“What curse is it you’re talking of, Katharine?” sobbed Edith in a sort of awe.
“The Minstrel’s Curse, to be sure,” answered Katharine, between intervals of her rocking. “It’s never been told you, child. Pity it hadn’t. It might have been better for the poor young man.”
“Well, tell me about it now,” exclaimed the imperious young beauty. She loved to hear the old crone’s tales of the past, and settling herself among her silken pillows, she prepared to enjoy some marvelous story.
“Tell me, then, first,” said old Katharine, seriously—“you love the young man with the handsome dark eyes and the voice of music, do you not, my pet?”
A little storm of blushing denial answered her, but the protest was all in vain. The old nurse had seen three generations of fair Chilton dames bloom and fade. She paid no heed to the angry remonstrance, but looking in her nurseling’s eyes, read the secret in her heart.
“Ah, I knew it!” she sighed. “I knew it; but you must crush that love out of your heart, my child. It is his doom—his death. Better if you hated him.”
“Katharine,” cried her young mistress, growing suddenly white and chill, “cease this foolish driveling at once, and tell me what you mean by the Minstrel’s Curse.”
“I will then,” muttered the old nurse, crouching down on the floor beside the couch.
“Go on,” said her young mistress, almost sternly in her impatience.
“Almost two centuries ago,” said Katherine, “when the Chiltons were richer and more powerful than they are to-day, and before English minstrelsy was on the wane, there was a Lady Edith Chilton as fair and sweet as yourself. Her portrait hangs in the gallery now, and you have her sweet blue eyes, her golden hair, her lovely face. The Chiltons were a proud race; proud of their long line of ancestry, proud of their blue blood, and their sovereign’s favor. But the men of the race were as cruel and harsh as the women were fair and loving. It was the fashion then for all the fair ladies of the court to have a minstrel attached to the household to beguile the idle hours with songs and improvisations. Lady Edith followed the fashion and had a favorite minstrel, too, one Douglas North. He was of gentle blood, handsome, brave, and chivalrous. My Lady Edith, was a flirt in her day. She angled for the young minstrel’s heart, meaning to play with it a moment, then cast it aside like a broken toy. But in the meanwhile she lost her own, and when they found it out they made a precious pair of lovers, you may be sure, and she persuaded Douglas North to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Well, my lady, to make the story as short as possible, the youth was murdered among those proud, lawless Chiltons. They blamed him for it all, never said a word to her, but shut him up in a lonely tower, and one night he was secretly taken out, and made way with. One of the castle retainers told afterward a story of how young Douglas sat up until after midnight improvising and playing sad tunes upon his harp up in the lonely tower. The last song he sung the old servitor remembered, and long afterward it was printed in a book of Chilton legends and has come down to us as ‘The Minstrel’s Curse.’”