Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/53

Rh personal strength, there could be little doubt of the issue, for the merchant had a willing hand and a frame of iron.

"Silence ensued for a little while; the pedlar, who for some time had stolen a look at me, seemed all at once to come to some conclusion how to proceed, and, fastening up his little box, approached me with a look of submission and awe. 'Fair lady, the pedlar is but a poor man, who earns an honest penny among the peasantry; but he has a reverence and a love for the noble names which grace our verse and our chivalry; and who has an English heart that knows not and beats not high at the sound of Selby's name? and who bears a Scottish heart that sorrows not for the wreck and the desolation of our most ancient and most noble foe? I tell thee, lady, that I honour thee more—lady, as thou seemest to be, but of a kirtle and a steed—than if thou satest with a footstool of gold, and hadst nobles' daughters bearing up thy train. This cross and rosary'—and he held in his hand these devotional symbols, carved of dark wood, and slightly ornamented with gold—'are of no common wood: a princess has sat under the shadow of its bough, and seen her kingdom won and lost; and may the fair one who will now wear it warm it in her bosom till she sees a kingdom, long lost, won as boldly and as bravely as ever the swords of the Selbys won their land!' And throwing the rosary around my neck as he concluded, away he went, opened his pack anew, resuming again his demure look and the arrangement of his trinkets.

"Walter Selby, who all this while—though then a hot and forward youth—had remained mute, addressed me in a whisper: 'Fair Eleanor, mine own giddy cousin, this pedlar—this dispenser of rosaries, made of Queen Mary's yew tree—he, whom the churls call Simon Packpin, is no seeker of profit from vulgar merchandise. I'll wager a kiss of thine own ruddy lips against one of mine, that he carries swords made of good Ripon steel, and pistols of good Swedish iron, in yon horse-pack of his: wilt thou pledge a kiss on this wager, my gentle cousin? And instead of a brain stored with plans for passing an English yard for a Scottish ell, and making pieces of homespun plaiding seem costly works from the looms of Arras or even of Leeds, it is furnished with more perilous stuff, pretty Eleanor; and no man can tell us better how many of the Scottish cavaliers have their feet ready for the stirrup, and on what day they