Dame, ye maun to the good greenwood
Before that it be late.
‘See, there’s your sign, a silken sark.
Your own hand sewed the sleeve.
You must go speak with Gil Morrice.
Ask no bold baron’s leave.’
The lady stamped with her foot
And winked with her ee.
But for all that she could say or do.
Forbidden he wouldna be.
‘It’s surely to my bower woman.
It ne’er could be to me.’
‘I brought it to Lord Barnard’s lady.
I trow that you are she.’
Then up and spake the wily nurse.
The bairn upon her knee:
‘If it be come from Gil Morrice
It’s dear welcome to me.’
‘Ye lied, ye lied, ye filthy nurse.
So loud I heard ye lee.
I brought it to Lord Barnard’s lady.
I trow you are not she.’
Then up and spake the bold baron.
An angry man was he.
He’s thrust the table with his foot.
So has he with his knee.
Till silver cup and mazer dish
In flinders he gar’d flee.
‘Go bring a robe of your clothing
That hangs upon the pin.
And I’ll go to the good greenwood
And speak with your lemman.’ ”
Her mouth, as always when she attempted these appalling feats, was sour and raw with the myriad voices that spoke through it, and the bitterness that century upon century could not sweeten or abate. There was sweat running on her lips, and until this moment she had not been able to raise her head and rest, letting the guitar speak for her again. Now it sang softly, unalarmed, waiting in serenity, and she cast one urgent glance towards where Audrey sat beside the open window. There was a tension there, something braced and ready and wild, to which her own heart rose with answering passion; but whether it was really more than the tension that held them all was more than she could guess. There was so little time, because the thread of this compulsion rested in her, and she must not let it flag. The sylvan song had been prolonged enough, and here came the ultimate test of her powers, the key verse that must reach Audrey before the rest had time to aim at understanding:
“Gil Morrice sat in good greenwood.
He whistled and he sang…
It had dawned upon George already that for some reason of her own Liri was re-telling the whole story of what had happened here. Perhaps not to the end, for how could any ballad encompass everything that had happened? And this was genuine, no doubt of that. The effort he had to make to tear himself out of its spell for an instant was like tearing the heart out of his body. This girl was marvellous. Listen to her now, the voice light and careless again, and yet with an indescribable overtone of premonition and doom disregarded:
“ ‘Oh, what mean all these folk coming?
My mother tarries lang.’
The baron came to the greenwood
With mickle dule and care.
And here he first spied Gil Morrice.
Combing his yellow hair…”
The word, the unexpected, the impossible word, had passed George as it had been meant to do, drawn away before his mental vision in the tension of the story. But suddenly as it slipped away from him he caught it back, and the stab was like a knife-thrust into his consciousness. “My mother…”
