Page:The Sundering Flood - Morris - 1898.djvu/150

be since the Baron is yet so strong. Ah, but I have a deeming how it may be done, said Stephen, but there is peril in it. Osberne stood up and said: What hast thou been about, runagate? Master, said he, I will tell thee. Five nights ago I did on raiment of the fashion of them beyond Deepdale, and I had with me a fiddle, and was in manner of a minstrel; and thou wottest that I am not so evil a gut-scraper, and that I have many tales and old rhymes to hand, though I am no scald as thou art. Well, I got out-a-gates a-night-tide by the postern on the nook of the south-east tower, the warden whereof is a friend of mine own, and bade him expect me by midnight of the third day; and then by night and cloud I contrived it to skirt the dyke and get me about till I came north-west of our north gate, and then somehow I got up over the dyke, which is low there and was not guarded as then, and in a nook I lay still till morning came. And there I let myself be found by one of the warders, and when he kicked me and challenged me, I told him what I would as to myself, and he trowed it, and he brought me to his fellows, who, a five of them, were cooking their breakfast, and they gave me victual and bade me play and sing for their disport, and I did so, and pleased them. Thereafter one of them took me along with him toward the west side of the dyke, and I played and sang; and so, to make a long story short, I worked round the dyke that day till I was come to the south side of the leaguer, and there I lay