Then the
boy turned shyly, and slipping back to his cushion on the step, nestled
himself against the chair-arm with a sigh that was almost pathetic in its
happiness.
Like a quieting hand, the first of the mellow chords fell upon the noise of
the revel. The servants bearing away the dishes began to tread the rushes on
tiptoe, and a dozen frowns rebuked any clatter. Through the hush, the gleeman
began to sing the "Romance of King Offa," the king who married a wood nymph
for dear love's sake. It began with the wooing and the winning, out in the
leafy greenwood amid bird-voices and murmuring brooks; but before long the
enmity of the queen-mother entered, with jarring discords, to send the lovers
through bitter trials. Lord and page, man and maid and serf, strained eye and
ear toward the harper's tattered figure. So breathless grew the listening
stillness that the crackling of the fire became an annoyance. What matter that
outside an autumn wind was howling through the forest and stripping the leaves
through the vines? Within sound of the mellow harp-music it was balmiest
spring-time, as the castlefolk followed the gleeman over the hills and dales
of a flowering dream-world.
For a space after he had finished, the silence remained unbroken, then gave
way only to an outburst of applause. And one did even better than applaud.
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