第16章

"'In the merry month of May, In a morn by break of day, With a troop of damsels playing Forth I went, forsooth, a-maying;' " and presently, the trees thinning in front of us, we came upon a little open glade and upon the singer. He lay on his back, on the soft turf beneath an oak, with his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes upturned to the blue sky showing between leaf and branch. On one knee crossed above the other sat a squirrel with a nut in its paws, and half a dozen others scampered here and there over his great body, like so many frolicsome kittens. At a little distance grazed an old horse, gray and gaunt, springhalt and spavined, with ribs like Death's own. Its saddle and bridle adorned a limb of the oak.

The song went cheerfully on: -

" 'Much ado there was, God wot: would love and she would not; said, "Never man was true."

He said, "None was false to you." ' "

"Give you good-day, reverend sir!" I called. " Art conning next Sunday's hymn?"

Nothing abashed, Master Jeremy Sparrow gently shook off the squirrels, and getting to his feet advanced to meet us.

"A toy," he declared, with a wave of his hand, "a trifle, a silly old song that came into my mind unawares, the leaves being so green and the sky so blue. Had you come a little earlier or a little later, you would have heard the ninetieth psalm. Give you good-day madam. I must have sung for that the very queen of May was coming by."

"Art on your way to Jamestown?" I demanded. "Come ride with us.

Diccon, saddle his reverence's horse."

"Saddle him an thou wilt, friend," said Master Sparrow, " for he and I have idled long enough, but I fear I cannot keep pace with this fair company. I and the horse are footing it together."

"He is not long for this world," I remarked, eyeing his ill-favored steed, "but neither are we far from Jamestown. He'll last that far."

Master Sparrow shook his head, with a rueful countenance. "I bought him from one of the French vignerons below Westover," he said. "The fellow was astride the poor creature, beating him with a club because he could not go. I laid Monsieur Crapaud in the dust, after which we compounded, he for my purse, I for the animal; since when the poor beast and I have tramped it together, for I could not in conscience ride him. Have you read me ’sop his fables, Captain Percy?"

"I remember the man, the boy, and the ass," I replied. "The ass came to grief in the end. Put thy scruples in thy pocket, man, and mount thy pale horse."

"Not I!" he said, with a smile. " 'T is a thousand pities, Captain Percy, that a small, mean, and squeamish spirit like mine should be cased like a very Guy of Warwick. Now, if I were slight of body, or even if I were no heavier than your servant there" -

"Oh!" I said. "Diccon, give his reverence the mare, and do you mount his horse and bring him slowly on to town. If he will not carry you, you can lead him in."

Sunshine revisited the countenance of Master Jeremy Sparrow; he swung his great body into the saddle, gathered up the reins, and made the mare to caracole across the path for very joy.

"Have a care of the poor brute, friend!" he cried genially to Diccon, whose looks were of the sulkiest. "Bring him gently on, and leave him at Master Bucke's, near to the church."

"What do you do at Jamestown?" I asked, as we passed from out the glade into the gloom of a pine wood. "I was told that you were gone to Henricus, to help Master Thorpe convert the Indians."