Your arm with basket laden,
The nightingale that flies, that flies,
Your arm with basket laden,
The nightingale that soon will fly.”
One young voice after another took up the refrain, and soon the sound rose and rose higher and ever higher, growing in magnitude and volume till every mountain crag and every crevasse on distant Luberon seemed to join in the chorus, and to throw back in numberless echoes the naïve burden of the song that holds in its music the very heart and soul of this land of romance and of tears.
Nicolette listened for awhile, standing still under the orange tree, with the sun playing upon her hair, drinking in the intoxicating perfume of orange-blossoms that lulled her mind to dreams of what could never, never be. But anon she, too, joined in the song, and as her voice had been trained by a celebrated music-master of Avignon, and was of a peculiarly pure and rich quality, it rose above the quaint, harsh tones that came from untutored throats, until one by one these became hushed, and boys and girls ceased to laugh and to chatter, and listened.
“What ails thee, maiden fair?
The nightingale that flies!
Whence all these tears and care?
The nightingale that flies, that flies!