“Ay, ay! And we were happy that night. Phebe and I. And I hugged her to my heart as we slept together, and I called her ‘My little countess! My little countess!’ Ah, I was drunk with pride and vanity. Not for myself, but for my beauty and angel of the world. I could not sleep for thinking of her and of her grandeur. Only I did think that mayhap if the king had chanced to come by our way and see her the king himself might ha’ married her and made her a queen. And I did not care for the earl so much but that I was sorry it was not the king who had seen her.
“Next morning Phebe went back to her spinning and I went to the henhouse. I quieted down and began to go over the tales in our folk-lore—and I thought, with uneasiness, how King Cœphutas, who married the beggar girl, and the other king that married the nut-brown maid, and all other kings and princes and nobles who had married good and beautiful peasant maids, had wedded them in open day before all the world, with a great flourish of trumpets and blowing of horns, and flaunting of flags, in honor of the wedding, and all the neighboring kings, and princes, and lords, and nobles invited to the feast. And here was this earl, who was neither king nor prince and nobody but an earl had married the beauty and the angel of the world, in the dark behind the door, as it were, and keeping his marriage a secret as if he was ashamed of it. I wondered what he meant. I thought if it had been the king who had married my lass he would not have done so.
“When I came hame that night I asked my girl how it was. And she told me it was from fear of his mother, who had set her heart on his marrying the daughter of a duke. The daughter of a duke, indeed. What was the daughter of a duke compared to the beauty and the angel of the whole world, as kings and princes would ha’ fought for, if they had only seen her? But it was all a lie, for my lady countess, she had set her heart on his never marrying anybody so long as she should live.
“I thought the earl was unworthy to be compared with the kings and princes of our folk-lore. And I feared my lass had thrown herself away on an ungrateful earl—a mere common earl—when she might have married a king or an emperor if she had only waited until one passed by and saw her.
“But it was done, and he was her husband, so I would not say anything to set her against him.”
CHAPTER XLVI
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
“Ah, well, as the days and the weeks passed I got mortal tired of waiting for him to own my girl his wife, and take her to the great house with blowing of trumpets, and waving of banners, and flaunting of flags, and prancing of steeds, like I had heard of. What was the use of my girl being the wife of a great lord, if she had to wear a linsey gown, and sit in the hut and spin all day long while I was away to the henhouse? Why, none at all.
“Oh, bairn, it is such a help to my poor heart telling you all this. And you believe me, don’t you?”
“I believe every word you say—tell me more,” earnestly replied Wynnette.
“At long last my lady countess and her young lady daughters went up to London town. And now I thought, while they are gone, my lord will take his wife hame to the great house; but he didn’t, bairn; he didn’t. Oh, he didn’t. He was abroad somewhere, to France, maybe, or to Paris, or some other furrin country thereaway. And my lass gave herself up to weeping, and never showed herself abroad, but stayed in the hut. One day I laid a baby boy in her arms and told her to be comforted, for that her son was the little Lord Glennon and the heir to the Earldom of Enderby.