“The end of the Red Lad!” quoth the messenger. “Nay,” said the other carle, “draw thy sword and smite the head from him, lord; make sure of him.” The knight half-drew his sword from the scabbard; but then stayed his hand and said in a quavering voice: “Nay, nay! let us begone. Dost thou not see? There is one sitting by him!” “It is a bush in the dusk,” said the other; “give me thy sword.” But the knight for all answer ran swiftly down the ghyll, and they two that were left shrank and trembled, for there verily sat one by the wounded man in a scarlet kirtle, as they deemed, and a bright steel basnet. So they ran also after their master, and all three fell to climbing the side of the ghyll.
Now about a mile thence was a certain hermitage in a clearing of the wood, and when the night was gro
