arted: "Yet look ye, lads of Eastcheaping,
though this ox be mine, yet shall he not be the ox of the Eater; for
slay him will I never, but let live on and on for love of our friends
of Eastcheaping so long as I may buy, beg, or steal a cow's grass for
him."

As for Osberne, though he bought in the booths a pretty many of such
things as were goodly and little, of goldsmiths' work and the like, to
flit to his friend across the Sundering Flood, yet no gift would he
take, save a very fair armour of the spoils of Deepdale: and this was
no gift, said Sir Medard, but what he had earned himself by hard toil
enough.

All loved him, but Sir Medard in especial, who had fain dubbed him
knight; but Osberne would not, and said that such had been no wont of
his fathers before him; and he looked never to go very far from the
Dale and for no long while. "And even if I may not live there," quoth
he, "I look to die there;" and he reddened therewith till the eyes
looked light in the face of him. But Medard said: "Wheresoever thou
livest or diest thou wilt live and die a great-heart. But this I bid
thee, whenso thou hast need of a friend who may show thee the road
into the world of deeds, when thou hast aught to hide or aught to
seek, come thou unto me, and be sure that I shall not fail thee."

Osberne thanked him from his whole heart, and they kissed and departed
with all love; and as the Dalesmen rode down the street toward the
western gate, it was full of folk shouting out praises and blessings;
and the windows were full of women who cast down flowers on them as
they went along, saying that but for these stout-hearts they might
have had neither town nor honour nor children, and that nought was
good enough for such friends as these. Thus rode the Dalesmen out of
Eastcheaping.

But of the ten score and six that had ridden out of the Dale, two
score and two were lacking, who had either been slain in battle or so
sorely hurt that they were no longer fightworthy; but sixteen had
dropped in by ones and twos and threes to fill the places of these, so
that they rode back but little fewer than they came.

Chapter XXIX. Osberne and His Men Return to Wethermel

Now on a fair evening a little ere sunset of the beginning of October,
came those Dalesmen amongst the black rocks and rough places that
crowned the bent which looked down west over the Dale. And now, though
they had been talking merrily and loud for the last three hours, their
h