e
had them all broken up, but the pieces are there to this day.

"Yes," he again proceeded, "it hit Sir William very hard. He's never
been the same man since."

I am afraid that my sympathies were less with Sir William than better
regulated sympathies would have been. I confess that my imagination
was more occupied with that picture of the two lovers making merry
together in the moonlit dingle.

Is it not, indeed, a fascinating little story, with its piquant
contrasts and its wild love-at-all-costs? And how many such stories
are hidden about the country, lying carelessly in rustic memories, if
one only knew where to find them!

At this point my companion left me, and I--well, I confess that I
retraced my steps to the common and rambled up that green lane, along
which the romantic schoolmaster used to steal in the moonlight to the
warm arms of his love. How eagerly he had trodden the very turf I was
treading,--we never know at what moment we are treading sacred earth!
But for that old man, I had passed along this path without a thrill.
Had I not but an hour ago stood upon this very common, vainly, so it
seemed, invoking the spirits of passion and romance, and the grim old
common had never made a sign. And now I stood in the very dingle where
they had so often and so wildly met; and it was all gone, quite gone
away for ever. The hours that had seemed so real, the kisses that had
seemed like to last for ever, the vows, the tears, all now as if they
had never been, gone on the four winds, lost in the abysses of time and
space.

And to think of all the thousands and thousands of lovers who had loved
no less wildly and tenderly, made sweet these lanes with their vows,
made green these meadows with their feet; and they, too, all gone,
their bright eyes fallen to dust, their sweet voices for ever put to
silence.

To which I would add, for the benefit of the profane, that I sought in
vain for those broken bottles.

CHAPTER XII

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES

I felt lonely after losing my companion, and I met nobody to take his
place. In fact, for a couple of hours I met nothing worth mentioning,
male or female, with the exception of a gipsy caravan, which I suppose
was both; but it was a poor show. Borrow would have blushed for it. In
fact, it is my humble opinion that the gipsies have been overdone, just
as the Alps have been over-climbed. I have no great desire to see
Switzerland, for I am sure the Alps