into the dame's hand as
earnest, Rose went away home, and got there in safety.

But in the meanwhile, at the very hour that Eustace had been prosecuting
his suit in the lane at Moorwinstow, a very different scene was being
enacted in Mrs. Leigh's room at Burrough.

For the night before, Amyas, as he was going to bed, heard his brother
Frank in the next room tune his lute, and then begin to sing. And
both their windows being open, and only a thin partition between the
chambers, Amyas's admiring ears came in for every word of the following
canzonet, sung in that delicate and mellow tenor voice for which Frank
was famed among all fair ladies:--

"Ah, tyrant Love, Megaera's serpents bearing,
Why thus requite my sighs with venom'd smart?
Ah, ruthless dove, the vulture's talons wearing,
Why flesh them, traitress, in this faithful heart?
Is this my meed? Must dragons' teeth alone
In Venus' lawns by lovers' hands be sown?

"Nay, gentlest Cupid; 'twas my pride undid me.
Nay, guiltless dove; by mine own wound I fell.
To worship, not to wed, Celestials bid me:
I dreamt to mate in heaven, and wake in hell;
Forever doom'd, Ixion-like, to reel
On mine own passions' ever-burning wheel."

At which the simple sailor sighed, and longed that he could write such
neat verses, and sing them so sweetly. How he would besiege the ear
of Rose Salterne with amorous ditties! But still, he could not be
everything; and if he had the bone and muscle of the family, it was but
fair that Frank should have the brains and voice; and, after all, he was
bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and it was just the same as
if he himself could do all the fine things which Frank could do; for as
long as one of the family won honor, what matter which of them it was?
Whereon he shouted through the wall, "Good night, old song-thrush; I
suppose I need not pay the musicians."

"What, awake?" answered Frank. "Come in here, and lull me to sleep with
a sea-song."

So Amyas went in, and found Frank laid on the outside of his bed not yet
undrest.

"I am a bad sleeper," said he; "I spend more time, I fear, in burning
the midnight oil than prudent men should. Come and be my jongleur,
my minnesinger, and tell me about Andes, and cannibals, and the
ice-regions, and the fire-regions, and the paradises of the West."

So Amyas sat down, and told: but somehow, every story which he tried to
t