wethermel, as I told thee. Yet belike it is not so strange that
we have not told our names hitherto, and I hope no ill-luck will go
with our telling them, for I suppose that people give each other names
when there are many of them, and they would know one from another. But
as to us, there be only two of us, so that if I call thee Maiden, and
thou call me Swain, it had been enough. Nevertheless I am fain of
calling thee Elfhild."

"And I am full fain of calling thee Osberne," she said. "Besides, if
at any time both thou and I were to depart from this country-side we
might chance to meet amongst folk of many names, and thus we might the
better kn