Thus she lay for an hour, and tumbled and routed in her slumber, and thereafter she awoke and sat up, and was much besweated and worn; and she spake in a weak voice: "I have seen what lieth behind and what lieth before; now therefore I can do, and all will be well. For the chapmen have awakened and have striven, the two young ones together, and then the two young with the old because of his bitter mocks. But now they be got to the road again, and though we be most like to prevent them at a place of refuge, yet wise will it be to leave as little as may be to chancehap. As to what lieth before, I have seen our way that it turneth somewhat east tomorrow, and will bring us to a goodly Abbey that hath a noble guest-house, and there, by the help of the Prior's safe-conduct and the gifts I shall give to the saints and the stewards, we shall be put well upon our way. But now will I do; and when thou seest me fall down and lie like to one dead, be not afeard, but when I come to myself again then sprinkle my face with water and put a cup of wine to my lips, and thereafter shall I be whole, and we shall eat and drink and go on our way." Then the Carline went about the way and gathered handfuls of the dust and small stones and laid them in the bag, and then lay down on the way and put the bag under her bosom and brooded it, as a hen broodeth her eggs, moaning and muttering the while, and thus she was a long hour. Then she arose and let her hair loose, and it was long and white and not scanty. In this guise she walked to and fro athwart the road, keeping her face turned toward the mountains, and kept taking handfuls of that dust and casting it up toward that quarter; and ever and anon she cried out: "Be mist and mirk, and bewilderment and fear, before those faces of our foemen! Be a wall behind us that they may not pierce through! Mirk behind us, light before us!" So she went on till she had emptied the said bag, and then she fell aback and lay on the road as one dead. And the Maiden did as she had bidden and meddled not with her. But at last, and it was another hour, she began to come to herself, and the Maiden sprinkled her with water and gave her wine to drink, and the old woman arose and was herself again and of good cheer; and she stowed away her bag, and they drew forth victual and ate and drank kindly and merrily together. So they gat to the road again when it yet lacked three hours of sunset, but rode not after night had fallen lest they should miss their way. And no shelter they had that night but the grass and the trees and the well-bedecked heavens, and all that was sweet enough for them.