The esquire proceeded to try the door of a stable, but it was locked.
“A pestilence take the fellow,” said he; “how shall I get the horses bestowed?—What, ho!—Turnberry—Tom Equerry, I say.”
“Why, what art thou?” cried the gruff voice of the sentinel on the wall; “what art thou, I say, to look for Tom Turnberry at this hour? By’r lackins, his toes, I’ll warrant me, are warm by the embers of Mother Rowlandson’s suttling fire. He’s at his ale, I promise thee.”
“The plague ride him, then,” muttered the squire; “how the fiend shall I find him? I crave pardon, Sirs Knights, but I must go look for this same varlet, or some of his grooms, for horses may not pass to the keep; and who knoweth but I may have to rummage half the Castle over ere I find him?” So saying, he left the two knights to their meditations.
He was hardly gone when they heard the sound of a harp, [[35]]which came from a part of the walls a little way to the left of where they were then standing. The performer struck the chords, as if in the act of tuning the instrument, and the sound was interrupted from time to time. At last, after a short prelude, a Scottish air was played with great feeling.
“By the Rood of St. Andrew,” exclaimed Assueton, after listening for some time, “these notes grapple my heart, like the well-remembered voice of some friend of boyhood. May we not go nearer?”
“Let us tie our horses to these palisadoes, and approach silently, so as not to disturb the musician,” said Hepborne.
Having fastened the reins of their steeds, they moved silently in the direction whence the music proceeded, and soon came in sight of the performer.
On a part of the rampart, at some twenty yards’ distance, where the wall on the outside rose continuous with the rock overhanging the stream of the Tweed, they beheld two figures; and, creeping silently for two or three paces farther, they sheltered themselves from observation under the shadow of a tower, where they took their stand in the hope of the music being renewed. The moonlight was powerful, and they easily recognized the garb of the harper whom they had so lately seen at the hostel. He was seated on the horizontal ropes of one of those destructive implements of war called an onager or balista, which were still in use at that period, when guns were but rare in Europe. His harp was between his knees, his large and expressive features were turned upwards, and his long white locks swept backwards over his shoulders, as he was in the act of speaking to a woman who stood by him. The lady, for her very mien indicated that she was no common person, stood by the old man in a listening posture. She was enveloped in a mantle, that flowed easily over her youthful person, giving to it roundness of outline, without obscuring its perfections.
“By St. Dennis, Assueton,” whispered Hepborne to his friend, “’tis the Lady Eleanore de Selby. The world lies not; she is beautiful.”