By Loch and by Lin (11 page)

She let down her green silken skirts and shook them out to dry, and then she sat herself down on a stone to wait till the knight had come the rest of the way.

Then the knight rode on and the lass ran on and never a word did either say, but when the day was nearly spent she came at his side to the court of the king.

She went in at the castle gate and he rode in at the other side. He went in to the stable yard, but she walked up to the castle door, and rapped, and tirled on the pin, and who came down but the king himself to let the bonnie lassie in!

She knelt and made her complaint to the king. “There's a knight in your court,” said she, “who has wronged me grievously. He won my heart, then cast me aside, and broke my heart in two.”

“By my troth,” swore the king, “if there is a knight among my knights who has misused you so, if he be married I'll have him hanged, and if he be not married, the rogue shall either wed you or die!”

He took her hand and raised her up, “Now tell me, my bonnie lass,” said he. “What is the name of the wicked knight who has treated you so cruelly?”

“Richard is his name,” said the lass. “Though Ricci's the name he told to me.”

“There are but three men of that name at my court, for we have Richards only three. One is old, and one is away in foreign lands, but the third is Earl Richard, the youngest brother of the queen—and how I would laugh should it happen to be he!”

“He is not old,” said the shepherd lass. “Nor is he away in foreign lands, for he rode here this day with me. If you have only three knights of this name, the queen's youngest brother he must be.”

Then the king put the bonnie lass at the table by his side, and they sat and waited there for all the knights to come in to dine.

“There are threescore, and maybe more, knights at my court,” said the king. “Will you be able to pick him out among so many men?”

“If there were five hundred,” the shepherd lass said, “I still could pick him out from the rest.”

Dinner was served and all the knights and nobles came in to dine, laughing and chattering and jesting among themselves. There was only one who came in alone, lagging behind the rest, and that one was Earl Richard, the youngest brother of the queen. It had been his way in the past to push boldly forward to the head of any line. Now he came at the very end, disguised, to hide himself, as an old, old man. He limped with one leg as if lame, and blinked as if blind in one eye, and bent his back double over an old man's staff. But the eyes of the shepherd lass were too sharp to be beguiled.

“Hah-ha!” she laughed, and pointed him out to the king. “That is no old man, but Earl Richard's self I see!”

The king summoned Earl Richard to his side and the young knight put off his disguise and strode boldly to the table. Upon the table top the king laid a golden ring and a sharp shining dagger.

“There are two choices before you, Earl Richard,” said the king. “You may take up the golden ring, and wed this bonnie lass. Or you may take up the dagger, and die.”

Earl Richard took forty pieces of gold and put it into one of his gloves and laid it on the table in front of the shepherd lass.

“Take this gold, my bonnie lass, and find yourself another love,” said he.

“I will not take your gold,” said the bonnie lass. “I will have you for my husband as the king has promised me.”

Then Earl Richard took forty more pieces of gold and put them with the others. “Come, take the gold,” said he. “If you look about you'll be sure to find a score of men better far than me.”

“I do not want your gold,” she said. “I want you for my husband, as the king has promised me.”

Then he laid down a hundred pounds to add to the fourscore, but the bonnie lass shook her head.

“What are your hundred pounds to me? Were they a thousand or more, they would not matter to me, when I might have for my husband the brother of the queen!”

He looked at the ring, and he looked at the knife, and the king cried, “Come! Come! You must make your choice! Will you wed, Earl Richard, or will you die?”

Earl Richard took up the golden ring. “I'll wed the shepherd lass rather than die!” said he.

The next day's morn brought their wedding day and all the king's company, the nobles, the knights, and their ladies fair, rose up early to ride to the church to see the knight wed to the shepherd lass. He would not take her up on his horse. “You shall not ride with me,” said he. “'Twould never do for a shepherd lass to ride behind the brother of a queen.”

“Heigh-ho!” said she. “Then ride alone. It matters not to me, as long as the shepherd's lass is wed to the brother of the queen.”

So he set himself on a milk-white steed and she set herself on a gray, and off to the church they rode with the merry wedding company. The knight pulled his hat down low on his brow to hide his face from all who might see, but his bonnie bride held her head up high, as she rode by the bridegroom's milk-white steed.

When they came out of the church again a beggar-woman stood by the door. She held out her hand and begged for alms for the sake of sweet charity. The bride put a crown in the old crone's hand. “Now, mother, run home,” said she, “and tell all the folk at home that the queen's youngest brother's your son-in-law!”

“O hold your tongue, you beggar's brat!” the young knight said. “With shame you'll break my heart in two!”

