a gay
delight in the mere grace of the lilting and tripping beneath rafters
ringing loud with thunder, that Pan himself might skip across a
hundred furrows for sheer envy to witness.

As for the jolly rustics that were jogging their wits away with such
delightful gravity, but little time was given me to admire them ere I
also was snatched into the ring, and found brown eyes dwelling with
mine, and a hand like lettuces in the dog-days. Round and about we
skipped in the golden straw, amidst treasuries of hay, puffing and
spinning. And the quiet lightnings quivered between the beams, and
the monstrous "Ah!" of the thunder submerged the pipe's sweetness.
Till at last all began to gasp and blow indeed, and the nodding Fool
to sip, and sip, as if _in extremis_ over his mouthpiece. Then we
rested awhile, with a medley of shrill laughter and guffaws, while the
rain streamed lightning-lit upon the trees and tore the clouds to
tatters.

With some little circumstance my traveller picked his way to me, and
with a grave civility bowed me a sort of general welcome. Whereupon
ensued such wit and banter as made me thankful when the opening
impudence of a kind of jig set the heels and the petticoats of the
company tossing once more. We danced the lightning out, and piped the
thunder from the skies. And by then I was so faint with fasting, and
so deep in love with at least five young country faces, that I
scarcely knew head from heels; still less, when a long draught of a
kind of thin, sweet ale had mounted to its sphere.

Away we all trooped over the flashing fields, noisy as jays in the
fresh, sweet air, some to their mowing, some to their milking, but
more, indeed, I truly suspect, to that exquisite _Nirvana_ from which
the tempest's travail had aroused them. I waved my hand, striving in
vain to keep my eyes on one blest, beguiling face of all that glanced
behind them. But, she gone, I turned into the rainy lane once more
with my new acquaintance, discreeter, but not less giddy, it seemed,
than I.

We had not far to go--past a meadow or two, a low green wall, a black
fish-pool--and soon the tumbledown gables of a house came into view.
My companion waved his open fingers at the crooked casements and
peered into my face.

"Ah!" he said, "we will talk, we will talk, you and I: I view it in
your eye, sir--clear and full and profound--such ever goes with
eloquence. 'Tis my delight. What are we else than beasts?--beasts that
perish