She turned pale and red again; but after a while she spoke:-- “There is a stranger there; and what his rank may be I know not; but he has been thrust down to the lowest seat, in a house that used to honor strangers, instead of treating them like slaves. Let him take this dish from my hand, and eat joyfully, lest when he goes home he may speak scorn of bridegroom and bride, and our Cornish weddings.” The servant brought the dish down: he gave a look at the stranger’s shabby dress, turned up his nose, and pretending to mistake, put the dish into the hand of the Dane. “Hold, lads,” quoth the stranger. “If I have ears, that was meant for me.” He seized the platter with both hands; and therewith the hands both of the Cornishman and of the Dane. There was a struggle; but so bitter was the stranger’s grip, that (says the chronicler) the blood burst from the nails of both his opponents. He was called a “savage,” a “devil in man’s shape,” and other dainty names; but he was left to eat his squab pie in peace. “Patience, lads,” quoth he, as he filled his mouth. “Before I take my pleasure at this wedding, I will hand my own dish round as well as any of you.” Whereat men wondered, but held their tongues. And when the eating was over and the drinking began, the Princess rose, and came round to drink the farewell health. With her maids behind her, and her harper before her (so was the Cornish custom), she pledged one by one each of the guests, slave as well as free, while the harper played a tune. She came down at last to the strangers. Her face was pale, and her eyes red with weeping. She filled a cup of wine, and one of her maids offered it to the stranger. He put it back, courteously, but firmly. “Not from your hand,” said he. A growl against his bad manners rose straightway; and the minstrel, who (as often happened in those days) was jester likewise, made merry at his expense, and advised the company to turn the wild beast out of the hall. “Silence, fool!” said the Princess. “Why should he know our west-country ways? He may take it from my hand, if not from hers.” And she held out to him the cup herself. He took it, looking her steadily in the face; and it seemed to the minstrel as if their hands lingered together round the cup-handle, and that he saw the glitter of a ring. Like many another of his craft before and since, he was a vain, meddlesome vagabond, and must needs pry into a secret which certainly did not concern him. So he could not leave the stranger in peace: and knowing that his privileged calling protected him from that formidable fist, he never passed him by without a sneer or a jest, as he wandered round the table, offering his harp, in the Cornish fashion, to any one who wished to play and sing. “But not to you, Sir Elf-locks: he that is rude to a pretty girl when she offers him wine, is too great a boor to understand my trade.”