It is so ornate it has
somewhat the air of a shrine. And it was, indeed, the casket of a
very precious jewel, for in the room to which it gives light lay, for
long years, the heroine of the sweet old ballad of 'Johnnie Faa' -
she who, at the call of the gipsies' songs, 'came tripping down the
stair, and all her maids before her.' Some people say the ballad has
no basis in fact, and have written, I believe, unanswerable papers to
the proof. But in the face of all that, the very look of that high
oriel window convinces the imagination, and we enter into all the
sorrows of the imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen of the long,
lack-lustre days, when she leaned her sick head against the mullions,
and saw the burghers loafing in Maybole High Street, and the children
at play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or foray. We
conceive the passion of odd moments, when the wind threw up to her
some snatch of song, and her heart grew hot within her, and her eyes
overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale be not
true of this or that lady, or this or that old tower, it is true in
the essence of all men and women: for all of us, some time or other,
hear the gipsies singing; over all of us is the glamour cast.
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