HEARTS AND TARTS
AN OLD TALE RETOLD
DURR FRIEDLEY ex-'10
There was shouting and hand-clapping from all the gay company, and a
shower of gay words for me when I had done with my singing; and my
lord, greatly pleased, and prophesying that some day when I should be
riper in years I might win the crown of peacock's feathers from the
hands of the Princess Eleanor herself, bade me come on the morrow dawn
to sing an alba under the casement of the bridal chamber. The bride,
too, this new wife that had taken my own lady's place by my lord's
side, she, come but yesterday from her thick-witted Bohemia, and whom,
never loving, I might always truly pity, spoke me fair and besought me
to make verses thenceforth in praise of none save her. I answered as
best I might, but I fear me my speech came but falteringly, what with
my heart beating against my ribs like the armor-smith's hammer, and
the thought uppermost in my mind of the dark business yet to come that
night, before the shame and wrong of it all might be righted--a black
business that none but I in all that company wotted of.
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