of you. You have cried her praises only to forfeit
them. You have vaunted her beauty and never crowned it. And what have
you got for it?" The Rusty Knight was as dumb as the dead. Harding
stepped closer. "Shall I tell you, Rusty Knight, what you have got for
it? Last Midsummer Eve by the Wishing-Well the Proud Rosalind forswore
love if heaven would send her a man to strike a blow in her name for
her fathers' sake. She did not say what sort of man or what sort of
blow. She asked in her simplicity only that a blow should be struck.
And like a woman she was ready to find it enough, and in gratitude
repay it with that which could only in honor be exchanged for what
honored her. Yet I myself heard her swear to hold herself bound to the
sorry champion who should strike for her in the tourney. And you struck
and fell. Did you tell her you fell when you came to her, crownless?
And how did she crown you for your fall, Rusty Knight?"

The Knight sprang to his feet and stood quivering.

"That moves you," said Harding, "but I will move you more. The Proud
Rosalind is not your woman. She is mine. She was mine from the moment
her eyes fell. She was only a child then, but I knew she was mine as
surely as I knew this hart was mine and no other's, when first I saw it
as a calf drink at its pool. But I was patient and waited till he, my
calf, should become a king, and she, my heifer, a queen. And I am her
man because I am of king's stock in my own land, and she of king's
stock in hers. And I am her man because for a year I have kept her,
without her knowledge, with the pence I earned by my sweat, that were
earned for a different purpose. And I am her man because the hart you
have defended so ill, and hampered for a month, was saved to-day by my
arrows, not yours. It was my arrows slew the hounds from the top of the
cliff. It was my arrows split the bows of the seven knights. And it is
my arrow now that will kill the White Hart that in all men's sight I
may give her the antlers to-morrow, and hear my Proud Rosalind called
queen among women."

And as he spoke Harding drew back suddenly, and fitted a shaft to his
string as though he would shoot the hart where it lay.

But the Rusty Knight sprang forward and caught his hands crying, "Not
my Hart! you shall not shoot my Hart!" And he tore off his casque, and
the great tawny mantle of Rosalind's hair fell over her rags, and her
face was on fire and her bosom heaving; and she sank down murmu