s had given me. And yet more than all, of thy
gifts, Osberne, which have been so dear to me: for soothly to say, of
these matters I had never told Dame Anna, though she knoweth that I go
oft to look upon thee here and that I love thee. However, that talk
ran off, and presently the chapman got to asking Anna about the
matters of the Dale, and the ways of its folk, and amongst other
things as to how wealthy they were, and she answered him simply as she
could. He asked her also if they loved their bairns and children well,
and also if they had any custom thereabout of casting any of their
women-children forth, if it happened to be their fortune to have many
daughters and little meat, and that especially when the years were
bad. But thereat she cried out Haro! and said that such a deed was
unheard of, and that when times were bad and there was lack, then hand
helped foot and foot hand.

"'Well,' says he, smiling, 'that failed Hamdir's Sons once, and may do
others again.' Then he asked withal if it were not true that things
had run short in the Dale this last season; and she answered, as was
true of this west side of the Dale, where was no man called to war,
that so it was. And again that talk dropped. But the carline,
methought, looked keenly at him. After a while Anna asked the guest if
he had will to go to bed, and he answered, No, he would wake the meat
well into his belly. Then she bade me fare to bed, which I did, nought
loth, for when all was said, I scarce liked the looks of the man. As
for my bed, it was a shut-bed, and opened not out of the chamber
wherein we were, but out of an inner one, rather long than wide. There
I lay down and went to sleep before long, but deemed I heard no little
talk going on betwixt Anna and the guest ere I forgat it all. And
moreover Anna came to me and waved her hands over me before I went off
sound.

"But when I woke again it seemed to me that I had slept long, but I
slipped out of bed and laid hold of my smock to do it on, and even
therewith I shrank aback, for there before me, naked in his shirt and
holding the door of my shut-bed with one hand and his whittle in the
other, was the stranger. But therewithal came Dame Anna and said:
'Heed him not, for as yet he is asleep though his eyes be open. Do on
thy raiment speedily, my Elfhild, and come forth with me, and let him
wake up by himself.' Even so I did, not rightly understanding her
words. But when we were gotten into the garth an