spring for getting these new folk he would scarce have hired them, for the repute of Wethermel for scant housekeeping had gone wide about; but when folk heard that Master Nicholas was hiring folk from mid-winter onwards, they were willing enough to come, whereas they deemed he would be changing his mind and becoming open-handed. So Nicholas rides back with his catch, for he had brought nags to horse them, and henceforth is good house kept at Wethermel, as good as anywhere in the Dale.
Again fared Osberne to the mid-winter Cloven Mote, and again was he mated to the above-said damsel, who hight Gertrude; and forsooth he deemed that this time she kissed him and caressed him not so wholly as a mere boy, though of such things ye may well deem he knew little. For she seemed to find it hard when they kissed, as paired folk are bound to do, to let her lips leave his, and when their hands parted at the end of the Mote she gave a great sigh, and put her cheek toward him for a parting kiss, which forsooth he gave her somewhat unheedfully; for he was looking hard toward the other shore to see if he could make out the shape of Elfhild amongst the women there, as he had done whenever he gat a chance of it all day long, but had failed wholly therein.
Three days afterwards he kept tryst with Elfhild, and asked her if she had been at the Mote, and she told him No; that her aunts went every time, but always left her behind. Then she said smiling: And this time they have come back full
