So they played like two happy children till they came
to the door of the house, and Birdalone shoved it
open, and they two looked in together and saw nought
worse therein save the strange shadows that the moon
cast from the settle on to the floor. Then Birdalone
drew in her love, and went about lighting the candles
and quickening a little cooking fire on the hearth,
till the yellow light chased the moon away from the
bed of their desire.
CHAPTER XXIX. THOSE TWAIN WILL SEEK THE WISDOM OF THE WOOD-WIFE
Again next day was their life such as it had been
the day before; and as they lay in cool shadow of
a great oak, Birdalone fell to telling Arthur all
the whole story of her dealings with the wood-wife,
and how that she had so loved her and holpen her,
that through her love and her help she had escaped
the witch and her snares, who would have turned her
into a half-devil for the undoing of manfolk.
And how that the said wood-wife had never appeared
to her but as an image and double of herself, save
on the time when she played the leech to him.
Then she told him how all had gone when the wood-wife
had sought him out for the fulfilment of their love,
and of the dreadful day when they had come upon him
out of his wit and but little manlike.
Then she asked, would he, within the next day or two,
that they should go see the wood-wife together and
thank her for her help, and bring him within the ring
of her love and guarding; and he yeasaid it with a
good will.
After this she would have him tell her of how things
had gone with him since that evil day when he had
come home from the Castle of the Quest and found her
gone. So he told her somewhat, and of his dole
and misery, and his dealings with the foemen of Greenford;
but yet scantly, and as one compelled; and at last
he said:
Dear love, since thou art cossetting me with all solace
of caresses, I pray thee remember my trouble and grief,
how sore they were, and do with me as with a sick
man getting well, as I wot surely thou wouldest do;
and do thou that which is at this present the softest
and merriest to me, and that forsooth is, that thou
shouldest talk and tell, and I should hearken the
sweetness of the music, and only here and there put
in a word to rest thee and make thy tale the sweeter.
She laughed with love on him, and without more ado
fell to telling everything she might think of, concerning
her days in the House of Captivity, both when she
was but a bairn, and when she was grown to be a young
woman; and long was she about the tale, nor was it
all done in one day; and a multitude of things she
told him which are not set down in this book.
