Adieu.
LETTER XXXIX
The moist shadows of night had fled, dawn shook the dew from his purple ringlets, and the sun, that well-known gilder of eastern turrets, arose with his usual punctuality. I too rose, and having now recovered my wardrobe, enjoyed the luxury of changing my dress; for I had worn the same cloaths several days, and consequently was become a perfect slattern. How other heroines manage, I cannot imagine; for I have read of some of them who were thrown among mountains, or into cells, and desolate chambers, and caverns; full of slime, mud, vermin, dust, and cobwebs, where they remained whole months without clean linen, soap, brush, towel, or comb; and, at last, when rescued from captivity, forth they walked, glittering like the morning star, as fragrant as a lily, and as fresh as an oyster.
We breakfasted on the top of the tower; and after our repast, the minstrel told me that he had employed the day before in composing a Metrical Romance, called 'Monkton Castle;' which, with my permission, he would now repeat.
I was delighted; and to give it every advantage, I placed him at the harp, flung his black garments over him, and making him sit on the battlements, endeavoured to fix him in the fine attitude of old Allan Bane; but his limbs were so muscular and impracticable, that I could make nothing of them. With an emphatic enunciation, he thus began.
MONKTON CASTLE
A METRICAL ROMANCE
Awake, my harp, sweet plaintiff, wake once more,
Now while bedight in shadowy amice dim,
Eve bathes the mountains in her radiant gore,