behind. The times are rough, and my brown darling must go safe."
"And at the back of Dermot a troop of horsemen to ride the bushes while I go staring into a sparrow's nest?" said Eileen, laughing now. "No, indeed, Nurse Phaire, alone and in secret I will go. I will not have the charm spoiled by the eyes and gossip of a man and a maid. But I will take Lawdir, because he is a discreet dog and will neither look nor tell again. And now I myself will go and get my hood, and slip out of the little gate," and with a cheerful face she sped away.
"Mistress Eileen! Mistress Eileen!" cried the old woman, hobbling along the passage. "Come back and listen to me. You shall change that green gown for a worse. I will not have that fine embroidery torn in the bushes. Put on the old gown, child of my heart; it will not matter for that one."
But Eileen would not listen, and presently she came hastening wilfully by, her white hood in her hand; and the nurse was so full of joy to see the brighter face and bearing, that she only smiled and caught her by the sleeve as she said,
"Well, stay a moment, for a naughty maiden, then, and let Nurse Phaire put the hood on straight."
Then with her old hands that trembled she carefully hooded the brown head, smoothed the locks upon the forehead, stroking away an imaginary speck upon the small round chin, feeding her fond love on nearness of sight and touch, very loth to let her darling go.
But Eileen would not stay; she twitched her sleeve from the old woman's hands, and hurrying away, turned down a little stone stairway, which led out by a small arched door upon a smooth green slope that ran steeply down to the moat below.
Eileen went down to the moat-side where a broad plank had been laid across. By the side of it she paused and whistled three times. While the last note was on her lips a greyhound came bounding round the castle wall, and coursing towards her, fawned at her feet. She stooped and stroked him and spoke kindly to him, till the hound grew wild with joy. H
He sprang up, with his forefeet upon her shoulders, and then she chid him till his head drooped, and he fell soberly behind as she turned. Very lightly she crossed the plank that rose and fell under her step, and running down the farther slope, was soon safe among the bushes.
Joy was in her feet as they sped along; like tiny wayward children, they danced in their hurrying to and fro. She had nursed her loneliness and sorrow so long in secret that unburdening and the entering hope made a new day for her.
Everything about her was sharing in her joy. Green buds in showers gemmed the boughs. A rustle of life that stirred filled the air, and over and through it cried the ecstatic songs of the birds; everything living was rejoicing because of its mate.
Eileen rejoiced also; for hope and an innocent imagination painted the image of Estercel before her in livelier, yet more delicate, colors than the seen love brings to any created eye. The ring that was to charm him was clasped to her heart with one hand, while with the other she parted the boughs to gaze into the secret hiding-places o£ the spring.
From her earliest childhood Eileen had made companions of the birds; she knew them well, their names and their song, their looks and their behavior, and now she was pondering deeply to which of them all she should deliver the treasure of her ring.
The fighting doves she would not trust, even if, with the terror of her nurse before her eyes, she dared to climb so very high in her good gown with the wide sleeves and her snow-white underdress.
The thrush she loved with her whole heart; she knew him for a kind soul with a great angelic song; but when she looked into his nest she could not bear to trust her ring to that clay bottom. The blackbird had a better nest, and for a while she hesitated by one, fresh built in a thorn; but while she waited, up came the shining black cock with a fierce shriek, his broad rustling tail expanded, his bill like gold in the sun, and his jewelled eye upon her. She drew away, shaking her head at him; she knew him, too, and how all the birds ran before him at the winter feeding. Neither he nor any of his rearing should have her ring.
By more than one nest she paused and waited. Should the robin take it? He
