er; but no man awaited them.

"Where is thy master, good fellow?" said Osberne. "He will scarce be
far," said the carle; "I will call him." And therewith he set two
fingers to his mouth and whistled shrilly.

Now Osberne was all beswinked with his run to and fro the castle and
his two hours' walk thereafter, and he was sore athirst, so he went
down on his knees to drink of the clear little pool beneath the force.
And now, what with the failing day and the tall trees well-nigh
meeting overhead, it was dusk in the ghyll; and moreover as Osberne
drank (and he was in no hurry about it) with his face to the force and
his back to the length of the ghyll, the tinkling and splashing of the
force deafened his ears to any sound but a somewhat big one. So he
drank and thought no evil; but of a sudden he felt a sharp pain in his
left side, and ere he could say that he knew he had been smitten,
another and another, and he rolled over on the greensward and lay
still, and there stood above him three men, the carle-messenger to wit
and another of like sort, and a third clad in white armour.

"The end of the Red Lad!" quoth the messenger. "Nay," said the other
carle, "draw thy sword and smite the head from him, lord; make sure of
him." The knight half-drew his sword from the scabbard; but then
stayed his hand and said in a quavering voice: "Nay, nay! let us
begone. Dost thou not see? There is one sitting by him!" "It is a bush
in the dusk," said the other; "give me thy sword." But the knight for
all answer ran swiftly down the ghyll, and they two that were left
shrank and trembled, for there verily sat one by the wounded man in a
scarlet kirtle, as they deemed, and a bright steel basnet. So they ran
also after their master, and all three fell to climbing the side of
the ghyll.

Now about a mile thence was a certain hermitage in a clearing of the
wood, and when the night was growing dark the door was smitten on, and
when the hermit opened, there was before him a tall noble-looking man
in scarlet kirtle and bright steel basnet, bearing in his arms another
man dead or grievously hurt. And the tall man said: "Canst thou
leechdom?"

"Yea," said the hermit, "therein have I been well learned."

"See here then, here is a man grievously hurt, but he is not dead. Now
I have done all I might for him, for by my craft have I staunched his
blood; but I wot that he needeth long leechdom to be made whole. Now I
may not come under thy roof, so ta