had been in old time long screes from the cliff, which had now grown
together, with the waxing of herbs and the washing down of the earth
on to them, and made a steady slope or low hill going down riverward.
Over this the road lifted itself above the level of the meadows,
keeping a little way from the cliffs, while on the other side its
bank was somewhat broken and steep here and there. As Face-of-god
came up to one of these broken places, the sun rose over the eastern
pass, and the meadows grew golden with its long beams. He lingered,
and looked back under his hand, and as he did so heard the voices and
laughter of women coming up from the slope below him, and presently a
young woman came struggling up the broken bank with hand and knee,
and cast herself down on the roadside turf laughing and panting. She
was a long-limbed light-made woman, dark-faced and black-haired:
amidst her laughter she looked up and saw Gold-mane, who had stopped
at once when he saw her; she held out her hands to him, and said
lightly, though her face flushed withal:

'Come hither, thou, and help the others to climb the bank; for they
are beaten in the race, and now must they do after my will; that was
the forfeit.'

He went up to her, and took her hands and kissed them, as was the
custom of the Dale, and said:

'Hail to thee, Long-coat! who be they, and whither away this morning
early?'

She looked hard at him, and fondly belike, as she answered slowly:
'They be the two maidens of my father's house, whom thou knowest; and
our errand, all three of us, is to Burgstead, the Feast of the Wine