The last-comer laughed and said: 'What ails thee, Gold-mane, to be
so careful of us, as if thou wert our mother or our nurse? Yet if
thou must needs know, there hang our gowns on the thorn-bush down
yonder; for we have been running a match and a forfeit; to wit, that
she who was last on the highway should go down again and bring them
up all three; and now that is my day's work: but since thou art
here, Alderman's son, thou shalt go down instead of me and fetch them
up.'
But he laughed merrily and outright, and said: 'That will I not, for
there be but twenty-four hours in the day, and what between eating
and drinking and talking to fair maidens, I have enough to do in
every one of them. Wasteful are ye women, and simple is your
forfeit. Now will I, who am the Alderman's son, give forth a doom,
and will ordain that one of you fetch up the gowns yourselves, and
that Long-coat be the one; for she is the fleetest-footed and ablest
thereto. Will ye take my doom? for later on I shall not be wiser.'
'Yea,' said the fair woman, 'not because thou art the Alderman's son,
but because thou art the fairest man of the Dale, and mayst bid us
poor souls what thou wilt.
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