Then the Shepherd ran to his open door and stared into the blowing night, but there were no more signs of the crone without than there were within. So he fastened the latch and came back to the bedside, and examined the child.—
(But at this point Martin Pippin interrupted himself, and seizing the rope of the swing set it rocking violently.
Joyce: I shall fall! I shall fall!
Martin: Then you will be no worse off than I, who have fallen already. For I see you do not like my story.
Joyce: What makes you say so?
Martin: Till now you listened with all your ears, but a moment ago you turned away your head a moment too late to hide the disappointment in your eyes.
Joyce: It is true I am disappointed. Because the beautiful lady is dead, and how can a love-story be, if half the lovers are dead?
Martin: Dear Mistress Joyce, what has love to do with death? Love and death are strangers and speak in different tongues. Women may die and men may die, but lovers are ignorant of mortality.
Joyce (pouting): That may be, singer. But lovers are also a man and a woman, and the woman is dead, and the love-tale ended before we have even heard it. You should not have let the woman die. What sort of love-tale is this, now the woman is dead?
Martin: Are not more nests than one built in a spring-time?—Give me, I pray you, two hairs of your head.