"Well, what then, dear heart?" asked Jack, with a laugh at the thought of his darling in market costume; "who would be worthy of my daughter's hand?" "Nay, it is but an unworthy hand," she answered with a blush; "and I hope it is not in pride and wickedness that I spurn the poor youths, who I doubt not are each worthy of a far better maiden than I. But I would fain have a beautiful marriage, dear dad, with one whose like I have never yet seen, or none at all, and so I will stay by your side, and think no more of such matters, if you will pray the youths to stay beyond the river and marry whom they will." So those poor young men came no more over the boatman's bridge at eventide, and his bag lost many a toll-penny, while they rode round to market another way, that they might see no dazzling vision upon the riverside to cause them a needless heartache. And the colour came again to the cheeks of the poor country maidens when they found that the Queen of the Bridge would have none of their sweethearts, and they repented that they should ever have asked the old wandering gipsy woman to cast upon her a wicked spell or an evil eye, or aught else that might mar her loveliness. For still from time to time the old woman came forth from her unknown haunts in the mountains, and tramped from village to village, chanting her rude rhymes and muttering her vengeful threats against the bridge, nothing daunted when the old boatman reminded her that she had uttered them for twenty years or more in vain, and that his bridge still bestrode the angry winter torrents bravely. "The day will come," she would mutter, her black eyes burning with a glittering light. "The castle is doomed, and none may save it, and doomed likewise is the boatman's bridge. For there is none living that shall withstand the power of the dread curse nor stay the roar of the waters when the river-spirit bursts his bonds and is let loose upon the valley. Woe, woe to the House of Bryn Afon! For the curse shall but cease when the walls crumble to dust, and the last heir sleeps a long last sleep in the black waters. And woe to the bridge that shall bring the last heir of the doomed race to destruction!" And as she passed on and was lost to sight her quavering, high-pitched tones would be heard in the distance, singing that rhyme which always brought Jack's wrath to boiling-point-- "And in the dark river together The Primrose and Lily shall sleep."