It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding
only shadows and hearing nought but our own steps. At first, I
believe our hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity;
but the darkness and the cold, and the silence, which only the
cocks sometimes interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had
pretty soon brought down our pride to the dust; and for my own
particular, I would have jumped at any decent opening for speech.
Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was
all wiped away from among our feet. I took my cloak to her and
sought to hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to
keep it.
"Indeed and I will do no such thing," said I. "Here am I, a great,
ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a
tender, pretty maid! My dear, you would not put me to a shame?"
Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in
the darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost
like an embrace.
"You must try to be more patient of your friend," said I.
I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against
my bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.
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