“Canst thou do any of these things?” Calote asked the peddler; but he shook his head.
“Natheless, mesdames, he 's as hungry as I be. Prythee let him dine,” she pleaded.
“Let him labour, forsooth,” answered Eleyne. “A carl so sturdy, so young, and a beggar? For shame!”
“I 'll gladly sing for two,” Calote protested.
“N-nay, mistress, g-go in,” said the peddler; “I-I-I 'll linger hereabout.”
So the three damsels and the page clattered over the drawbridge, which was now let down, and Calote followed on her feet.
These three maids were daughters of a certain Sir Austin, the lord of the manor, a fat, red old man, a glutton and a widower. Even now, he stood in the hall a-fuming for his dinner, which the steward brought in hot from the kitchen so soon as the ladies came through the door. He rated them harshly for their tardiness, and they passed him by with sullen, haughty faces, stepping to the dais; only the youngest clipped him round the neck and set her lips to his with a loud smack and a merry laugh, so that he was fain to smile at her, and stint his grumbling.
Calote sat below the dais at the long board, betwixt a waiting-woman and a friar; over against her sat the bailiff, and leered at her, and would have fed her sweet morsels on the end of his dagger but she drew backward; whereat they all laughed loud, and the bailiff turned purple and ugly, and the friar twisted on the bench to have a long look at her. This was the first time ever Calote had dined in a great house. She could not but marvel at the strange dishes all spiced and covered over with sauces. When she had drunk to the bottom of her cup of ale, the friar filled it up again to the brim. When she would have eaten her trencher bread, the waiting-woman, with a snort, jerked it from her and tossed it into a basket where were other scraps of broken food. After, when Sir Austin and his daughters had dipped their fingers in water, and wiped them on a white linen towel, a page boy came to Calote and bade her go sing her song. So she went and sat on the dais step, and the youngest daughter, Custance, who sat now on her father's knee a-munching sweets, leaned down smiling, and said she:—
“Whence art thou, not out o' the north, I trow, by thy tongue?”
“I live in London, fair lady,” Calote made answer; and with that all three cried out:—