d he held her enwrapped in his tale
till the dark and the dusk began to rise up over the earth, and then
for that time they parted, and there was to be more of the war of
Eastcheaping on the day after tomorrow.

So went Osberne home to Wethermel, and at first it seemed to him as if
this first meeting after so long a while had scarce been so good as he
had looked for; for both his longing to be close to his love, and the
fear which had arisen in him as to the stealing of her, were somewhat
of a weight on his heart. But after a little, when he had first been
among folk and then alone, all that doubt and trouble melted away in
the remembrance of her, as she had been really standing before his
eyes, and there was now little pain and much sweetness in the longing
wherewith he longed for her.

So on the said day appointed he went to meet her, smiling and happy
and fresh as a rose; and she was of like mien, and when they faced
each other she smote her palms together as in the old childish time,
and cried out: "Ah! now the warrior is all ready, and the minstrel is
stuffed full of his tale, and happy shall be the hour." And even so it
was.

Chapter XXXI. They Meet Through Autumn and Winter

So many a time they met that autumn, and Elfhild would ever be asking
him some boon; as the next time after this, it was the gifts which he
had brought for her from the Cheaping; for in thinking of her he had
clean forgotten them. So then was the merry time in talking of them,
and shooting and hurling of them over, and the donning of them, and
the talking of them again. Another time she prayed him to come clad in
that goodly armour of the spoils of Deepdale, and he could no less
than yeasay her, and there he was on the trysting-day, striding by the
river-bank in the sun, like an heap of glittering ice hurrying before
the river when the thaw is warm and the sun shining bright at
Candlemas. And over that also went many pretty plays, as taking the
pieces off, and naming them, and doing them on again, and the like.

So wore the days into winter, and yet the two saw each other full
often even through the frost and snow and ill weather. And when the
spring came, then it was dear to them indeed. And by that time had
Osberne's fears about the stealing of Elfhild much worn off; though it
is to be said that exceeding oft his heart was weary and sore with the
longing to hold her in his arms. Yet the most of these times he kept
his grief in his