Then she crossed herself, and so let herself slip into the fosse, and when she had come to the bottom, her fair feet, and fair hands that had not custom thereof, were bruised and frayed, and the blood springing from a dozen places, yet felt she no pain nor hurt, by reason of the great dread wherein she went. But if she were in cumber to win there, in worse was she to win out. But she deemed that there to abide was of none avail, and she found a pike sharpened, that they of the city had thrown out to keep the hold. Therewith made she one stepping place after another, till, with much travail, she climbed the wall. Now the forest lay within two crossbow shots, and the forest was of thirty leagues this way and that. Therein also were wild beasts, and beasts serpentine, and she feared that if she entered there they would slay her. But anon she deemed that if men found her there they would hale her back into the town to burn her.

    Here one singeth

   :

     Nicolete, the fair of face,

     Climbed upon the coping stone,

     There made she lament and moan

     Calling on our Lord alone

     For his mercy and his grace.

     “Father, king of Majesty,

     Listen, for I nothing know

     Where to flee or whither go.

     If within the wood I fare,

     Lo, the wolves will slay me there,

     Boars and lions terrible,

     Many in the wild wood dwell,

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