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.'