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hermitage hard by. A very rare conceit--the sexton's son! Not he, forsooth; he smacked of churchyard mould And musty odors of moth-eaten palls-- A living death, a walking epitaph! No lover that for tingling flesh and blood To rest soft cheek on and change kisses with. Yet lover somewhere; from his sly cocoon Time would unshell him. In the interim What was to do but wait, and mark who strolled Of evenings up the hill-path and made halt This side the coppice at a certain gate? For by that chance which ever serves ill ends, Within the slanted shadow of The Towers The maid Griselda dwelt. Her gray scarred sire Had for cloth doublet changed the steel cuirass, The sword for gardener's fork, and so henceforth In the mild autumn and sundown of life, Moving erect among his curves and squares Of lily, rose, and purple flower-de-luce, Set none but harmless squadrons in the field-- Save now and then at tavern, where he posed, Tankard in hand and prattling of old days, A white-mustached epitome of wars. How runs the proverb touching him who waits? Who waits shall have the world. Time's heir is he, Be he but patient. Thus the thing befell Wherefrom grew all this history of woe: Haunting the grounds one night, as his use was Who loved the dark as bats and owlets do, Wyndham got sound of voices in the air That did such strange and goblin changes ring As left him doubtful whence the murmurs came, Now here, now there, as they were winged things-- Such trick plays Echo upon hapless wight Chance-caught in lonely places where she dwells, Anon a laugh rang out, melodious, Like the merle's note when its ecstatic heart Is packed with summer-time; then all was still-- So still the soul of silence seemed to grieve The loss of that sweet laughter. In his tracks The man stopped short, and listened. As he leaned And craned his neck, and peered into the gloom, And would the fabulous hundred eyes were his That Argus in the Grecian legend had, He saw two figures moving through a drift Of moonlight that lay stretched across the lawn: A man's tall shape, a slim shape close at side, Her palm in tender fashion pressed to his, The woven snood about her shoulders fallen, And from the
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