"I'll help you," said Martin.
"Do children play there now?"
"Children with names as lovely as Sylvia, who are even lovelier than their names. They are the only spirits who haunt it. And at the source of it is a mystery so beautiful that one day, when you and I have discovered it together, we shall never come back again. But this will be after long years of gladness, and a life kept always young, not only by our children, but by the child which each will continually rediscover in the other's heart."
"What is this you are telling me?" whispered Gillian, hiding her face again.
"The Seventh Story."
"I'm glad it ends happily," said Gillian. "But somehow, all the time, I thought it would."
"I rather thought so too," said Martin Pippin. "For what does furniture matter as long as Sussex grows bedstraw for ladies to sleep on?"
And tuning his lute he sang her his very last song.
My Lady sha'n't lie between linen,
My Lady sha'n't lie upon down,
She shall not have blankets to cover her feet
Or a pillow put under her crown;
But my Lady shall lie on the sweetest of beds
That ever a lady saw,
For my Lady, my beautiful Lady,
My Lady shall lie upon straw.
Strew the sweet white straw, he said,
Strew the straw for my Lady's bed—
Two ells wide from foot to head,
Strew my Lady's bedstraw.
My Lady sha'n't sleep in a castle,
My Lady sha'n't sleep in a hall,
She shall not be sheltered away from the stars
By curtain or casement or wall;
But my lady shall sleep in the grassiest mead
That ever a Lady saw,
Where my Lady, my beautiful Lady,
My Lady shall lie upon straw.
Strew the warm white straw, said he,
My arms shall all her shelter be,
Her castle-walls and her own roof-tree—
Strew my Lady's bedstraw.