ol,
and heard two others and a green woodpecker chuckling in the trees
close by. And they had no eyes for slimy goblin things, even if there
were any. And I don't believe there were.

They bound the black tress about a stone, and it sank among the
reflections of the daisies in the water, there to be purified for ever.
And the next day he put her behind him on his horse, and they rode to
the garden on the eastern hills, and found on his bush a single perfect
rose. And as she had given it to him, Hobb straightway plucked and gave
it to her. For that is the only way to possess a gift.

And then they went together to the Burgh, and very soon after there was
a wedding.

I am now all impatience, Mistress Jessica, to hear you solve my riddle.

FOURTH INTERLUDE

Like contented mice, the milkmaids began once more to nibble at their
half-finished apples, and simultaneously nibbled at the just-finished
story.

Jessica: Do, pray, Jane, let us hear what conclusions you draw from all
this.

Jane: I confess, Jessica, I am all at sea. The good and the evil were
so confused in this tale that even now I can scarcely distinguish
between black and gold. For had Margaret not done ill, who would have
discovered how well Hobb could do? Yet who would wish her, or any
woman, to do ill? even for the proof of his, or any man's, good?

Martin: True, Mistress Jane. Yet women are so strangely constructed
that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a
little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes the
curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For all the
ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love. And
where there is fear to combat, love is life's warrior; but where there
is no fear he is life's priest. And his prayer is even stronger than
his sword. But men, always less aware of prayers than of blows,
recognize him chiefly when he is in arms, and so are deluded into
thinking that love depends on fear to prove his force. But this is a
fallacy; love's force is independent. For how can what is immortal
depend on what is mortal? Yet human beings must, by the very fact of
being alive at all, partake of both qualities. And strongly opposed as
we shall find the complexing elements of light and darkness in a woman,
still more strongly opposed shall we discover them in a man. As I
presume I have no need to tell you.

Joscelyn: You presume too much. The elements that