Ah! thou dost not heed my plaintive strain, For thus the fair bird sang; I have flown in my haste o'er the stormy main, From groves where my music rang. Where my music rang, when the glow-worm's light Glimmer'd oft in the darkling glen, And no sounds were heard 'mid the stilly night, From the homes, or the haunts of men. Save from one, who fear'd not the dew nor the damp, Who told me his true love tale, As he linger'd alone, by the glow-worm's lamp, In the depth of the hawthorn dale. Methinks e'en now, o'er the dewy grass, All alone on the moonlit plain, Will his constant step, 'mid the dim light pass, To list for my answering strain. And that answering strain the young knight heard, As he stole from his castle hall, For the lady breathed low to the faithful bird, Words of love from her distant thrall. Thus sung the troubadour, and the maiden longed to see again the wide downs on which her young eyes had gazed, for she knew not the thraldom that awaited a rich heiress in those days of feudal tyranny. The book of Lacock is silent with regard to the means by which the troubadour contrived to bear her off, concerning her perils by sea or land, or her joyous meeting with her widowed mother. The book tells merely, that King Richard bestowed her hand on his brother Longespé, and with it the vast possessions and the title of the Earl of Salisbury. Longespé was then a youth, just rising into manhood,[10] and happy was it for the orphan heiress that King Richard gave her to one whom she could love. For it happened not unfrequently that great heiresses were married to stern men, either that their lands might enrich the younger sons of royalty, or else to repay services that had been rendered the crown. It is generally conjectured, that Richard designed the Lady Ela for his brother from the period of his father's death, when the hostile conduct of her uncle occasioned the young child to be sent away. His faithful Talbot sought and found her, most probably by the desire of the king, for he was loyal and experienced, and in none of the minstrel knights whom he admitted as companions to the festive board, did King Richard more unreservedly confide. He was proud, also, to be numbered among the devoted friends of the youthful Longespé, and in after years his name occurs among the witnesses to several charters given by the earl.[11] Whether, therefore, he was a friend of Longespé from his days of boyhood, or whether he had earned that friendship by his services in recovering the lovely Ela, certain it is, that neither his friendship nor his services were forgotten, and that when Longespé obtained the honours and possessions of the house of Salisbury, Talbot became an inmate of his castle.[12]