Birdalone looked through the willow-boughs, and saw
her turn away; then she fared to her fishing with
a smile, and soon had plenteous catch from under the
willow-boughs. Then, whereas the day was very
calm and fair, and the dame had given her holiday,
she wandered about the eyot, and most in a little
wood of berry-trees, as quicken and whitebeam and
dog-wood, and sported with the birds, who feared her
not, but came and sat on her shoulders, and crept about
her feet. She went also and stood a while on
the southern shore, and looked on the wide water dim
in the offing under the hot-weather haze, and longed
to be gone beyond it. Then she turned away, and
to the other shore, and gat her fish and strung them
on the string, and made them fast to her middle, and
so took the water back again to the yellow strand,
where now was no one awaiting her. But before
she did on her garments, she looked on them, and saw
that they lay not as she had left them, whereby she
knew well that the witch-wife had handled them.
Amidst all this the day was wearing to an end, and
again she saw the smoke of the cooking-fire going
up into the air from the chimney of the house; and
she smiled ruefully, thinking that the witch might
yet find an occasion for ransacking her raiment.
But she plucked up heart, and came home with her
catch, and the dame met her with a glum face, and
neither praised her nor blamed her, but took the fish
silently. Such ending had that day.
CHAPTER XV. BIRDALONE WEARETH HER SERPENT-RING
After this she went once and again fishing on to Green
Eyot by the bidding of the dame, who went not again
to the shore with her. These times she had half
a mind to go see the Sending Boat, but durst not,
lest the thing itself might have life enough to tell
of her.
And now was come the time of wheat-harvest, and Birdalone
must wear her days swinking in the acre-land, clad
but in smock and shoes; and the toil was hard, and
browned her skin and hardened her hands, but it irked
her not, for the witch let her work all alone, and
it was holiday unto the maiden if her mistress were
not anigh, despite those words which had somewhat
touched her heart that other day.
But when wheat-getting was done, there was again rest
for her body, and swimming withal and fishing from
the eyot by the witch’s leave. And again
by her own leave she went to seek Habundia in the wood,
and spent a happy hour with her, and came back with
a fawn which she had shot, and so but barely saved
her skin from the twig-shower. Then yet again
she went into the wood on the witch’s errand
as well as her own, and was paid by her friend’s
sweet converse, and by nought else save the grudging
girding of her mistress.
But on a night when September was well in, and the
sky was moonless and overcast, somewhat before midnight
the dame came and hung over Birdalone as she lay abed,
and watched to see if she waked; forsooth the witch’s
coming had waked her; but even so she was wary, and
lay still, nor changed her breathing. So the
witch turned away, but even therewith Birdalone made
a shift to get a glimpse of her, and this she saw
thereby, that the semblance of her was changed, and
that she bore the self-same skin wherewith she had
come to Utterhay, and which she had worn twice or
thrice afterwards when she had an errand thither.
