Then she found it harder than had been expected to serve you, for she was kept about the lady.

So she asked me, and I told her to wait.

I thought she would most likely lose her chance altogether, and maybe but for your staying at the gate that day she would have done so." "It was not the first time that we have had half the household outside serving a hunting party," I said.
"And each time I have been there, Thane, lest this should happen.
The girl told me that such times were her only chance, and I said she had better wait for such a one again.

I knew that in the open I could in some way spill the horn, so that she would be helpless and harmless afterward.

Therefore I bade her not to try to harm you in the house, for my own reasons, but told her that it were safer for herself to wait for some stirrup cup chance, as it were.