"
Then Osmund put the viol aside and sat quite silent. The soldiery
judged, and with cordial frankness stated, that the difficulty of his
rhyming scheme did not atone for his lack of indecency, but when the
Queen of England went among them with Messire Heleigh's faded green hat
she found them liberal. Even the fellow with the broken head admitted
that a bargain was proverbially a bargain, and returned the locket with
the addition of a coin. So for the present these two went safe, and
quitted the _Cat and Hautbois_ fed and unmolested.
"My Osmund," Dame Alianora said, presently, "your memory is better than
I had thought."
"I remembered a boy and a girl," he returned. "And I grieved that they
were dead."
Afterward they plodded on toward Bowater, and the ensuing night rested
in Chantrell Wood. They had the good fortune there to encounter dry and
windless weather and a sufficiency of brushwood, with which Osmund
constructed an agreeable fire. In its glow these two sat, eating bread
and cheese.
But talk languished at the outset.
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