Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/148

126 were coarse, and all gifts waxed poor, beside the speeches and the offerings of one gentleman who followed all day, like a shadow, the steps of the father and daughter. Once or twice, indeed, when the keeper was well-nigh lost in the huge pots of good ale in which he strove to quench the thirst and heat of the tiresome day, this bold gallant would walk aside with the maiden, plying an eager suit, at which she blushed, and to which she listened.

But alas, Margaret’s heart sank, her cheek flushed and paled, her little foot tapped impatiently the ground on which she stayed to listen to his words, when the suitor explained that not for himself was the suit he urged, nor the gifts he proffered, but that a lover richer than himself, sent her the love these tokens denoted.

Then she listened less willingly than at first, and when the gallant begged one brief meeting next day among the hedgerows of Fresingfield, out of safe hearing of her watchful sire, the maiden only half consented, and parted from him almost in doubt if she should keep her vague promise.

Still the days waxed and waned, and the prince lingered in Oxford. Day after day in the lanes and groves of Fresingfield, the maiden met the gallant Lacy, and listened while he urged his friend’s suit.