—"Yet I sit here, belying all my principles, attempting to translate a thing more difficult than Homer."
—"It was she, this child, set me going upon it!"
Brother Copas pulled the paper towards him again.
By the end of another hour he had painfully achieved this:—
"'Go, Maidens,' Our Lady commands, 'while
the myrtle is green in the grove,
Take the Boy to your escort.' But 'Ah!'
cry the maidens, 'What trust is in Love
Keeping holiday too, while he weareth his
archery, tools of his trade?'
—'Go: he lays them aside, an apprentice
released—you may wend unafraid:
See, I bid him disarm, he disarms. Mother-
naked I bid him to go,
And he goes mother-naked. What flame
can he shoot without arrow or bow?'
—Yet beware ye of Cupid, ye maidens! Be-
ware most of all when he charms
As a child: for the more he runs naked,
the more he's a strong man-at-arms."
"'Go, Maidens,' Our Lady commands, 'while
the myrtle is green in the grove,
Take the Boy to your escort.' But 'Ah!'
cry the maidens, 'What trust is in Love
Keeping holiday too, while he weareth his
archery, tools of his trade?'
—'Go: he lays them aside, an apprentice
released—you may wend unafraid:
See, I bid him disarm, he disarms. Mother-
naked I bid him to go,
And he goes mother-naked. What flame
can he shoot without arrow or bow?'
—Yet beware ye of Cupid, ye maidens! Be-
ware most of all when he charms
As a child: for the more he runs naked,
the more he's a strong man-at-arms."
CHAPTER XIX.
MERCHESTER PREPARES.
I must not overload these slight pages by chronicling at length how Merchester caught and developed the Pageant fever. But to Mr Colt must be given his share of the final credit. He worked like a horse, no doubt of it; spurred constantly on his tender side—his vanity—by the hard riding of Mr. Julius Bamberger, M.P. He pioneered the movement. He (pardon this riot of simile and metaphor) cut a way through the brushwood, piled the first faggots, applied the torch, set the heather afire. He canvassed the Bishop, the Dean and Chapter, the Sunday Schools, the Church Lads' Brigade, the Girls' Friendly Society, the Boy Scouts. He canvassed the tradespeople, the professional classes, the widowed and maiden ladies resident around the Close.