ouse, and the
place where he was born and died. But how know I but this is some wile
of Earl Geoffrey, for he hath not been abounding in trustiness toward
us?"

But Sir Guisebert swore on his salvation that there was no guile
therein, and they were undone save Goldilind came unto them. Then spake
Christopher: "Sir Knight, I am willing to pleasure my Lady, who, as
I can see, longeth to behold her own land and people; and also by thy
voice and thy face I deem that thou art not lying unto me, and that no
harm will befall the Lady; yet will I ask thee right out what thou and
thy lord would think thereof if she come into Meadham accompanied; to
wit, if I rode with her, and had five hundreds of good riders at my
back, would ye have guesting for so many and such stark lads?"

The Knight took up the word eagerly, and said: "Wilt thou but come,
dear lord, and bring a thousand or more, then the surer and the safer it
would be for us."

Said the King, smiling: "Well, it shall be thought on; and meantime be
thou merry with us; for indeed I deem of thee, that but for thy helping
my life had been cast away that morning in Littledale."

So they made much of the Meadham man for three days, and thereafter
they rode into Meadham and to Meadhamstead, Christopher, and Jack of the
Tofts, and Goldilind, in all honour and triumph, they and seven hundreds
of spears, and never were lords received with such joy and kindness
as were they, but it were on the day when Christopher and his entered
Oakenham.

The Earl Geoffrey was not amongst them that met them; but whenas they
sat at the banquet in the hall, and Goldilind was in the high-seat,
gloriously clad and with the kingly crown on her head, there came a
tall man up to the dais, grey-headed and keen-eyed, and he was unarmed,
without so much as a sword by his side, and clad in simple black; and he
knelt before Goldilind, and laid his head on her lap, and spake: "Lady
and Queen, here is my head to do with as thou wilt; for I have been thy
dastard, and I crave thy pardon, if so it may be, for I am Geoffrey."

She looked kindly on him, and raised him up; and then she turned to the
chief of the serving-men, and said: "Fetch me a sword with its sheath
and its girdle, and see that it be a good blade, and all well-adorned,
both sword and sheath and girdle." Even so it was done; and when she had
the sword, she bade Sir Geoffrey kneel again before her, and she girt
him with the said sword and spak