him help. At this Martimor alighted quickly and ran into the
garden, where the young maid soon led him to the millpond,
which was great and deep, and made him understand that her
little hound was swept away by the water and was near to
perishing.

There saw he a red and white brachet, caught by the swift
stream that ran into the race, fast swimming as ever he could
swim, yet by no means able to escape. Then Martimor stripped
off his harness and leaped into the water and did marvellously
to rescue the little hound. But the fierce river dragged his
legs, and buffeted him, and hurtled at him, and drew him down,
as it were an enemy wrestling with him, so that he had much
ado to come where the brachet was, and more to win back again,
with the brachet in his arm, to the dry land.

Which when he had done he was clean for-spent and fell
upon the ground as a dead man. At this the young maid wept
yet more bitterly than she had wept for her hound, and cried
aloud, "Alas, if so goodly a man should spend his life for my
little brachet!" So she took his head upon her knee and
cherished him and beat the palms of his hands, and the hound
licked his face. And when Martimor opened his eyes he saw the
face of the maid that it was fair as any flower.

Then was she shamed, and put him gently from her knee, and
began to thank him and to ask with what she might reward him
for the saving of the brachet.

"A night's lodging and a day's cheer," quoth Martimor.