“The cock o’ercomes, though somewhat rough,
So man, no less, the coy rebuff
Of woman!”
He had not been sitting there long, before he observed a postern in the wall which separated the castle-keep from the private gardens, open. How his heart beat! Might it not be Blanca coming out for a walk? No, it was only one of her attendants, who had come to see what the shepherd was weaving.
“Tell me, Don Villano[3],” she cried, as she came near him, “what wondrous kind of stuff, is that you are weaving? Is it a heavenly or an earthly texture?”
“It is a stuff much too fine for such as you. It is such a stuff as has not its like in all the world, and cannot be bartered for cloth of gold; for whoever wears this stuff, however old they may be, immediately appears young, and if already young, it makes them beautiful too.”
And then he went on weaving, without paying any attention to her, any more than if he had not seen her, nor seeming to hear any of her questions or entreaties, and singing the while,—
“The cock o’ercomes, though somewhat rough,
So man, no less, the coy rebuff
Of woman!”