“Sir!” said he; “many thanks! and Go! grant you find what you seek!”

The little episode was thrown in without rhyme or reason to the rapid emotion of the love-story, as though the jongleur were showing his own cleverness and humour, at the expense of his hero, as jongleurs had a way of doing; but he took no such liberties with his heroine.  While Aucassins tore through the thickets on horseback, crying aloud, Nicolette had built herself a little hut in the depths of the forest:—­

Ele prist des flors de lis
 Et de l’erbe du garris
 Et de le foille autresi;
 Une belle loge en fist,
 Ainques tant gente ne vi. 
 Jure diu qui ne menti
 Se par la vient Aucassins
 Et il por l’amor de li
 Ne si repose un petit
 Ja ne sera ses amis
   N’ele s’a-mie.

So she twined the lilies’ flower,
 Roofed with leafy branches o’er,
 Made of it a lovely bower,
 With the freshest grass for floor
 Such as never mortal saw. 
 By God’s Verity, she swore,
 Should Aucassins pass her door,
 And not stop for love of her,
 To repose a moment there,
 He should be her love no more,
   Nor she his dear!

So night came on, and Nicolette went to sleep, a little distance away from her hut.  Aucassins at last came by, and dismounted, spraining his shoulder in doing it.  Then he crept into the little hut, and lying on his back, looked up through the leaves to the moon, and sang:—­

Estoilete, je te voi,
 Que la lune trait a soi. 
 Nicolete est aveuc toi,
 M’amiete o le blond poil. 
 Je quid que dix le veut avoir
 Por la lumiere de soir
 Que par li plus clere soit. 
 Vien, amie, je te proie! 
 Ou monter vauroie droit,
 Que que fust du recaoir. 
 Que fuisse lassus o toi
 Ja te baiseroi estroit. 
 Se j’estoie fix a roi
 S’afferies vos bien a moi
   Suer douce amie!

I can see you, little star,
 That the moon draws through the air. 
 Nicolette is where you are,
 My own love with the blonde hair. 
 I think God must want her near
 To shine down upon us here
 That the evening be more clear. 
 Come down, dearest, to my prayer,
 Or I climb up where you are! 
 Though I fell, I would not care. 
 If I once were with you there
 I would kiss you closely, dear! 
 If a monarch’s son I were
 You should all my kingdom share,
   Sweet friend, sister!

How Nicolette heard him sing, and came to him and rubbed his shoulder and dressed his wounds as though he were a child; and how in the morning they rode away together, like Tennyson’s “Sleeping Beauty,”—­

  O’er the hills and far away
   Beyond their utmost purple rim,
   Beyond the night, beyond the day,

singing as they rode, the story goes on to tell or to sing in verse—­