'She is so very fair, then?' said Lilies, who was of course on the side of true love. 'You have seen her, gentle Sir? Oh, tell us what are her beauties?' 'Fair damsel,' said Sir James, in a much more gentle tone, 'you forget that I am only a poor prisoner, who have only now and then viewed the lady Joan Beaufort with distant reverence, as destined to be my queen. All I can tell is, that her walk and bearing mark her out for a throne.' 'And oh!' cried Malcolm, 'is it not true that the King hath composed songs and poems in her honour?' 'Pah!' muttered Patrick; 'as though the King would be no better than a wandering minstrel rhymester!' 'Or than King David!' dryly said Sir James. 'It is true, then, Sir,' exclaimed Lilias. 'He doth verily add minstrelsy to his other graces? Know you the lines, Sir? Can you sing them to us? Oh, I pray you.' 'Nay, fair maid,' returned Sir James, 'methinks I might but add to the scorn wherewith Sir Patrick is but too much inclined to regard the captive King.' 'A captive, a captive--ay, minstrelsy is the right solace for a captive,' said Patrick; 'at least, so they say and sing. Our king will have better work when he gains his freedom. Only there will come before me a subtilty I once saw in jelly and blanc-mange, at a banquet in France, where a lion fell in love with a hunter's daughter, and let her, for love's sake, draw his teeth and clip his claws, whereupon he found himself made a sport for her father's hounds.' 'I promise you, Sir Patrick,' replied the guest, 'that the Lady Joan is more hike to send her Lion forth from the hunter's toils, with claws and teeth fresh-whetted by the desire of honour. 'But the lay--the hay, Sir,' entreated Lilias; 'who knows that it may not win Patrick to be the Lady Joan's devoted servant? Malcolm, your harp!' Malcolm had already gone in quest of the harp he loved all the better for the discouragement thrown on his gentle tastes. The knight leant back, with a pensive look softening his features as he said, after a little consideration, 'Then, fair lady, I will sing you the song made by King James, when he had first seen the fair mistress of his heart, on the slopes of Windsor, looking from his chamber window. He feigns her to be a nightingale.' 'And what is that, Sir?' demanded Lilias. 'I have heard the word in romances, and deemed it a kind of angel that sings by night.' 'It is a bird, sister,' replied Malcolm; 'Philomel, that pierces her breast with a thorn, and sings sweetly even to her death.' 'That's mere minstrel leasing, Malcolm,' said Patrick. 'I have both seen and heard the bird in France--_Rossignol_, as we call it there; and were I a lady, I should deem it small compliment to be likened to a little russet-backed, homely fowl such as that.'