The White Company / Белый отряд. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Yet, grave as were his thoughts, they would still turn to wonder as he looked at the twinkling feet of his guide and saw her lithe figure bend this way and that, dipping under boughs, springing over stones, with a lightness and ease which made it no small task for him to keep up with her[107 - made it no small task for him to keep up with her – (разг.) ему было трудно поспевать за ней]. At last, when he was almost out of breath, she suddenly threw herself down upon a mossy bank, between two holly-bushes, and looked ruefully at her own dripping feet and bedraggled skirt.

“Holy Mary!” said she, “what shall I do? Mother will keep me to my chamber for a month, and make me work at the tapestry of the nine bold knights. She promised as much last week, when I fell into Wilverley bog, and yet she knows that I cannot abide needlework[108 - cannot abide needlework – (разг.) терпеть не могу рукоделие].”

Alleyne, still standing in the stream, glanced down at the graceful pink-and-white figure, the curve of raven-black hair, and the proud, sensitive face, which looked up frankly and confidingly at his own.

“We had best on,” he said. “He may yet overtake us.”

“Not so. We are well off his land now, nor can he tell in this great wood which way we have taken. But you – you had him at your mercy. Why did you not kill him?”

“Kill him! My brother!”

“And why not?’ – with a quick gleam of her white teeth.

“I am already sad in heart for what I have done,” said he, sitting down on the bank, and sinking his face into his hands, “God help me! all that is worst in me seemed to come uppermost. Another instant, and I had smitten him; the son of my own mother, the man whom I have longed to take to my heart.

“Weak!” she exclaimed, raising her black eyebrows. “I do not think that even my father himself, who is a hard judge of manhood, would call you that. But it is, as you may think, sir, a very pleasant thing for me to hear that you are grieved at what you have done, and I can but rede that we should go back together, and you should make your peace with the Socman by handing back your prisoner.