Eagerly she grasped the token,
Turning to the light away;
Came again, and crying "Colin!"
On the beggar's breast she lay.

Spoke he sadly: "Hast thou truly
Still the heart I loved? I know--
They have told me--that thou takest
To thy love my deadly foe.

"The gudewife, my foster mother,
Unto whom I made me known
When I reached the Orchy, told me
How the rumour base had grown:

"I was dead, or cared not for thee
Who received no word of mine;
'Twas thy lover's doing, woman,
Hungering for my wealth and thine!

"'Take,' the gudewife said, 'a beggar's
Old attire; and see the mist
Where the wedding smoke is ordered
By the lips which thou hast kissed.'

"Thou hast put our ring together
Can it be as one again?"
Then she raised her face, and proudly
Spoke unto her serving-men: