“Well,” quoth that youth, after a moment’s hesitation, “I must frankly tell you, Ralph, that I doubt if there are any two maids within a score of miles of us who have been tried so often by such as you and proved more intractable. The knight, their father, is a rough old fellow, as rich as though he were an abbot, hale and frank with every one. You may come or go about his halls, and (for they have no mother) lay what siege you like to his girls, nor will he say a word. So far so well, and many a pretty gallant asks no better opportunity. But, because you begin thus propitious, it does not follow either fair citadel is yours! No! these virgin walls have stood unmoved a hundred assaults, and as much escalading as only a country swarming with poor desperate youths can any way explain.”
“St. Denis!” exclaimed the other, “all this but fans the spark of my desire.”
“Oh, desire by all means. If wishes would bring down well-lined maidenhoods, those were a mighty scarce commodity. But, soberly, does thy comprehensive valor intend to siege both these heiresses at once, or will one of them suffice?”
“One, gentle Delafosse, and, when my exulting pennon flutters triumphant from that captured turret, I will in gratitude help thee to mount the other. Difference them, beguile this all too tedious way with an account of their peculiar graces. Which maid dost thou think I might the most aptly sue?”
“Well, you may try, of course, but remember I hold out no hope, neither of the elder nor the younger. That one, the first, is as magnificent a shrew as ever laughed an honest lover to scorn. She is as black and comely as any daughter of Zion. ’Tis to her near every Knight yields at first glance; but—gads!—it does them little good! She has a heart like the nether millstone; and, as for pride, she is prouder than Lucifer! I know not what game it may be this swart Circe sees upon the skyline—some say ’tis even for that bold boy the young Prince himself, now gone with his father to France, she waits; and some others say she will look no lower than a Duke backed by the wealth of the grand Soldan himself. But whoever it be, he has not yet come.”
“By the bones of St. Thomas à Becket,” the young Knight laughed, “I have a mind that that Knight and I may cross the drawbridge together! Canst tell me, out of good comradeship, any weak place in this damsel’s harness?”
“There is none I know of. She is proof at every point. Indeed, I am nigh reluctant to let one like you, whose heart has ripened in the sun of experience so much faster than his head, engage upon such a dangerous venture. They say one gallant was so stung by the calm scorn with which she mocked his offer that he went home and hung himself to a cellar beam; and another, blind in desperate love, leaped from her father’s walls, and fell in the courtyard, a horrid, shapeless mass! Young De Vipon, as you know, stabbed himself at her feet, and ’tis told the maid’s wrath was all because his spurting heart’s-blood soiled her wimple a day before it was due to go to wash! How thrives thy inclination?”
“Oh! well enough: ’twould take more than this to spoil my appetite! But, nevertheless, let us hear something of the other sister. This elder is obviously a proud minx, who has set her heart on lordly game, and will not marry because her suitors seem too mean. How is it with the other girl?”
“Why,” said Delafosse, “it is even more hopeless with her. She will not marry, for the cold sufficient reason that her suitors be all men!”
“A most abominable offense.”