hose good men of the town brought me the keys,
how should I have known them from borrel folk but for their scarlet
gowns and fur hoods? And meseemed that when they knelt to me, it was the
scarlet gowns kneeling to the kingly armour. Therefore, sweetheart, if
thou fearest that the King should punish thee for so wounding the poor
Christopher of those few days ago, as belike thou deservest it, bid the
King do off his raiment, and do thou in likewise, and then there shall
be no King to punish, and no King's scather to thole the punishment, but
only Christopher and Goldilind, even as they met erewhile on the dewy
grass of Littledale."

She blushed blood-red; but ere his words were done, her hands were busy
with girdle and clasp, and her raiment fell from her to the earth, and
his kingly raiment was cast from him, and he took her by the hand and
led her to the bed of honour, that their love might have increase that
night also.

CHAPTER XXXV. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND AN EVIL DEED.

When morning was, and it was yet early, the town was all astir and the
gates were thrown open, and weaponed men thronged into it crying out for
Christopher the King. Then the King came forth, and Jack o' the Tofts
and his sons, and Oliver Marson, and the captains of Brimside; and the
host was blown together to the market-place, and there was a new tale of
them taken, and they were now hard on seventy hundreds of men. So then
were new captains appointed, and thereafter they tarried not save to eat
a morsel, but went out a-gates faring after the banners to Oakenrealm,
all folk blessing them as they went.

Nought befell them of evil that day, but ever fresh companies joined
them on the road; and they gat harbour in another walled town, hight
Sevenham, and rested there in peace that night, and were now grown to
eighty hundreds.

Again on the morrow they were on the road betimes, and again much folk
joined them, and they heard no tidings of any foeman faring against
them; whereat Jack o' the Tofts marvelled, for he and others had deemed
that now at last would Rolf the traitor come out against them. Forsooth,
when they had gone all day and night was at hand, it seemed most like to
the captains that he would fall upon them that night, whereas they were
now in a somewhat perilous pass; for they must needs rest at a little
thorpe amidst of great and thick woods, which lay all round about the
frank of Oakenham as a garland about a head. So there t