"You remember the poems you delivered that night at the foot of the wall long ago, when you so unjustly charged me with being asleep, because, I suppose, your first verses were on 'Sleep?' Recite them again in the order you then arranged them, if you can, and I will tell you whether you have improved the lines or not."
The author rapturously began, and he had no complaint to make regarding his listener's lack of attention. John seemed fascinated, and fixed his eyes on the speaker with a keen inquiry that was most flattering. Never had reciter so absorbed an audience, and the poet went on like one inspired. He glowed with the enthusiasm of his varying themes, and his voice was at times thrilled with the pathos or the tenderness of his changing subjects. Once, indeed, he stopped abruptly in the middle of a quatrain, and whispered, alarmed:
"What was that? A twig snapped; I am sure of it. Did you hear nothing?"
"Nothing, Roger, but the most marvellous lines that ever man was privileged to listen to. Go on, for God's sake, and do not keep me thus deprived of the remainder. What follows: what follows, Roger?"
"Ah, John," cried the poet, beaming upon him, "you have the true feeling for poesy; why was the gift of expression denied you?"
"It is a question I cannot answer, but if I fail to make an arrow, I can judge it rightly when it is made. Perhaps if I were a poet myself I could not so well appreciate the verses with which you delight the world."
"True. I have met other versifiers who were so lacking in all valuation of genius that instead of listening to some of my best efforts they would insist on disturbing me with their own poor doggerel, which was entirely devoid of any just reason for existence. You would hear more of this poem, then?"
"I would not lose a word of it for all the wine between here and Treves. Go on, I beg you, for I never before heard the like of it."
The syllables of the poet flowed like the sweet purling of a stream, and finally, through it all, John's straining ears caught again the signal, but this time from the opposite side of the moonlit Thaurand valley, high up on the hill, which intimated to him that his comrades were at last safe, and that they were making their way across the rocky headland which jutted out between the Thaurand and the Moselle to the north of the spot where the talker and the listener sat, and thus Rodolph and Conrad had avoided the danger of going down the valley and past the end of the village, which was thronged with the Archbishop's men. John Surrey still sat there until he thought his comrades had had time to reach the bank of the river, knowing that then if he were captured or killed, they, at least, would be free from molestation, for it had been arranged that they were to wait but a short time for him, and, on the first symptom of alarm, make the best of their way down the Moselle, with such speed as was possible. Two more poems were recited, and at the end of the last, John Surrey rose and placed his hands on Roger's shoulder, his friend, the poet, rising also.