So presently, when all the people made a noisy procession to see the
bridegroom and the bride to their high chamber, I did not go among
them, but stole apart in the shadow and tarried there until the
serving-folk had ceased their scurrying about and the house had grown
quiet in its besotted sleep. Then I crept back to a dark corner by the
great hearth where the stone was warm to the touch and whence I might
see if any passed along the hall. I was all alone there with the
drained goblets, the withering garlands, and the gutted torches, not a
soul abroad, and not a sound save the breathing of the dormant
stag-hounds by the hearth, or the faint disputes of the rats over the
pasty fragments on the table.
Sitting thus, I would go hot of a flash and then cold just as sudden.
Fear? No, by Our Lady, but this was the first time I had ever had a
finger in such a pie as this now baking, and the strangeness of it
made me tremble. But fear, pah! Besides I was in the right, and does
that not make the just hand steady and the pious eye true? I took up
my lute and touching the strings so gently that I myself could scarce
hear, I sang, soft as summer wind at even, so softly that none, not
even the great hounds heard.
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