"On my word," said Marseli, "but it's like a girl's dream!"
"You may say it, black-eyes, _mo chridhe!_ The wonder is that folk can be found to live so far astray from it. Let me tell you of the castles." And he told Marseli of women sighing at the harp for far-wandered ones, or sewing banners of gold. Trumpets and drums and the tall chevaliers going briskly by with the jingle of sword on heel on the highway to wars, every chevalier his love and a girl's hands warm upon his heart.
That night Marseli went early abed to wander in fairydom.
Next day the sea-gentleman had with him a curious harp that was not altogether a harp, and was hung over the neck by a ribbon.
"A salve for a sore heart, lass! I can play on it some old tunes, and by the magic of it I'm back in my father's home and unafeared."
He drew his white fingers over the strings and made a thin twittering of music sweeter than comes from the _clarsach_-strings, but foreign and uncanny. To Marseli it brought notions of far-off affairs, half sweet, half sad, like the edges of dreams and the moods that come on one in loneliness and strange places, and one tune he played was a tune she had heard the French traffickers sing in the bay in the slack seasons.
"Let me sing you a song," said he, "all for yourself."
"You are bard?" she said, with a pleased face.
He said nothing, but touched on the curious harp, and sang to the girl's eyes, to the spark of them and the dance of them and the deep thought lurking in their corners, to her lips crimson like the rowan and curled with pride, to the set of breast and shoulder, and the voice melting on the tongue.
It was all in the tune and the player's looks, for the words were fairy to the girl, but so plain the story, her face burned, and her eyes filled with a rare confusion.
"'Tis the enchantment of fairydom," said she. "Am not I the _oinseach_ to listen? I'll warrant yon have sung the same to many a poor girl in all airts of the world?"
The little one laughed and up with the shoulders. "On my sword," quo' he, "I could be content to sing to you and France for all my time. Wilt come with a poor Prince on a Prince's honour?"
He kissed her with hot lips; his breath was in her hair; enchantment fell on her like a plaid, but she tore herself away and ran home, his craving following at her heels.