But, ah, felicity did not attend her charms. Yielding to some deep grief, four times a day she sadly wept and mourned; and thrice she rose at night to mourn again. Her sole delight was listening to the notes of those sweet birds which filled her orchard near; which, when she had heard, she got some brief repose,—soon to awake again to weep and mourn; and all her vassals, of each age and sex, little and great, at that same hour of woe uttered the self-same moans, and shed like tears.
Arrived, as we already said, before her orchard fair, Jaufry got down; and seeing an open gate, he ventured in, removed the bridle from his charger's mouth, so that he grazed at ease, and his shield placing 'neath his weary head, his limbs outstretching on the flowery turf, he soon most soundly slept. Just then did Brunissende her footsteps take towards her chamber, followed by her maids. Surprised the birds no longer tuned their notes, she straightway bade the seneschal appear, to whom she said with wrath:
“Some creature surely must have passed the gates, and scared my gentle birds. Go, quickly find it out; and if perchance a man it prove to be, he must be hither brought, alive or dead.”
“Lady,” the seneschal at once replied, “I go with speed.”
Two squires preceding him, each with a lighted torch, his horse he mounted, and rode down in haste, and in the orchard found the weary knight, wrapt in profoundest sleep. He called him frequently, then shook him hard; but for a time in vain. His eyes at length with effort he unclosed, when, raising up his head,—
“Fair knight,” quoth he most courteously, “by thine attainments and thy gentle birth, I do entreat thee, in God's name, to let me here abide and sleep my fill.”
“Sleep must you now no more,” replied the chief, “but come before my lady; she'll not rest until avenged on him who scares her birds.”
Quoth Jaufry:
“God permit, thou shalt not take me off without a fight!”
The seneschal, on hearing such resolve, called to his squire to bring him out his arms. Meanwhile the son of Dovon slept again; so that the seneschal, when fall equipped, was forced a second time to wake him up, and roughly as at first.