Of late Michal had been much engrossed in the reading of the black-letter books that Philosopher Bale brought from France. As you know I am no Latinist--though one while she was earnest in her desire to instruct me; but the open air had ever greater charms for me than had the dry precincts of a library. So I grudged the time she spent apart, and throughout the spring I would have been all day at her side, talking such foolery as lovers use. But ever she must steal away and hide herself amongst dead volumes. Yestereven I crossed the Roods, and entered the garden, to find the girl sitting under a yew-tree. Her face was haggard and her eyes sunken: for the time it seemed as if many years had passed over her head, but somehow the change had only added to her beauty. And I marvelled greatly, but ere I could speak a huge bird, whose plumage was as the brightest gold, fluttered out of her lap from under the silken apron; and looking on her uncovered bosom I saw that his beak had pierced her tender flesh. I cried aloud, and would have caught the thing, but it rose slowly, laughing like a man, and, beating upwards, passed out of sight in the quincunx. Then Michal drew long breaths, and her youth came back in some measure. But she frowned, and said, ‘What is it, sweetheart? Why hast awakened me? I dreamed that I fed the Dragon of the Hesperidean Garden.’ Meanwhile, her gaze set on the place whither the bird had flown. ‘Thou hast chosen a filthy mammet,’ I said. ‘Tell me how came it hither?’ She rose without reply, and kissed her hands to the gaudy wings, which were nearing through the trees. Then, lifting up a great tome that had lain at her feet, she turned towards the house. But ere she had reached the end of the maze she stopped, and smiled with strange subtlety. ‘How camest _thou_ hither, O satyr?’ she cried. ‘Even when the Dragon slept, and the fruit hung naked to my touch.... The gates fell to.’ Perplexed and sore adread, I followed to the hall; and found in the herb garden the men struggling with an ancient woman--a foul crone, brown and puckered as a rotten costard. At sight of Michal she thrust out her hands, crying, ‘Save me, mistress!’ The girl cowered, and ran up the perron and indoors. But for me, I questioned Simon, who stood well out of reach of the wretch’s nails, as to the wherefore of this hurly-burly. His underlings bound the runnion with cords, and haled her to the closet in the banqueting gallery. Then, her beldering being stilled, Simon entreated me to compel Michal to prick her arm. So I went down to the library, and found my sweetheart sitting by the window, tranced with seeing that goblin fowl go tumbling on the lawn. My heart was full of terror and anguish. ‘Dearest Michal,’ I prayed, ‘for the sake of our passion let me command. Here is a knife.’ I took a poniard from Sir Roger’s stand of arms. ‘Come with me now; I will tell you all.’