"'Ods life! your worship must not complain of hunger, then, for such diet soon gives a man a surfeit. But, in troth, 'tis more than one good mile. However, surely we can get a nuncheon of bread at some cottage as we go; so shall your worship arrive just in time for his grace's dinner, and I come in for my share of good things in the second or third hall, as it pleases master yeoman-usher. So let us on, sir, i' God's name."
Climbing the hill, they now cut across an angle of the forest, and soon came to a wide open down, whereon a shepherd was feeding a fine flock of sheep, singing lightly as he went along.
SHEPHERD'S SONG.
"The silly beast, the silly beast,
That crops the grassy plain,
Enjoys more than the monarch's feast,
And never tastes his pain.
Sing oh! sing oh! for high degree,
I'd be a sheep, and browse the lee.
"The 'broidered robe with jewels drest,
The silks and velvets rare,
What are they to the woolly vest
That shuts out cold and care?
Sing oh! sing oh! for high degree,
A woolly coat's the coat for me.
"The king he feeds on dainty meat,
Then goes to bed and weeps,
The sheep he crops the wild thyme sweet,
And lays him down and sleeps.
Sing oh! sing oh! for high degree,
A careless life's the life for me."
"This shepherd will have his hard-pressed curds and his brown bread," said Longpole; "and if your worship's hunger be like mine, no way dainty, we can manage to break our fast with him, though it be not on manchets and stewed eels."
The knight was very willing to try the shepherd's fare; and bending their course towards him, they came up just as he was placing himself under an old oak, leaving his sheep to the care of his dogs, and found him well disposed to supply their necessities. His pressed curds, his raveled bread, and his leathern bottle, full of thin beer, were cheerfully produced; and when the knight, drawing from his pocket one of the few pieces that had luckily not been placed in his bags, offered to pay for their refreshment, the honest shepherd would receive no payment; his good lord, he said, the Duke of Buckingham, let none of his people want for anything in their degree, from his chancellor to his shepherd.
"Content is as good as a king," said Heartley, as they proceeded on their way. "But, there! does not your worship catch a glance of the house where those two hills sweep across one another, with a small road winding in between them? just as if under yon large mass of chalky stone, that seems detached and hanging over the path, with a bright gleam of sunshine seen upon the wood beyond? Do you not see the chimneys, sir?"
"I do, I do," answered Sir Osborne. "But, come, let us on, it cannot be far."
"Not above half-a-mile," answered Longpole; "but we must go round to the other side, for on this lie the gardens, which, as I have heard, are marvellous rich and curious. There may be seen all kinds of foreign fruit, corn trees, capers, lemons, and oranges. And they say that by a strange way they call grafting, making, as it were, a fool of Dame Nature, they give her a party-coloured coat, causing one tree to bring forth many kinds of fruit, and flowers of sundry colours."
"I have seen the same in Holland," replied the knight, "where the art of man seems boldly, as it were, to take the pencil from nature's hand, and paint the flowers with what hues he will."