She struck a few thin, plaintive notes, and her voice was a mere murmur:
“Pride goes with a valiant heart;
Honour is my desire.
I would not ride with patchwork men
When a kingdom is on fire.”
Her fingers leapt suddenly to a crackling and jaunty tune, and she began to sing some ditty that went like a drunken horseman galloping a young horse. It was for Merlin that she sang—Merlin, whose presence she felt away yonder in the near shadows of the fir wood.
From the valley came a roaring of voices shouting the old refrain, and Isoult dashed her own empty ditty aside like a cup of bad wine:
“When Adam delved and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?”
“Listen,” and her chin went up scornfully. “Listen to the dogs howling! I have heard it all day.”