picked up the lantern and
gave them to the lady and her lover; and then she took them one by each
hand and went away. And the Lord of Gay Street and the Gypsy King died
soon after without heirs, and the joy went out of the hearts of both
peoples, and they dressed in sad colors for one-and-twenty years.

But the three traveled south through the country of the floods, and on
the way the King's son was drowned, as others had been before him, and
after him the Rough Master of Coates. But the crone brought the lady
safely through, and how she was at once delivered of her son and her
sorrow, dear maidens, you know.

And for one-and-twenty years the crone was seen no more, and then of a
sudden she re-appeared at daybreak and bade her people put on their
bright apparel because their King was coming with a young Queen; and
after this she led them to Gay Street where she bade the folk to don
their holiday attire, because their Lord was on his way with a fair
Lady. And all those girls and boys, the dark and the light, felt the
child of joy in their hearts again, and they went in the morning with
singing and dancing to welcome the comers under the cherry-trees.

I entreat you now, Mistress Joyce, for the second hair from your head.

SECOND INTERLUDE

The milkmaids put their forgotten apples to their mouths, and the
chatter began to run out of them like juice from bitten fruit.

Jessica: What did you think of this story, Jane?

Jane: I did not know what to think, Jessica, until the very conclusion,
and then I was too amazed to think anything. For who would have
imagined the young Shepherd to be in reality a lord?

Martin: Few of us are what we seem, Mistress Jane. Even chimney-sweeps
are Jacks-in-Green on May-Days; for the other
three-hundred-and-sixty-four days in the year they pretend to be
chimney-sweeps. And I have actually known men who appeared to be haters
of women, when they secretly loved them most tenderly.

Joscelyn: It does not surprise me to hear this. I have always
understood men to be composed of caprices.

Martin: They are composed of nothing else. I see you know them through
and through.

Joscelyn: I do not know anything at all about them. We do not study
what does not interest us.

Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, you found my story worthy of study?

Joscelyn: It served its turn. Might one, by going to Rackham Hill, see
this same cherry-tree and this same shed?

Martin: Alas, no. The shed rot