"And what like is she to look on?" said he. She answered: "If thou wilt come with me, she is no great way hence abiding my home-coming." Said Osberne: "But what or who is it she is true to? or for whom doth she long, hoping against hope? Is it father, brother, son, sister, or what?" Said the carline: "It is her troth-plight man; and verily I, as well as she, deem that he is worthy of it; or was, when she saw him." Osberne laughed, and said: "Good dame, if this be so, what profit were it to me to see her? I am not her troth-plight man, and if it be as thou sayest, I shall be unto her as one of the trees of the wood." "There will be this profit," said the carline, "that thou wilt set eyes on one of the fairest creatures that God ever made." "Small profit therein," said Osberne, laughing again, "if I set eyes on her beauty and am ensnared thereby; then maybe shall be another tale for this woodland. For belike thou deemest me old, but I am a young man, only I am haggard with the battle between life and death as I lay wounded yonder." Therewith he pulled aback his hood, and the carline came close up to him and looked him hard in the face, but said nothing. Then he said: "Dame, to be short with thee, I have walked into the trap once, and will not again, if I may help it. Now I know not what thou art; for all I know thou mayst be a bit of bait of my foes, or even a sending from evil things. Nor hast thou said any word why specially I should come with thee." She was still standing close to him, and now she laid her hand on his breast and said: "This I say as a last word, and thou must take it how thou wilt. If thou dost not come with me now, thou shalt rue it only once, to wit, all thy life long." He looked on her and knit his brows, and said at last: "Well it is little to throw away the end of my life, and there may be some tidings or tracks of tidings to be found. I will go with thee, dame. Only this time," he muttered, "let there be no coming to life again." "Thou art wise," said the carline; "let us lose no time." So they set off, and up and down by rough and smooth, till the wood was quite dark, and the stars were overhead when they came to a clearing, and sweet was the peace of the May night. At last they saw before them a glimmer of light, which as they wound about became presently a little window, yellow-litten, and casting its light upon a space of greensward and a little tinkling brook. So came they to a little cot, seemly enough thatched with reed from the woodland meres. Osberne made up toward the door, but the carline put forth her hand and thrust him back, and said: "Not yet; abide where thou art a minute;" and straightway fell to going withershins round the house. This she did three times, while Osberne gat his anlace bare in his hand.