ay thee,
tell me thine."

So she told him, and my little lady sidling up, the three fell presently
a-chattering like linnets at sunrise, and from that hour on I had no
trouble with them.

'Twas pretty to mark them at their fantasies. They were aye out-o'-door
save when 'twas rainy weather, and then methought the castle had scarce
room enough for them. In all their games Mistress Marian was the little
lord's comrade, and wore a helmet o' silvered wood, and carried a wooden
sword silvered to match her head-gear, and the little lord was likewise
apparelled. And he called her ever "Comrade," and clapped her o' th'
shoulder, as mankind will clap one the other when conversing.

But my little lady, they both agreed, was a fairy princess; and, Lord,
Lord! 'twould take me from now 'til Martlemas next to name the perilous
'scapes that did befall her. They fished her out of moats, they bore her
from blazing castles, they did drag her from the maws o' dragons and
other wild beasts I know not how to name. Thrice was the little Lord of
Radnor in dire straits at the claws o' goblin creatures. Three times
did his comrade rescue him by thwacking upon the chair which did
represent the dreadful beast, till I was in sore dread there would be no
mending of it, and me, mayhap, dismissed from the castle for
carelessness. And always when 'twas all o'er, and the little princess in
safety, I was called upon to act parson and wed my little lady to the
little lord, while Mistress Marian leaned on her sword to witness the
doings.

One day, in their rovings through the park, they came by chance upon a
door in the hill-side, but so o'ergrown with creeping vines that, had
not the little lord stumbled upon it, 'twas very like it had been there
to this day without discovery. Well, no sooner do they see the door than
they must needs open it, spite o' all my scolding, and peer within.
'Twas but a darksome hole, after all--a kind o' cave i' th' hill-side,
which they did afterwards find out from thy grandfather was used in days
gone by for concealing treasures in time of war. And indeed it seemed a
safe place, for there were two rusty bolts as big as my arm, one o' th'
inside and one o' th' outside, and the creeping things hid all. As thou
mightst think, it grew to be their favorite coigne for playing their
dragon and princess trickeries. I would sit with my stitchery on a
fallen log in the sunshine, while they ran in and out o' th' grewsome
hole. But