‘Angry is my sister! good it is to wear the helm abroad when she shaketh the nut-trees.’ ‘Nay,’ said she, ‘it is thy luck that thou wert bare-headed, else had I been forced to smite thee on the face. Thou churl, since when hath it been our wont to thrust knives into a guest, who is come of great kin, a man of gentle heart and fair face? Come hither and handsel him self-doom for thy fool’s onset!’ The man rose to his feet and said: ‘Well, sister, least said, soonest mended. A clout on the head is worse than a woman’s chiding; but since ye have given me one, ye may forbear the other.’ Therewith he drew near to them. He was a very big-made man, most stalwarth, with dark red hair and a thin pointed beard; his nose was straight and fine, his eyes grey and well-opened, but somewhat fierce withal. Yet was he in nowise evil-looking; he seemed some thirty summers old. He was clad in a short scarlet kirtle, a goodly garment, with a hood of like web pulled off his head on to his shoulders: he bore a great gold ring on his left arm, and a collar of gold came down on to his breast from under his hood. As for the woman, she was clad in a long white linen smock, and over it a short gown of dark blue woollen, and she had skin shoes on her feet. Now the man came up to Face-of-god, and took his hand and said: ‘I deemed thee a foe, and I may not have over-many foes alive: but it seems that thou art to be a friend, and that is well and better; so herewith I handsel thee self-doom in the matter of the onslaught.’ Then Face-of-god laughed and said: ‘The doom is soon given forth; against the tumble on the grass I set the clout on the head; there is nought left over to pay to any man’s son.’ Said the scarlet-clad man: ‘Belike by thine eyes thou art a true man, and wilt not bewray me. Now is there no foeman here, but rather maybe a friend both now and in time to come.’ Therewith he cast his arms about Face-of-god and kissed him. But Face-of-god turned about to the woman and said: ‘Is the peace wholly made?’ She shook her head and said soberly: ‘Nay, thou art too fair for a woman to kiss.’ He flushed red, as his wont was when a woman praised him; yet was his heart full of pleasure and well-liking. But she laid her hand on his shoulder and said: ‘Now is it for thee to choose betwixt the wild-wood and the hall, and whether thou wilt be a guest or a wayfarer this night.’ As she touched him there took hold of him a sweetness of pleasure he had never felt erst, and he answered: ‘I will be thy guest and not thy stranger.’ ‘Come then,’ she said, and took his hand in hers, so that he scarce felt the earth under his feet, as they went all three together toward the house in the gathering dusk, while eastward where the peaks of the great mountains dipped was a light that told of the rising of the moon. CHAPTER VI. OF FACE-OF-GOD AND THOSE MOUNTAIN-DWELLERS.