quickly, dear maiden, and leave thine horse to crop the
grass."

So he hurried on to the thorn-bush aforesaid, and she went
foot to foot with him, but he touched her not; and
straightway she sat her down on the root of the thorn, and
smiled frankly on him, and said:

"Nay, sir, and now thou hast made me go all this way I am
out of breath and weary, so I pray thee of the victual at
once."

But he had been busy with his scrip which he had left cast
down there, and therewithal reached out to her a mighty
hunch of bread and a piece of white cheese, and said:

"Now shall I fetch thee milk." Wherewith he took up a bowl
of aspen tree that had lain by the scrip, and ran off to one
of the kine and milked the bowl full, and came back with it
heedfully, and set it down beside her and said: "This was
the nighest thing to hand, but when thou hast eaten and
rested then shall we go to our house, if thou wilt be so
kind to me; for there have we better meat and wine to boot."

She looked up at him smiling, but her pleasure of the meat
and the kindness was so exceeding, that she might not
refrain from tears also, but she spake not.

As for him, he knelt beside her, looking on her wistfully;
and at last he said: "I shall tell thee, that I am glad