Sang the Earl of Pevensey:
“Ursula, spring wakes about us—
Wakes to mock at us and flout us
That so coldly do delay:
When the very birds are mating,
Pray you, why should we be waiting—
We that might be wed today!“ ‘Life is short,’ the wise men tell us;—
Even those dusty, musty fellows
That have done with life—and pass
Where the wraith of Aristotle
Hankers, vainly, for a bottle,
Youth and some frank Grecian lass.“Ah, I warrant you;—and Zeno
Would not reason, now, could he know
One more chance to live and love:
For, at best, the merry May-time
Is a very fleeting playtime;—
Why, then, waste an hour thereof?“Plato, Solon, Periander,
Seneca, Anaximander,
Pyrrho, and Parmenides!
Were one hour alone remaining
Would ye spend it in attaining
Learning, or to lips like these?“Thus, I demonstrate by reason
Now is our predestined season
For the garnering of all bliss;
Prudence is but long-faced folly;
Cry a fig for melancholy!
Seal the bargain with a kiss”
When he had ended, the Earl of Pevensey laughed and looked up into the Lady Ursula’s face with a long, hungry gaze; and the Lady Ursula laughed likewise and spoke kindly to him, though the distance was too great for the eavesdroppers to overhear. Then, after a little, the Lady Ursula bent forward, out of the shade of the maple into the sun, so that the sunlight fell upon her golden head and glowed in the depths of her hair, as she kissed Pevensey, tenderly and without haste, full upon the lips.
III
Falmouth Furens
The Marquis of Falmouth caught Master Mervale’s arm in a grip that made the boy wince. Lord Falmouth’s look was murderous, as he turned in the shadow of a white-lilac bush and spoke carefully through sharp breaths that shook his great body.
“There are,” said he, “certain matters I must immediately discuss with my lord of Pevensey. I desire you, Master Mervale, to fetch him to the spot where we parted last, so that we may talk over these matters quietly and undisturbed. For else—go, lad, and fetch him!”
For a moment the boy faced the half-shut pale eyes that were like coals smouldering behind a veil of gray ash. Then he shrugged his shoulders, sauntered forward, and doffed his hat to the Lady Ursula. There followed much laughter among the three, many explanations from Master Mervale, and yet more laughter from the lady and the earl. The marquis ground his big, white teeth as he listened, and he appeared to disapprove of so much mirth.
“Foh, the hyenas! the apes, the vile magpies!” the marquis observed. He heaved a sigh of relief, as the Earl of Pevensey, raising his hands lightly toward heaven, laughed once more, and departed into the thicket. Lord Falmouth laughed in turn, though not very pleasantly. Afterward he loosened his sword in the scabbard and wheeled back to seek their rendezvous in the shadowed place where they had made sonnets to the Lady Ursula.
For some ten minutes the marquis strode proudly through the maze, pondering, by the look of him, on the more fatal tricks of fencing. In a quarter of an hour he was lost in a wilderness of trim yew-hedges which confronted him stiffly at every outlet and branched off into innumerable gravelled alleys that led nowhither.
“Swounds!” said the marquis. He retraced his steps impatiently. He cast his hat upon the ground in seething desperation. He turned in a different direction, and in two minutes trod upon his discarded headgear.
“Holy Gregory!” the marquis commented. He meditated for a moment, then caught up his sword close to his side and plunged into the nearest hedge. After a little he came out, with a scratched face and a scant breath, into another alley. As the crow flies, he went through the maze of Longaville, leaving in his rear desolation and snapped yew-twigs. He came out of the ruin behind the white-lilac bush, where he had stood and had heard the Earl of Pevensey sing to the Lady Ursula, and had seen what followed.
The marquis wiped his brow. He looked out over the lawn and breathed heavily. The Lady Ursula still sat beneath the maple, and beside her was Master Mervale, whose arm girdled her waist. Her arm was about his neck, and she listened as he talked eagerly with many gestures. Then they both laughed and kissed each other.
“Oh, defend me!” groaned the marquis. Once more he wiped his brow, as he crouched behind the white-lilac bush. “Why, the woman is a second Messalina!” he said. “Oh, the trollop! the wanton! Oh, holy Gregory! Yet I must be quiet—quiet as a sucking lamb, that I may strike afterward as a roaring lion. Is this your innocence, Mistress Ursula, that cannot endure the spoken name of a spade? Oh, splendor of God!”
Thus he raged behind the white-lilac bush while they laughed and kissed under the maple-tree. After a space they parted. The Lady Ursula, still laughing, lifted the branches of the rearward thicket and disappeared in the path which the Earl of Pevensey had taken. Master Mervale, kissing his hand and laughing yet more loudly, lounged toward the entrance of the maze.
The jackanapes (as anybody could see), was in a mood to be pleased with himself. Smiles eddied about the boy’s face, his heels skipped, disdaining the honest grass; and presently he broke into a glad little song, all trills and shakes, like that of a bird ecstasizing over the perfections of his mate.
Sang Master Mervale:
“Listen, all lovers! the spring is here
And the world is not amiss;
As long as laughter is good to hear,
And lips are good to kiss,
As long as Youth and Spring endure,
There is never an evil past a cure
And the world is never amiss.“O lovers all, I bid ye declare
The world is a pleasant place;—
Give thanks to God for the gift so fair,
Give thanks for His singular grace!
Give thanks for Youth and Love and Spring!
Give thanks, as gentlefolk should, and sing,
‘The world is a pleasant place!’ ”
In mid-skip Master Mervale here desisted,
