"
"It is a fool's trick," answered the stranger at last, "to put off what
you must do at last. If I had but the time, I would pay you for your tune
with a better one than you ever heard."
"Take the harp, then, boor!" said the minstrel, with a laugh and a jest.
The stranger took it, and drew from it such music as made all heads turn
toward him at once. Then he began to sing, sometimes by himself, and
sometimes his comrades, "_more Girviorum tripliciter canentes_" joined
their voices in a three-man-glee.
In vain the minstrel, jealous for his own credit, tried to snatch the harp
away. The stranger sang on, till all hearts were softened; and the
Princess, taking the rich shawl from her shoulders, threw it over those of
the stranger, saying that it was a gift too poor for such a scald.
"Scald!" roared the bridegroom (now well in his cups) from the head of the
table; "ask what thou wilt, short of my bride and my kingdom, and it is
thine."
"Give me, then, Hannibal Grylls, King of Marazion, the Danes who came from
Ranald, of Waterford."
"You shall have them! Pity that you have asked for nothing better than
such tarry ruffians!"
A few minutes after, the minstrel, bursting with jealousy and rage, was
whispering in Hannibal's ear.
The hot old Punic [Footnote: Hannibal, still a common name in Cornwall, is
held--and not unlikely--to have been introduced there by the ancient
Phoenician colonists.
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