So beautiful a girl he had never beheld;
and as she swept down toward him he for one moment forgot Torfrida, and
stood spell-bound like the rest.
Her eye caught his. If his face showed recognition, hers showed none. The
remembrance of their early friendship, of her deliverance from the
monster, had plainly passed away.
"Fickle, ungrateful things, these women," thought Hereward,
She passed him close. And as she did so, she turned her head and looked
him full in the face one moment, haughty and cold.
"So you could not wait for me?" said she, in a quiet whisper, and went on
straight to Dolfin, who stood trembling with expectation and delight.
She put her hand into his.
"Here stands my champion," said she.
"Say, here kneels your slave," cried the Scot, dropping to the pavement a
true Highland knee. Whereon forth shrieked a bagpipe, and Dolfin's
minstrel sang, in most melodious Gaelic,--
"Strong as a horse's hock,
shaggy as a stag's brisket,
Is the knee of the young torrent-leaper,
the pride of the house of Crinan.
It bent not to Macbeth the accursed,
it bends not even to Malcolm the Anointed,
But it bends like a harebell--who shall blame it?--
before the breath of beauty."
Which magnificent effusion being interpreted by Hereward for the
instruction of the ladies, procured for the red-headed bard more than one
handsome gift.
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