"Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather."
"Is that as you like it, my dears?... My cousin has quite a fancy for the song. He's a sort of trimardeur who once made plays.... He wrote 'em and acted 'em, but, son, I live 'em."
Then, seated upon the grass, he spoke half jestingly, and yet with a serious note of reminiscence in his voice:
"Sometimes I'm Jacques, that melancholy cuss. Sometimes I'm Puck—merry Robin Goodfellow. You wouldn't believe it, now, would you? Sometimes, Touchstone. Often I am Ariel—
"'Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In the cowslip's bell I lie;
There I crouch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.'"
"I have been Romeo, but no more for me.... Nance, you red-headed little jade, how old are you?"
We were preparing to leave. We weren't interested. What did we care about all of this? Who were Ariel and Puck, anyhow? I could see that Nance did not like one bit being a "red-headed jade." She was always very sensitive about the color of her hair and the freckles on her nose.
"Don't go, my kiddies," he suddenly pleaded. "Look-e-here. I'm going to make a big, crackling fire in a minute. Then we'll have a bucket of water from the river. I've a kettle and some eggs aboard the Columbine.... Say, we'll have the one great time of our lives!"
It took no unusual amount of insisting to make us enter into a game like that with zest. And O, the mysteries of the interior of Mademoiselle Columbine. O, the stories of caliphs and kings and grand viziers and robbers and things. And they were friends of his, too. Personal friends!
It was unpleasantly late when we stole away home to scoldings and to bed. He told us to refer 'em to him, and he'd fix things with the grown-ups. Our parting glimpse, as we ran across the pasture, was Jean François, seated in the grass within the circle of the glowing light of the embers, talking to his pipe. Pretty soon, we knew for he told us, he'd be in bed. He used the stars, he remarked, to button the covers down, and he'd dip 'em into the river to put them out in the morning.