, otherwise
everything was still. She leant out of the window, and cried bitterly
because her lot was loathsome to her, and she had not a friend in the
world to whom she could confide her sorrow.

"While she was thus sobbing she heard a rustling in the bushes beneath;
she looked down and she saw a face looking up towards her, a beautiful
face, glistening in the moonlight. It was the fiddler.

"'Elisinde,' he called to her in a low voice, 'if you want to escape I
have the means. Come with me; I love you, and I will save you from your
doom.'

"'I would come with you to the end of the world,' she said, 'but how
can I get away from this castle?'

"He threw a rope ladder up to her. 'Make it fast to the bar,' he said,
'and let yourself down.'

"She let herself down into the garden. 'We can easily climb the wall
with this,' he said; 'but before you come I must tell you that if you
will be my bride your life will be hard and full of misery. Think before
you come.'

"'Rather all the misery in the world,' she said, 'than the awful doom
that awaits me here. Besides which I love you, and we shall be very
happy.'

"They scaled the wall, and on the other side of it the fiddler had two
horses, waiting tied to the gate. They galloped through many villages,
and by the dawn they had reached a village far beyond the Count's lands.
Here they stopped at an inn, and they were married by the priest that
day. But they did not stop in this village; they sought a further
country, beyond reach of all pursuit. They settled in a village, and
the fiddler earned his bread by his fiddling, and Elisinde kept their
cottage neat and clean. For awhile they were as happy as the day was
long; the fiddler found favour everywhere by his fiddling, and Elisinde
ingratiated herself by her gentle ways. But one day when Elisinde was
lying in bed and the fiddler had lulled her to sleep with his music,
some neighbours, attracted by the sound, passed the cottage and looked
in at the window. And to their astonishment they saw the fiddler sitting
by a bed on which lay what seemed to them to be a sleeping princess;
and the whole cottage was full of dazzling light, and the fiddler's face
shone, and his hair and his eyes glittered like gold. They went away
much frightened, and told the whole village the news.

"Now there were already not a few of the villagers who looked askance
on the fiddler; and this incident set all the evil and envious tongues
wagging. Whe