Margaret became quite animated, and her sisters pressed her to tell them if she knew of any secret; but she playfully shook her head, and said that if she did know she would not mar the romaunt that was to be played out before them.
‘Nay,’ said Eleanor, ‘we have a romaunt of our own. May I tell, Jeanie?’
‘Who recks?’ replied Jean, with a little toss of her head.
Thus Eleanor proceeded to tell her sister what—since the adventure of the goose—had gone far beyond a guess as to the tall, red-haired young man-at-arms who had ridden close behind David Drummond.
‘Douglas, Douglas, tender and true,’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘He loves you so as to follow for weeks, nay, months, in this guise without word or look. Oh, Jeanie, Jeanie, happy lassie, did ye but ken it! Nay, put not on that scornful mou’. It sorts you not weel, my bairn. He is of degree befitting a Stewart, and even were he not, oh, sisters, sisters, better to wed with a leal loving soul in ane high peel-tower than to bear a broken heart to a throne!’ and she fell into a convulsive fit of choked and bitter weeping, which terrified her sisters.
At the sound of a lute, apparently being brought nearer, accompanied with footsteps, she hastily recovered herself, and rose to her feet, while a smile broke out over her face, as the musician, a slender, graceful figure, appeared on the path in the moonlight.
‘Answering the nightingales, Maitre Alain?’ she said.
‘This is the court of nightingales, Madame,’ he replied. ‘It is presumption to endeavour to rival them even though the heart be torn like that of Philomel.’ Wherewith he touched his lute, and began to sing from his famous idyll—
‘Ainsi mon coeur se guermentait
De la grande douleur qu’il portait,
En ce plaisant lieu solitaire
Ou un doux ventelet venait,
Si seri qu’on le sentait
Lorsque la violette mieux flaire.’
Again, as Eleanor heard the sweet strains, and saw the long shadows of the trees and the light of the rising moon, it was like the attainment of her dreamland; and Margaret proceeded to make known to her sisters Maitre Alain Chartier, the prince of song, adding, ‘Thou, too, wast a songster, sister Elleen, even while almost a babe. Dost sing as of old?’