Knight and Elfhild, and now
stood with his back to her, facing the felons.

"What, cur!" cried the White Knight: "shall we have thee out and flay
thy back with our stirrup-leather?" Said Osberne, speaking slowly:
"That is the third question too much thou hast asked in the last few
minutes. Lo thou!" And he shook his hood from his face, and had
Boardcleaver bare in his hand straightway. Then those three set up a
quavering cry of, The Red Lad! the Red Lad! and ran bundling out of
the cot; but Boardcleaver was swifter than they. One of the
serving-men lost his head just outside the threshold; the Knight
stumbled at the brook and fell, and never rose again. The messenger
strove hard for the thicket, but the moon was up now, and it was but a
few strides of the swift runner of the Dale ere Boardcleaver had taken
his life.

The two women stood looking toward the open door the while, and the
maiden said faintly and in a quavering voice: "Mother what is it? what
has befallen? Tell me, what am I to do?" "Hush, my dear," said the
carline, "hush; it is but a minute's waiting after all these years."
Even therewith came a firm footstep to the door, and Osberne stepped
quietly over the threshold, bareheaded now, and went straight to
Elfhild; and she looked on him and the scared look went out of her
face, and nought but the sweetness of joyful love was there. And he
cried out: "O my sweet, where now is the Sundering Flood?" And there
they were in each other's arms, as though the long years had never
been.

Chapter LIII. Strangers Come to Wethermel

Now turns the tale to Wethermel, and tells how that on the morrow of
Midsummer, five years to the day since Osberne had bidden them
farewell, the folk once more sat without-doors about the porch in the
cool of the evening; neither was there any missing of the settled folk
of those to whom he had said farewell. For all had thriven there that
while. There sat the goodman, more chieftain-like than of old; there
sat the goodwife, as kind as ever, and scarce could she be kinder;
there sat Bridget, not much aged in the five years; for ever she
deemed it a certain thing that her nursling would come back to her.
Lastly, there sat Stephen the Eater, wise of aspect and thoughtful, as
if he were awaiting something that should happen which should change
much in him; and there were the carles and the queans (with some few
children amongst them who had not been there five years ago) who had
bee