Heigho, &c.
8.
"No word she spake, but one sob gave she,
Heigho!
No word she spake, but one sob gave she:
Said the ravens, 'Another feast have we,
And long shall thy rest and thy slumbers be.'
Heigho, the derry, derry, down, heigho!"
At the concluding stanza in walked Oliver Tempest, who, as if to avoid
notice, sat down, without uttering a word, in a dark corner at the
opposite side of the hall. He looked moody, and wishful to be alone.
Joan, for a while, forbore to interrupt his reverie, and the females
finished their evening repast in silence.
"Is Sir Thomas Talbot yet returned from the Harringtons?" inquired the
dame soon after, with an air of assumed carelessness.
"He returned an hour only ere I departed."
Another pause ensued.
"And his son Thomas, comes he back from the Pudsays of Bolton? Does the
gentle Florence[59] look on him kindly, or is the wedding yet delayed?"
"I know not," was the brief reply. After a short pause he
continued--"The wanderer has left Bolton, I learn, and, 'tis said, he
bides at Whalley."
Here he cast a furtive look at the domestics, and then at his wife, as
though wishful to ascertain if others had understood this intimation.
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