"Well, then," he said at last, "what is it you do see, Master Roland,
that you have become mute all of a sudden?"
Roland returned no answer.
"I say, Master Roland Graeme," said the falconer, "it is manners in my
country for a man to speak when he is spoken to."
Roland Graeme remained silent.
"The murrain is in the boy," said Adam Woodcock, "he has stared out
his eyes, and talked his tongue to pieces, I think."
The falconer hastily drank off his can of wine, and came to Roland,
who stood like a statue, with his eyes eagerly bent on the court-yard,
though Adam Woodcock was unable to detect amongst the joyous scenes
which it exhibited aught that could deserve such devoted attention.
"The lad is mazed!" said the falconer to himself.
But Roland Graeme had good reasons for his surprise, though they were
not such as he could communicate to his companion.
The touch of the old minstrel's instrument, for he had already begun
to play, had drawn in several auditors from the street when one
entered the gate of the yard, whose appearance exclusively arrested
the attention of Roland Graeme. He was of his own age, or a good deal
younger, and from his dress and bearing might be of the same rank and
calling, having all the air of coxcombry and pretension, which
accorded with a handsome, though slight and low figure, and an elegant
dress, in part hid by a large purple cloak. As he entered, he cast a
glance up towards the windows, and, to his extreme astonishment, under
the purple velvet bonnet and white feather, Roland recognized the
features so deeply impressed on his memory, the bright and clustered
tresses, the laughing full blue eyes, the well-formed eyebrows, the
nose, with the slightest possible inclination to be aquiline, the ruby
lip, of which an arch and half-suppressed smile seemed the habitual
expression--in short, the form and face of Catherine Seyton; in man's
attire, however, and mimicking, as it seemed, not unsuccessfully, the
bearing of a youthful but forward page.
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