“Is France, that you love so well, more beautiful than this, M. de Rohaine?” she asked timidly.
“Ay, more beautiful, but not like this; no, not like this.”
“And what is it like? I have never seen any place other than this.”
“Oh, how shall I tell of it?” I cried. “ ’Tis more fair than words. We have no rough hills like these, nor torrents like the Lin there; but there is a great broad stream by Rohaine, as smooth as a millpond, where you can row in the evenings, and hear the lads and lasses singing love songs. Then there are great quiet meadows, where the kine browse, where the air is so still that one can sleep at a thought. There are woods, too—ah! such woods—stretching up hill, and down dale, as green as spring can make them, with long avenues where men may ride; and, perhaps, at the heart of all, some old château, all hung with vines and creepers, where the peaches ripen on the walls and the fountain plashes all the summer’s day. Bah! I can hardly bear to think on it, ’tis so dear and homelike;” and I turned away suddenly, for I felt my voice catch in my throat.
“What hills are yonder?” I asked abruptly, to hide my feelings.
Anne looked up.
“The hills beyond the little green ridge you mean?” she says. “That will be over by Eskdalemuir and the top of the Ettrick Water. I have heard my father speak often of them, for they say that many of the godly find shelter there.”
“Many of the godly!”
I turned round sharply, though what there was in the phrase to cause wonder I cannot see. She spoke but as she had heard the men of her house speak; yet the words fell strangely on my ears, for by a curious process of thinking I had already begun to separate the girl from the rest of the folk in the place, and look on her as something nearer in sympathy to myself. Faugh? that is not the way to put it. I mean that she had listened so much to my tales that I had all but come to look upon her as a countrywoman of mine.
“Are you dull here, Anne?” I asked, for I had come to use the familiar name, and she in turn would sometimes call me Jean—and very prettily it sat on her tongue. “Do you never wish to go elsewhere and see the world?”
“Nay,” she said. “I had scarce thought about the world at all. ’Tis a place I have little to do with, and I am content to dwell here forever, if it be God’s will. But I should love to see your France, that you speak of.”
This seemed truly a desire for gratifying which there was little chance; so I changed the subject of our converse, and asked her if she ever sang.
“Ay, I have learned to sing two or three songs, old ballads of the countryside, for though my father like it little, Henry takes a pleasure in hearing them. I will sing you one if you wish it.” And when I bade her do so, she laid down her work, which she had taken up again, and broke into a curious plaintive melody. I cannot describe it. ’Twould be as easy to describe the singing of the wind in the treetops. It minded me, I cannot tell how, of a mountain burn, falling into pools and rippling over little shoals of gravel. Now ’twas full and strong, and now ’twas so eerie and wild that it was more like a curlew’s note than any human thing. The story was about a knight who sailed to Norway on some king’s errand and never returned, and of his lady who waited long days at home, weeping for him who should never come back to her. I did not understand it fully, for ’twas in an old patois of the country, but I could feel its beauty. When she had finished the tears stood in my eyes, and I thought of the friends I had left, whom I might see no more.
But when I looked at her, to my amazement, there was no sign of feeling in her face.
“ ’Tis a song I have sung often,” she said, “but I do not like it. ’Tis no better than the ringing of a bell at a funeral.”
“Then,” said I, wishing to make her cheerful, “I will sing you a gay song of my own country. The folk dance to it on the Sunday nights at Rohaine, when blind René plays the fiddle.” So I broke into the “May song,” with its lilting refrain.
Anne listened intently, her face full of pleasure, and at the second verse she began to beat the tune with her foot. She, poor thing, had never danced, had never felt the ecstasy of motion; but since all mankind is alike in nature, her blood stirred at the tune. So I sang her another chanson, this time an old love ballad, and then again a war song. But by this time the darkness was growing around us, so we must needs reenter the house; and as I followed I could hear her humming the choruses with a curious delight.
“So ho, Mistress Anne,” thought I, “you are not the little country mouse that I had thought you, but as full of spirit as a caged hawk. Faith, the town would make a brave lass of you, were you but there!”
From this hour I may date the
