Part 12 (2/2)

He led me by a shady alley into his orchard, and thence to a stable, where we left Rosinante at hob-a-n.o.b with his mare over a friendly bottle of hay. And we ourselves pa.s.sed into the house, and ascended a staircase into an upper chamber. This chamber was raftered, its walls hung with an obscure tapestry, its floor strewn with sand, and its lozenged cas.e.m.e.nt partly shuttered against the blaze of suns.h.i.+ne that flowed across the forests far away to the west.

My friend eyed me brightly and busily as a starling. ”You danced fine, sir,” he said. ”Oh! it is a _pleasure_ to me. Ay, and now I come to consider it, methought I did hear hoofs behind me that might yet be echo. No, but I did _not_ think: 'twas but my ear cried to his dreaming master. Ever dreaming; G.o.d help at last the awakening! But well met, well met, I say again. I am cheered. And you but just in time! Nay, I would not have missed him for a ransom. So--so--this leg, that leg; up now--hands over down we go! Lackaday, I am old bones for such freaks. Once!... '_Memento mori_!' say I, and smell the shower the sweeter for it. Be seated, sir, bench or stool, wheresoever you'd be. You're looking peaked. That burden rings in my skull like a bagpipe. Toot-a-tootie, toot-a-toot! Och, sad days!”

We devoured our meal of cold meats and pickled fish, fruit and junket and a kind of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. And copious was the thin spicy wine with which we swam it home. Ever and again my host would desist, to whistle, or croon (with a packed mouth) in the dismallest of tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had danced to, bobbing head and foot in sternest time. Then a great vacancy would overspread his face turned to the window, as suddenly to gather to a cheerful smile, and light, irradiated, once more on me. Then down would drop his chin over his plate, and away go finger and spoon among his victuals in a dance as brisk and whole-hearted as the other.

He took me out again into his garden after supper, and we walked beneath the trees.

”'Tis bliss to be a bachelor, sir,” he said, gazing on the resinous trunk of an old damson tree. ”I gorge, I guzzle; I am merry, am melancholy; studious, harmonical, drowsy,--and none to scold or deny me. For the rest, why, youth is vain: yet youth had pleasure--innocence and delight. I chew the cud of many a peaceful acre. Ay, I have nibbled roses in my time. But now, what now? I have lived so long far from courts and courtesy, grace and fas.h.i.+on, and am so much my own close and indifferent friend--Why! he is happy who has solitude for housemate, company for guest. I say it, I say it; I marry daily wives of memory's fas.h.i.+oning, and dream at peace.”

It seemed an old bone he picked with Destiny.

”There's much to be said,” I replied as profoundly as I could.

The air he now lulled youth asleep with was a very cheerless threnody, but he brightened once more at praise of his delightful orchard.

”You like it, sir? You speak kindly, sir. It is my all; root and branch: how many a summer's moons have I seen s.h.i.+ne hereon! I know it--there is bliss to come;--miraculous Paradise for men even dull as I. Yet 'twill be strange to me--without my house and orchard. Age tends to earth, sir, till even an odour may awake the dead--a branch in the air call with its fluttering a face beyond Time to vanquish dear. 'Soul, soul,' I cry, 'forget thy dust, forget thy vaunting ashes!'--and speak in vain. So's life!”

And when we had gone in again, and candles had been lit in his fresh and narrow chamber, seeing a viol upon a chest, I begged a little music.

He quite eagerly, with a boyish peal of laughter, complied; and sat down with a very solemn face, his brows uplifted, and sang between the candles to a pathetic air this doggerel:--

There's a dark tree and a sad tree, Where sweet Alice waits, unheeded, For her lover long-time absent, Plucking rushes by the river.

Let the bird sing, let the buck sport, Let the sun sink to his setting; Not one star that stands in darkness s.h.i.+nes upon her absent lover.

But his stone lies 'neath the dark tree, Cold to bosom, deaf to weeping; And 'tis gathering moss she touches, Where the locks lay of her lover.

”A dolesome thing,” he said; ”but my mother was wont to sing it to the virginals. 'Cold to bosom,'” he reiterated with a plangent cadence; ”I remember them all, sir; from the cradle I had a gift for music.” And then, with an ample flirt of his bow, he broke, all beams and smiles, into this ingenuous ditty:

The goodman said, ”'Tis time for bed, Come, mistress, get us quick to pray; Call in the maids From out the glades Where they with lovers stray, With love, and love do stray.”

”Nay, master mine, The night is fine, And time's enough all dark to pray; 'Tis April buds Bedeck the woods Where simple maids away With love, and love do stray.

”Now we are old, And nigh the mould, 'Tis meet on feeble knees to pray; When once we'd roam, 'Twas else cried, 'Come, And sigh the dusk away, With love, and love to stray.'”

So they gat in To pray till nine; Then called, ”Come maids, true maids, away!

Kiss and begone, Ha' done, ha' done, Until another day With love, and love to stray!”

Oh, it were best If so to rest Went man and maid in peace away!

The throes a heart May make to smart Unless love have his way, In April woods to stray!--

In April woods to stray!

And that finished with another burst of laughter, he set very adroitly to the mimicry of beasts and birds upon his frets. Never have I seen a face so consummately the action's. His every fibre answered to the call; his eyebrows twitched like an orator's; his very nose was plastic.

”Hst!” he cried softly; ”hither struts chanticleer!”

”c.o.c.k-a-diddle-doo!” crowed the wire. ”Now, prithee, Dame Partlett!”

and down bustled a hen from an egg like cinnamon. A cat with kittens mewed along the string, anxious and tender.

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