The Knight hung down his head, but presently he raised it, and heaved a sigh as if a weight were lifted from his heart, and he said: Let each of us take what content may be in the passing days. Then he shook his rein, and they both sped on together till they caught up with their company.
That night they harboured at a husbandman's cot, where was no room save for the two women, and the men lay out under the bare heaven, but all was done that might be for the easement of the Maiden. The franklin's folk rode on with them on the morrow, and whereas they must needs wend a somewhat thick wood the more part of the day, they rode close, and had the Maiden in their midst, while the Blue Knight went the foremost of their company, and was as wary as might be. So whatever strong-thieves might have been lurking under cover of the thicket, they adventured them not against so stout and well-ordered a company, and they all came safely through the wood into a fair grassy valley some little time before sunset. But though the pasture was good there and the land well watered, there were no houses within sight, for it was over-nigh to the wood for folk to venture their goods, yea and their lives, by dwelling in neighbourhood to such ill men as haunted the thickets of the forest. Wherefore this night all the company, women as well as men, must needs forego lying under rafters; albeit they dight some kind of a tent with what cloths they had for the Maiden and her fosterer. The fourth day, as they rode the