“As you did mine,” said the bonnie lass, “when you cast me off, back yon on the green grassy brae.”

Then he rode on, on his milk-white steed, and she rode beside him on the gray.

They came to a place where, in the dike, the nettles grew rank and high. “Good day to you, you nettles tall!” cried she. “If my old mother were only here, how fast she'd pull you all! She'd pick you and pull you and chop you fine, and in her old brass pot she'd stew you well, and she would make of you a very fine mess of kail. Then she'd eat of you until she was full, and go to sleep with her head in her plate like any old barnyard sow.”

“O hold your tongue, you beggar's brat!” cried the knight. “With shame you'll break my heart in two!”

“As you did mine,” said the bonnie lass, “when you cast me off, back yon on the green grassy brae.”

Then he rode on, on his milk-white steed, and she rode beside him on the gray.

They came to a mill by a flowing race, with the mill wheel clacketing away. “Good day to you, you bonnie wheel,” said the lass. “If my old mother were only here she'd be beholden to you for many a handful of meal you've ground that she's scraped up from the floor of the mill. And she'd clean it and soak it, and boil it in her old brass pot and make it into both porridge and broth, and then all the folk in the house would eat till they were full.”

“O hold your tongue, you beggar's brat!” cried the knight. “For with shame you'll break my heart in two!”

“As you did mine,” said the bonnie lass, “when you cast me off, back yon on the green grassy brae.”

No wedding guests were ever so gay as the king and his company that morn. The king had ordered the wedding feast to be laid and waiting for their return in his great dining hall. The king and his lords and their ladies made merry as they sat down to dine, but the bridegroom frowned and sighed, and turned his back on his bonnie bride, and looked the other way.

The bonnie lass looked at the golden plates and cups, and at the silver spoons with which the table was laid. “Away with your golden plates and tassies!” cried she. “And go and fetch me my wee wooden bowl from which I ate, back yon on the green grassy brae. And take away your silver spoons, for they are not for me. I could never eat and enjoy my food from any but my own old cow's horn spoon.”

“O hold your tongue, you beggar's brat!” said the knight. “With shame you'll break my heart in two!”

“As you did mine,” said the bonnie lass, “when you cast me off, back yon on the green grassy brae.”

He turned his face to the wall and wept. “I wish I had ridden by,” said he, “and never stopped to dally with you, back yon on the green grassy brae.”

A stranger pair you'd never see at any wedding feast. They turned their backs to each other and sat, and the bonnie bride smiled and the bridegroom wept.

A servingman stood behind each chair to serve the food and pour the wine, and the two behind the bride and the groom were talking softly together. Earl Richard heard the words they said, and thought he had not heard aright. “A match more fitting I've never seen,” said one of the servingmen to the other, “than that the Scottish king's daughter should wed the queen of England's youngest brother!”

Earl Richard looked to the left, and he looked to the right, and then he turned about in his chair and looked at the bonnie lass.

“If you are the king of Scotland's daughter, as I think you may be,” said he, “seven times this year I've knocked at your door, but you never would open it for me!”

“And if I refused your gold, young man,” she said, “the reason you can plainly see. For every gold piece you could lay down, my father could lay three.”

“But if you are not a shepherd's lass, as I'm beginning to see,” said he, “what were you doing, tending the sheep, back yon on the green grassy brae?”

“I was laying a snare to catch the feet of a foolish young knight,” said she.

“A foolish young knight like me,” he said ruefully.

“Oh, come now! Let us forget the things that are past and start out anew!” said she.

So he took her hand and kissed her cheek, and put his arm round her waist so trim, and he saw by the twinkle in her eye that she would not take his arm away.

So in the end it all came right, and a happier wedding was never seen, than that of the king of Scotland's daughter who married the youngest brother of the English queen.

About the Author

Sorche Nic Leodhas (1898–1969) was born LeClaire Louise Gowans in Youngstown, Ohio. After the death of her first husband, she moved to New York and attended classes at Columbia University. Several years later, she met her second husband and became LeClaire Gowans Alger. She was a longtime librarian at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she also wrote children's books. Shortly before she retired in 1966, she began publishing Scottish folktales and other stories under the pseudonym Sorche Nic Leodhas, Gaelic for
Claire, daughter of Louis
. In 1963, she received a Newbery Honor for
Thistle and Thyme: Tales and Legends from Scotland
. Alger continued to write and publish books until her death 1969.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1969 by Leclaire G. Alger

Cover design by Liz Connor

ISBN: 978-1-4976-4017-7

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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EBOOKS BY SORCHE NIC LEODHAS

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