By the time she had ended she had succeeded in calling up a small cloud on her brow, which struggled very hard to cast a shadow over the sunny light that played around her lovely mouth and was reflected back in a thousand rays from the deep wells of her black, Castilian eyes.
"Forgive me, sweet Lady Kate," said the esquire, dropping on one knee—disguising his attitude to the eyes of others by gathering carelessly one or two arrows from the ground—to her eyes alone a suppliant. The expression of his face amusingly wavered between playful mockery and seriousness, as if greatly fearing, yet doubting much, that his daring act had really given offence: a sort of neutral ground between mirth and grief, with the advantage of enabling him to fall readily into the one or the other, as he should find the needle of her humour pointed.
"See, then, you offend not again, sir," she said, laughing at the troubled expression of his serio-comic countenance. "Haste! choose me an arrow that tapers from the pile to the feather."
"One that tapers each way from the middle will suit you better for shooting in this light wind," said the young esquire, the puzzled play of his handsome features changed to sunshine by her voice. As he spoke he brought a quiver full of arrows and poured them out at her feet, and, kneeling on the thick verdure, selected an arrow of the kind he had named.
"No, no," she said, putting it aside; "they always curve from the line of sight; and, besides, fly unsteady."
"Not in a wind, Kate. The fulness in the middle counteracts the weight of the ends, and drives it more evenly."
"Do as you are bidden, Sir Esquire," she said. "Don't think now you are going to have your own way." A second arrow was placed in her hand by the youth.
"Why, Lord Robert, what is the matter with your wits! This is an arrow of the same kind; and, besides, it is without a cock-feather. I shall have to call yonder handsome fisher's lad, who is watching me so admiringly, to my assistance."
The esquire, without looking up, mechanically handed to her a third arrow, with the head broken and the feathers ruffled. Without being able to speak in her surprise, she looked quietly down and beheld the young man so intently contemplating one of her exquisite little feet, that twice she spoke to him ere he looked up to encounter her gaze of arch astonishment. It was very plain what had become of her esquire's wits. The youth blushed, and hastily rose to his feet; but the maiden could not disguise a little female vanity, though she shook her finger at him, and said mischievously,
"Do you propose becoming a cordwainer, and making me a pair of slippers, Lord Robert, that you are so busy taking the dimensions of my foot?"