The attacker turned upon him a face of surprise and fury. “Meddler! Meddler! Begone from here!” Snatching from his belt a small, silver-mounted horn, he blew it shrilly, for he had followers with him whom he had sent ahead when he came upon the herd-girl and would stop for ill passion’s sake. But they had gone too considerable a way, or the wind blew against the horn, or a hill came between. Whatever it was, he summoned in vain.
“O thou coward!” cried Garin. “Turn and fight!”
The knight stamped upon the ground. “Fight with a page or a squire at best! My men shall scourge that green coat from your back! Begone with your life—”
“Now,” answered Garin, “if you were heir of France, yet are you to me churl and recreant!”
Whereupon the other took his hands from the herd-girl, drew his short sword, and sprang upon him.
Raimbaut the Six-fingered had faults many and heavy, but those about him lacked not for instruction in the art of attack and defence. Garin was skilful to make the difference not so pronounced between that long dagger of his and the other’s sword, and he was as strong as his opponent, and his eyes nothing like so clouded with despite and fury. The knight had far the wider experience, was counted bold and successful. But to-day he was at a disadvantage; he knew cold rages in which he fought or tilted well; but this was a hot rage, and his arm shook and he struck wide. Still the summoned men did not come, and still the two struggled for mastery. As for the herd-girl—she had risen to her knees and then to her feet, and now was standing beneath a young oak, her eyes upon the combat. At first she had made a move to leave the place, and then had shaken her head and stayed.
Garin gained, his antagonist fighting now in a blind fury. Presently the squire gave a stroke so effective that the blood spouted and the knight, reeling, let fall his weapon. He himself followed, sinking first upon his knee and then upon his face.
“Now have I slain you?” demanded Garin, and thrusting the sword aside with his foot, kneeled to see.
Whereupon the other turned swiftly and struck upward with his dagger. The squire, jerking aside, went free of the intended hurt.
“Now! by the soul of my father!” swore Garin, “this is a noble knight and must be nobly dealt with!” And so he took the other’s wrists, forced away the dagger, and wrestling with him, bound his hands with his belt, then dragged him to the nearest tree, and, cutting the bridle from his horse, ran the leather beneath his arms and tied him to the trunk. This done, he took from him the horn, and stooping, glanced at his wound. “It will not kill you. Live and learn knightliness!”
The other, bound to the tree, twisted and strove, trying to free himself. His face was no longer flushed but pale from loss of blood and huge anger. His eyes burned like coals and he gnashed his teeth. He had a hawk nose, a sensuous mouth, and across his cheek a long and curiously shaped scar, traced there by a poignard. Garin, gazing upon him, saw that he promised to be a mighty man.
The bound one spoke, his voice shaking with passion. “Who are you and what is your name? Who is your lord? My father and I will come, level your house with earth, flay you alive and nail you head downward to a tree—”
“If you can, fair sir,” said Garin. Stepping back, he saw upon the earth the herd-girl’s distaff where she had dropped it when the knight came against her. The squire picked it up, came back to the captive’s side and thrust it between his tied hands. “Now,” he said, “let your men find you with no sword, but with a distaff!”
But the herd-girl moved at that from beneath the oak. Garin found her at his side, a slim, dark girl, with torn dress and long, black, loosened hair. “You are all alike!” she cried. “You would shame him with my distaff! But I tell you that it is my distaff that you shame!” With that she came to the bound man, caught the distaff from between his hands, and with it burst through the thicket and went again among her sheep.
There, presently, Garin found her, lying beneath a green bank, her head buried in her arms.
“You were right,” said Garin, standing with Paladin beside her, “to take your distaff away. I am sorry that I did that.—Now what will you do? He had those with him who will come to seek him.”
The girl stood up. “I have been a fool,” she said, succinctly. “But there! we learn by folly.” She looked about her. “Where will I go? Well, that is the question.”
“Where do you live?”
The herd-girl seemed to regard the horizon from west to east and from east to west. Then she said, “In a hut, two miles yonder. But his men went that way.”
“Then you cannot go there now.”
“No.—Not now.”
Garin pondered. “It is less than two leagues,” he said, “to the Convent of Our Lady in Egypt. I could take you there. The good nuns will give you shelter and send you safe to-morrow to your people.”
The herd-girl seemed to consider it, then she nodded her head. She said something, but her voice was half lost in the black torrent of her loosened hair. The sun’s rays were slant—it was growing late.
Garin mounted and drew her up behind him. At a little distance the road forked.
“They went that way,” she said, pointing.
“Then it’s as well,” said Garin, “that we go this. Now we had best ride fast for a time.”
They rode fast for a good long way; then, as no hoof-sound or cry came from behind, the squire checked Paladin, and they went slowly enough to talk.
“I have hopes,” said Garin, “that he swooned, and when they found him could tell them naught. Do you know his name?”
“No. I was asleep in the sun.”
“What is your name?”
“Jael.”
“The nuns will care for you.”
“I will ask them to let me stay and keep their sheep.”
They rode on through a fair, smiling country. Garin fell silent and the herd-girl was not talkative. He could not but ride wondering about that knight back there, and who he might be and how powerful. He saw that it was possible that he had provided a hornet’s nest for the ears of Castel-Noir and Foulque. He drew a sigh, half-frighted and half-proud of a proved prowess.
The girl behind him moved slightly. “I had forgot to say it,” she murmured. “I will say it now. Fair sir, I am humbly grateful—”
Garin had a great idiosyncrasy. He disliked to be thanked. “I liked that fighting,” he said. “It was no sacrifice. That is,” he thought, “it will not be if he never find out my name.”
Paladin carried them a way farther. Said Garin, remembering chivalry, “It is man’s part to protect the weaker being, that is woman.”
“It puzzles so!” said the herd-girl. “I am not very weak. Is it man’s part, too, to lay hands upon a woman against her will? If man did not that, then man need not do, at such cost, the other. What credit to put water on the house you yourself set afire?”
“Now by Our Lady,” said Garin, “you are a strange herd-girl!” He twisted in the saddle so that he might look at her. She sat still—young, slim and forlorn to the eye, dark as a berry, her feet bare and her dress so torn that her limbs showed. Her long, black loosened hair almost hid her face, which seemed thin, with irregular features. She had her distaff still, the forlorn serf’s daughter, herself a serf.
“If we plume ourselves it is a mistake, and foolishness,” said Garin. “But yet though one man act villainously, another may act well.”
“Just,” said the herd-girl. “And I thank the one who has acted well—but not all men. I thank a man, but not mankind.”
“How