wolf or lion--with a limb worth more than two or three pence. You speak
of some enchantment, and you are a fairy woman. We do not want your
company. Go away."

"Sweet boys," said Nicolette, "you must do as I tell you. For the beast
has a medicine that will cure Aucassin of all his pain. Ah! I have five
pieces of money in my purse. Take them, and tell him. He must come and
hunt within three days, and if he does not, he will never be cured."

"Faith," said the boy, after consulting with his fellows, "we shall tell
him if he comes, but we will not search after him!"


_III.--Aucassin Goes in Quest of Nicolette_


Nicolette took leave of the herd-boys, and went into the forest down a
green way that led to a place where seven paths met. Close at hand was a
deep thicket, and there Nicolette built a lodge of green boughs, and
covered it with oak-leaves and lily-flowers, and made it sweet and
pleasant, both inside and out. And she stayed in this lodge to see what
Aucassin would do.

In the meantime, the cry went through all the country that Nicolette was
lost. Some said that she had gone away; others that Count Garin had put
her to death. If any man had joy in the news, that man was not Aucassin.
His father let him out of prison, and summoned all the knights and
ladies of the land to a great feast that he made to comfort his young
son. But when the revelry was at its height, there was Aucassin leaning
despondently from a gallery, sorrowful and utterly downcast. And an old