Then the stage stood empty and the music stopped.

At this strange end a whisper of surprise ran through the hall.  The Queen tapped with the inner side of her rings upon the broad arm of her chair.  From the look on her face she was whetting her tongue.  But before she could speak, Nick and Colley, dressed as a farmer boy and girl, with a garland of house-grown flowers about them, came down the stage from the arras, hand in hand, bowing.

The audience-chamber grew very still—­this was something new.  Nick felt a swallowing in his throat, and Colley’s hand winced in his grip.  There was no sound but a silky rustling in the room.

Then suddenly the boys behind the players’ curtain laughed together, not loud, but such a jolly little laugh that all the people smiled to hear it.  After the laughter came a hush.

Then the pipes overhead made a merry sound as of shepherds piping on oaten straws in new grass where there are daisies; and there was a little elfish laughter of clarionets, and a fluttering among the cool flutes like spring wind blowing through crisp young leaves in April.  The harps began to pulse and throb with a soft cadence like raindrops falling into a clear pool where brown leaves lie upon the bottom and bubbles float above green stones and smooth white pebbles.  Nick lifted up his head and sang.

It was a happy little song of the coming and the triumph of the spring.  The words were all forgotten long ago.  They were not much:  enough to serve the turn, no more; but the notes to which they went were like barn swallows twittering under the eaves, goldfinches clinking in purple weeds beside old roads, and robins singing in common gardens at dawn.  And wherever Nick’s voice ran Colley’s followed, the pipes laughing after them a note or two below; while the flutes kept gurgling softly to themselves as a hill brook gurgles through the woods, and the harps ran gently up and down like rain among the daffodils.  One voice called, the other answered; there were echo-like refrains; and as they sang Nick’s heart grew full.  He cared not a stiver for the crowd, the golden palace, or the great folk there—­the Queen no more—­he only listened for Colley’s voice coming up lovingly after his own and running away when he followed it down, like a lad and a lass through the bloom of the May.  And Colley was singing as if his heart would leap out of his round mouth for joy to follow after the song they sung, till they came to the end and the skylark’s song.

There Colley ceased, and Nick went singing on alone, forgetting, caring for, heeding nought but the song that was in his throat.

The Queen’s fan dropped from her hand upon the floor.  No one saw it or picked it up.  The Venetian ambassador scarcely breathed.

Nick came down the stage, his hands before him, lifted as if he saw the very lark he followed with his song, up, up, up into the sun.  His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were wet, though his voice was a song and a laugh in one.