The night wind sighed round the grey battlements, and from its hidden recesses came moans and whispers—at least so it seemed to their heated imaginations.
"Let us hasten hence," said Grace; "I like not this lonely spot. There was always a fear and a mystery about it. The tale of the invisible sylphid and Eleanor Byron's elfish lover haunts me whenever I pass by, and I feel as though something was near, observing and influencing every movement and every thought."
"Come, come, adone I pray. Let not fear o'ermaster reason, else we shall see bogles in every bush."
Above the gateway, in the little square tower now pulled down, was a loophole, nearly concealed by climbing shrubs, which rendered it easy for a person within to look out without being observed. As they passed a low humming din was heard. Then a rude ditty trolled from some not unskilful performer. The lovers stayed to listen, when a dark figure issued out of the gateway singing—
"The bat haunts the tower,
And the redbreast the bower,
And the merry little sparrow by the chimney hops,
Good e'en, hoots master owl,
To-whoo, to-whoo, his troll,
Sing heigho, swing the can with"——
"What, thee, Tim! Is that thy stupid face?" said Gervase, breaking in upon his ditty, and right glad to be delivered from supernatural fears, though the object of them proved only this strolling minstrel. "Thou might as well kill us outright as frighten us to death."
He that stood before them was one of those wandering musicians that haunt fairs and merry-makings, wakes, and such like pastimes; playing the fiddle and jewtrump too at weddings and alehouses; in short, any sort of idleness never came amiss to these representatives of the old Troubadours. A tight oval cap covered his shaggy poll; he was clad in a coarse doublet or jerkin slashed in the fashion of the time, while his nether integuments were fastened in the primitive mode by a wooden skewer. He could conjure too, and play antics to set the folks agape; but as to his honesty, it was of that dubious sort that few cared to have it in trust. He was apt at these alehouse ditties—many of them his own invention. He knew all the choicest ballads too, so that his vocation was much akin to the jogleurs or jongleurs of more ancient times, when Richard of the Lion's Heart and other renowned monarchs disdained not "the gentle craft of poesie."
Wherever was a feast, let it be a wedding or a funeral, Tim, like the harpies of old, scented the meat, and some of his many vocations were generally in request.
This important functionary now stood whistling and singing by turns with the most admired unconcern.
"What's thy business here?" cried Gervase, approaching him.