Therewith he
poured forth into the mazer, and handed it to Birdalone, and lo! it
was clear and good mead. She sipped thereof daintily, and, to say
sooth, was well-pleased therewith, and it stirred the heart in her.
But then she gave back the cup to the elder, and would no more of it.
As for him, he drank what was left in the cup, looking over the rim
thereof meanwhile; and then filled himself another, and another, and
yet more. But whereas it might have been looked for that his tongue
should be loosened by the good mead into foolishness and gibbering,
he became rather few-spoken, and more courteous and stately even than
he had been at the first. But in the end, forsooth, he was
forgetting Birdalone, what she was, and he fell a-talking, always
with much pomp and state, as if to barons and earls, and great
ladies; till suddenly his head fell back, he turned over on his face,
and all wit was gone from him.
At first, then, Birdalone was afraid that he was dead, or nigh unto
death, and she knelt down and raised his head, and fetched water and
cast it over his face.
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