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 fashion, 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 fashioning, 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 shine 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
Shines 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 lov