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The Collected Works of William Morris: The water of the wondrous isles
The Collected Works of William Morris The water of the wondrous isles Author:William Morris Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART I arouse some strange creature in human shape, devil, or god Chap. 5 now damned, or woman of the Faery. But ifsuch were there, either they were wise and... more » would not be seen, or kind and had no will to scare the simple maiden; or else maybe there were none such in those days. Anyhow, nought evil came to her out of Evilshaw. CHAPTER VI. HEREIN IS TOLD OF BIRD- ALONE'S RAIMENT. ENK and long is Birdalone the sweet, with legs that come forth bare and browned from under her scant grey coat and scantier smock beneath, which was all her raiment save when the time was bitter, and then, for- sooth, it was a cloak of goat-skin that eked her attire: for the dame heeded little the clothing of her; nor did Birdalone give so much heed thereto that she cared to risk the anger of her mistress by asking her for aught. But on a day of this same spring, when the witch-wife was of sweeter temper than her wont was, and the day was very warm and kindly, though it was but one of the last of February days, Birdalone, blushing and shame-faced, craved timidly some more womanly attire. But the dame turned gruffly on her and said: " Tush, child! what needeth it ? here be no men to behold thee. I shall see to it, that when due time comes thou shalt be whitened and sleeked to the very utmost. But look thou! thou art a handy wench; take the deer-skin that hangs up yonder and make thee brogues for thy feet, if so thou wilt." Even so did Birdalone, and shaped the skin to her feet; but as she was sewing them a fancy came into her head; for she had just come across some threads of silk of divers colours ; so she took them« less