He said: “Thou hast spoken simply with me, and I will do no less with thee. It was but four days agone that she did me to wit that she knew of me how I sought my love on the Mountain; and she put me to sore shame, and afterwards I wept for her sorrow.”
Therewith he told her all that the Bride had said to him, as he well might, for he had forgotten no word of it.
Then said the Friend: “She shall have the token that she craveth, and it is I that shall give it to her.”
Therewith she took from her finger a ring wherein was set a very fair changeful mountain-stone, and gave it to him, and said:
“Thou shalt give her this and tell her whence thou hadst it; and tell her that I bid her remember that Tomorrow is a new day.”
XX
Those Two Together Hold the Ring of the Earth-God
And now they fell silent both of them, and sat hearkening the sounds of the Dale, from the whistle of the plover down by the waterside to the far-off voices of the children and maidens about the kine in the lower meadows. At last Gold-mane took up the word and said:
“Sweet friend, tell me the uttermost of what thou would’st have of me. Is it not that I should stand by thee and thine in the Folk-mote of the Dalesmen, and speak for you when ye pray us for help against your foemen; and then again that I do my best when ye and we are arrayed for battle against the Dusky Men? This is easy to do, and great is the reward thou offerest me.”
“I look for this service of thee,” she said, “and none other.”
“And when I go down to the battle,” said he, “shalt thou be sorry for our sundering?”
She said: “There shall be no sundering; I shall wend with thee.”
Said he: “And if I were slain in the battle, would’st thou lament me?”
“Thou shalt not be slain,” she said.
Again was there silence betwixt them, till at last he said:
“This then is why thou didst draw me to thee in the Wildwood?”
“Yea,” said she.
Again for a while no word was spoken, and Face-of-god looked on her till she cast her eyes down before him.
Then at last he spake, and the colour came and went in his face as he said: “Tell me thy name what it is.”
She said: “I am called the Sun-beam.”
Then he said, and his voice trembled therewith: “O Sun-beam, I have been seeking pleasant and cunning words, and can find none such. But tell me this if thou wilt: dost thou desire me as I desire thee? or is it that thou wilt suffer me to wed thee and bed thee at last as mere payment for the help that I shall give to thee and thine? Nay, doubt it not that I will take the payment, if this is what thou wilt give me and nought else. Yet tell me.”
Her face grew troubled, and she said:
“Gold-mane, maybe that thou hast now asked me one question too many; for this is no fair game to be played between us. For thee, as I deem, there are this day but two people in the world, and that is thou and I, and the earth is for us two alone. But, my friend, though I have seen but twenty and one summers, it is nowise so with me, and to me there are many in the world; and chiefly the Folk of the Wolf, amidst whose very heart I have grown up. Moreover, I can think of her whom I have supplanted, the Bride to wit; and I know her, and how bitter and empty her days shall be for a while, and how vain all our redes for her shall seem to her. Yea, I know her sorrow, and see it and grieve for it: so canst not thou, unless thou verily see her before thee, her face unhappy, and her voice changed and hard. Well, I will tell thee what thou askest. When I drew thee to me on the Mountain I thought but of the friendship and brotherhood to be knitted up between our two Folks, nor did I anywise desire thy love of a young man. But when I saw thee on the heath and in the Hall that day, it pleased me to think that a man so fair and chieftain-like should one day lie by my side; and again when I saw that the love of me had taken hold of thee, I would not have thee grieved because of me, but would have thee happy. And now what shall I say?—I know not; I cannot tell. Yet am I the Friend, as erst I called myself.
“And, Gold-mane, I have seen hitherto but the outward show and image of thee, and though that be goodly, how would it be if thou didst shame me with little-heartedness and evil deeds? Let me see thee in the Folk-mote and the battle, and then may I answer thee.”
Then she held her peace, and he answered nothing; and she turned her face from him and said:
“Out on it! have I beguiled myself as well as thee? These are but empty words I have been saying. If thou wilt drag the truth out of me, this is the very truth: that today is happy to me as it is to thee, and that I have longed sore for its coming. O Gold-mane, O speech-friend, if thou wert to pray me or command me that I lie in thine arms tonight, I should know not how to gainsay thee. Yet I beseech thee to forbear, lest thy death and mine come
