She looked at him sweetly and said: ‘Canst thou show me the feat of spear-throwing in this Hall, or shall we wend outside presently that I may see thee throw?’ ‘The Hall sufficeth,’ he said. ‘Shall I set this steel in the lintel of the buttery door yonder?’ ‘Yea, if thou canst,’ she said. He smiled and took the spear from her, and poised it and shook it till it quivered again, then suddenly drew back his arm and cast, and the shaft sped whistling down the dim hall, and smote the aforesaid door-lintel and stuck there quivering: then he sprang down from the daïs, and ran down the hall, and put forth his hand and pulled it forth from the wood, and was on the daïs again in a trice, and cast again, and the second time set the spear in the same place, and then took his other spear from the board and cast it, and there stood the two staves in the wood side by side; then he went soberly down the hall and drew them both out of the wood and came back to her, while she stood watching him, her cheek flushed, her lips a little parted. She said: ‘Good spear-casting, forsooth! and far above what our folk can do, who be no great throwers of the spear.’ Gold-mane laughed: ‘Sooth is that,’ said he, ‘or hardly were I here to teach thee spear-throwing.’ ‘Wilt thou _never_ be paid for that simple onslaught?’ she said. ‘Have I been paid then?’ said he. She reddened, for she remembered her word to him on the mountain; and he put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her cheek, but timorously; nor did she withstand him or shrink aback, but said soberly: ‘Good indeed is thy spear-throwing, and meseems my brother will love thee when he hath seen thee strike a stroke or two in wrath. But, fair warrior, there be no foemen here: so get thee to the lower end of the Hall, and in the bower beyond shalt thou find fresh water; there wash the waste from off thee, and do off thine helm and hauberk, and come back speedily and eat with me; for I hunger, and so dost thou.’ He did as she bade him, and came back presently bearing in his hand both helm and hauberk, and he looked light-limbed and trim and lissome, an exceeding goodly man. CHAPTER XIX. THE FAIR WOMAN TELLETH FACE-OF-GOD OF HER KINDRED. WHEN he came back to the daïs he saw that there was meat upon the board, and the Friend said to him: ‘Now art thou Gold-mane indeed: but come now, sit by me and eat, though the Wood-woman giveth thee but a sorry banquet, O guest; but from the Dale it is, and we be too far now from the dwellings of men to have delicate meat on the board, though to-night when they come back thy cheer shall be better. Yet even then thou shalt have no such dainties as Stone-face hath imagined for thee at the hands of the Wood-wight.’ She laughed therewith, and he no less; and in sooth the meat was but simple, of curds and new cheese, meat of the herdsmen. But Face-of-god said gaily: ‘Sweet it shall be to me; good is all that the Friend giveth.’