In return I have demanded one thing, which if
you had not given I would have found you another Dale to deal
with."
"Have I ever refused it, my captain?"
"Not yet. Take your hand from that pillion and hold it up; then say
after me these words: 'This lady is my mistress, my master's wife,
to be by me reverenced as such. Her face is not for my eyes nor her
hand for my lips. If I keep not myself clean of all offense toward
her, may God approve that which my master shall do!' "
The blood rushed to his face. I watched his fingers slowly
loosening their grasp.
"Tardy obedience is of the house of mutiny," I said sternly. " Will
you, sirrah, or will you not?"
He raised his hand and repeated the words.
"Now hold her as before," I ordered, and, straightening myself in
the saddle, rode on, with my eyes once more on the path before
me.
A mile further on, Mistress Percy stirred and raised her head from
my shoulder. " Not at Jamestown yet?" she sighed, as yet but half
awake. "Oh, the endless trees! I dreamed I was hawking at
Windsor, and then suddenly I was here in this forest, a bird, happy
because I was free; and then a falcon came swooping down upon
me, - it had me in its talons, and I changed to myself again, and it
changed to - What am I saying? I am talking in my sleep. Who is
that singing?"
In fact, from the woods in front of us, and not a bowshot away,
rang out a powerful voice: -
"'In the merry month of May,
In a morn by break of day,
With a troop of damsels playing
Forth I went, forsooth, a-maying;' " and presently, the trees
thinning in front of us, we came upon a little open glade and upon
the singer.
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