So wore the day, and the sun was getting low, and they were come toanother woodland pool which was fed by a clear-running little brook, andup from it went a low bank of greensward exceeding sweet, and beyondthat oak trees wide-branched and great, and still fair greensward beneaththem and hazel-thicket beyond them. There, then, Goldilind reined up,and looked about her, but Christopher looked on her and nought else.But she said: "Let to-morrow bring counsel; but now am I weary to-night, and if we are not to ride night-long, we shall belike find no betterplace to rest in. Wilt thou keep watch while I sleep?"
"Yea," he said, bowing his head to her soberly; and therewith he gotoff his horse, and would have helped her down from hers, but she slippedlightly down and stood before him face to face, and they were very nigh toeach other, she standing close to her horse. Her face was pale to his deeming and there was a piteous look in her eyes, so that he yearnedtowards her in his bowels, and reached his hand toward her; but she shrankaback, leaning against her horse, and said in a trembling voice, lookingfull at him, and growing yet paler: "Forester, dost thou think it seemlythat thou shouldst ride with us, thou such as thou hast told thyself to be, inthis lordly raiment, which they gave thee yonder as part of the price forthy leading us away into the wild-wood?"
"Lady," said he, "whether it be seemly or not, I see that it is thy willthat I should go clad as a woodland churl; abide a little, and thy will shallbe done."
Therewith he did off the burden from the sumpter horse, and set thechests on the earth; then he took her horse gently, and led him with theother two in under the oak trees, and there he tethered them so that theycould bite the grass; and came back thereafter, and took his old raimentout of the chest, and said: "What thou wilt have me do, I will do now;and this all the more as to-morrow I should have done it unbidden, andshould have prayed thee to do on garments less glorious than now thoubearest; so that we may look the less strange in the woodland if we chanceto fall in with any man.
Nought she answered as he turned toward the hazel copse; she hadbeen following him with her eyes while he was about that business, andwhen his back was turned, she stood a moment till her bosom fell a-heaving, and she wept; then she turned her about to the chest wherein washer raiment, and went hastily and did off her glorious array, and did on thegreen gown wherewith she had fled, and left her feet bare withal. Then shelooked up and saw Christopher, how he was coming from out the hazel-thicket new clad in his old raiment, and she cried out aloud, and rantoward him. But he doubted that some evil had betid, and that she waschased; so he drew out his sword; but she ran up to him and cried out: "Putup thy sword, here is none save me."