“Humphrey,” said the maiden, turning from the poet to me, and taking Jeannette’s little hand in hers, “this news means much to me. If it be true, I must to my father.”
A cloud that sweeps over the April sun could scarce have cast the gloom which did this little speech on us who heard it. For the maiden, lady as she was, had become a sister to us.
Yet she was resolved; and hearing that the poet had remembered where he might hear of this gentleman in London, to deliver to him his poem, she begged me to go with the man of verse and find him out, and if possible bring him to her.
Which I did with no great difficulty. For the Irishman—who seemed a sort of steward of Turlogh’s household—was still in his lodgings, waiting an audience with the Secretary’s secretary. And when he heard who it was had sent me, he fell on his knees and thanked the saints for vouchsafing his master this great mercy; and, never looking twice at the poet, he came with me joyfully to the maiden.
It was all as the poet had reported. And the fellow had somewhat more to say. Which was that when the lady Cantire, now six months ago, had returned home to die, she had confessed to her lord her wickedness with respect to the maiden, whom she fully believed, despite her flight, to be in the clutches of the wicked English captain, who had vowed to move heaven and earth to find her, and (as had been reported), had been as good as his word. Turlogh found it hard to forgive his lady this great wrong, and, since her death, had longed for his child as he had never longed before. Furthermore, being now old and past fighting, he and his old foe, Sorley Boy, had become friends, and all was quiet in the country of the Glynns.
There was naught to be said to all this, and the maiden, though the tears stood in her eyes as she spoke, told us she must leave us and go home to her father.
It went hard with me then. For my duty to Ludar seemed to demand that I should see the maiden safe to her journey’s end. Yet, while a shred of hope remained that he still lived, how dare I quit the place I was in? Besides, my master every day had more need of my service for his secret printing, and was indeed so restless and nervous concerning the work, that he even grudged my walking out of an evening, or stealing an hour now and again in the company of my sweet Jeannette.
But one day the maiden called me to her, and said—
“Humphrey, you have been a friend and a brother to me. I have two things to ask of you now. One I even command, the other I beg as a precious boon.”
“Before you ask,” said I, “I will obey the command, for you have a right to command anything; and I will grant the boon, for nothing I can give you can come up to what I would fain give you.”