rval, staring at the Queen.
You saw his flabby throat a-quiver, his eyes melting, saw his cheeks
kindle, and youth ebb back into the lean man like water over a crumbling
dam. His voice was now big and desirous.

Sang Messire Heleigh:

"_Love sows, and lovers reap; and ye will see
The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling
Never again when in the grave ye be
Incurious of your happiness in Spring,
And get no grace of Love there, whither he
That bartered life for love no love may bring._

"_Here Death is;--and no Heracles may bring
Alcestis hence, nor here may Roland see
The eyes of Aude, nor here the wakening spring
Vex any man with memory, for there be
No memories that cling as cerements cling,
No Love that baffles Death, more strong than he._

"_Us hath he noted, and for us hath he
An how appointed, and that hour will bring
Oblivion.--Then, laugh! Laugh, love, and see
The tyrant mocked, what time our bosoms cling,
What time our lips are red, what time we be
Exultant in our little hour of spring!_

"_Thus in the spring we mock at Death, though he
Will see our children perish and will bring
Asunder all that cling while love may be._"

Then Osmund put the viol aside and sat quite silent. The soldiery
judged, and with cordial frankness stated, that the difficulty of his
rhyming scheme did not atone for his lack of indecency, but when the
Queen of England went among them with Messire Heleigh's hat she found
them liberal. Even the fellow with the broken head admitted that a
bargain was proverbially a bargain, and returned the locket with the
addition of a coin. So for the present these two went safe, and quitted
the _Cat and Hautbois_ both fed and unmolested.

"My Osmund," Dame Alianora said, presently, "your memory is better than I
had thought."

"I remembered a boy and a girl," he returned. "And I grieved that they
were dead."

Afterward they plodded on toward Bowater, and the ensuing night rested in
Chantrell Wood. They had the good-fortune there to encounter dry and
windless weather and a sufficiency of brushwood, with which Osmund
constructed an agreeable fire. In its glow these two sat, eating bread
and cheese.

But talk languished at the outset. The Queen had complained of an ague,
and Messire Heleigh was sedately suggesting three spiders hung about the
neck as an infallible corrective for this ailment, when Dame Alianora