away, and no more to be dealt with than the very sky itself.

At last she arose, and when she had plucked and eaten some handfuls
of the strawberries which grew plenteously on the sweet ground of the
eyot, she went down to the landward-looking shore, and took the
water, and swam slowly across the warm ripple till she came once more
to the strand and her raiment. She clad herself, and set her hand to
her pouch and drew forth bread, and sat eating it on the bank above
the smooth sand. Then she looked around, and stood up with her face
toward the house, to see if the dame would call to her. But she saw
the witch come out of the porch and stand there looking under the
sharp of her hand toward her, and thereafter she went back again into
the house without giving any sign. Wherefore Birdalone deemed that
she had leave that day, and that she might take yet more holiday; so
she stepped lightly down from her place of vantage, turned her face
toward the east, and went quietly along the very lip of the water.



CHAPTER X. BIRDALONE COMES ON NEW TIDINGS



Soon she had covered up the house from her, for on that eastern end,
both a tongue of the woodland shoved out west into the meadow, and,
withal, the whole body of the wood there drew down to the water, and
presently cut off all the greensward save a narrow strip along by the
lake, off the narrowest whereof lay the rocky eyot aforesaid, nigher
unto the shore than lay Green Eyot.