"
"How do I know that?" said the baron. "What surety have I of that?"
"Here is the friar," said Matilda. "He will be surety."
"Not he," said the baron: "he will undertake nothing but where the devil
is a party concerned."
"Yes, I will," said the friar: "I will undertake any thing
for the lady Matilda."
"No matter for that," said the baron: "she shall not go hunting to day."
"Why, father," said Matilda, "if you coop me up here in this odious castle,
I shall pine and die like a lonely swan on a pool.
"No," said the baron, "the lonely swan does not die on the pool.
If there be a river at hand, she flies to the river, and finds her a mate;
and so shall not you."
"But," said Matilda, "you may send with me any, or as many,
of your grooms as you will."
"My grooms," said the baron, "are all false knaves.
There is not a rascal among them but loves you better than me.
Villains that I feed and clothe."
"Surely," said Matilda, "it is not villany to love me:
if it be, I should be sorry my father were an honest man."
The baron relaxed his muscles into a smile. "Or my lover either," added
Matilda. The baron looked grim again.
"For your lover," said the baron, "you may give God thanks of him.
He is as arrant a knave as ever poached."
"What, for hunting the king's deer?" said Matilda. "Have I not heard
you rail at the forest laws by the hour?"
"Did you ever hear me," said the baron, "rail myself out of house and land?
If I had done that, then were I a knave.
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