These matters having been disposed of, Marjorie thought a stable should be built for the knights’ horses, and they began scooping sand to that end. Marian’s eyes rested dreamily upon distant prospects. The cool airs of early morning were still stirring, and here and there a white sail floated lazily on the blue water. The sandy beach lay only a short distance from Mrs. Waring’s house, whose red roof was visible through a cincture of maples on the bluff above.
“If knights comes widing to our shotum and holler for ums shootolain, would you holler to come in?” asked Marjorie, from the stable wall.
“It would be highly improper for a châtelaine to ‘holler’; but if I were there, I should order the drawbridge to be lowered, and I should bid my knight lift the lid of the coal-bucket thing they always wear on their heads,—you know how they look in the picture books,—and then ask him what tidings he brought. You always ask for tidings.”
“Does ums? Me would ask ums for candy, and new hats with long fithery feathers; and ums—”
“Hail, ladies of the Lake! May a lone harper descend and graciously vouchsafe a song?”
From the top of the willow-lined bluff behind them came a voice with startling abruptness. In their discussion of the proprieties of château life they had forgotten the rest of the world, and it was disconcerting thus to be greeted from the unknown.
“Is it ums knight come walking?” whispered Marjorie, glancing round guardedly.
Marian jumped up and surveyed the overhanging willow screen intently. She discerned through the shrubbery a figure in gray, supported by a tightly sheathed umbrella. A narrow-brimmed straw hat and a pair of twinkling eye-glasses attached to the most familiar countenance in the Commonwealth now contributed to a partial portrait of the lone harper. Marian, having heard from her sister and Mrs. Waring of the Poet’s advent, was able to view this apparition without surprise.
“Come down, O harper, and gladden us with song!” she called.
“I have far to go ere the day end; but I bring writings for one whom men call fair.”