CHAPTER VIII
THE BLACK DOG OF AMBOISE
Blessed four-and-twenty. From the first breath of life until the last, even though by reason of strength there be four-score years, is there a more perfect age? The restraints of the schoolboy are left behind, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has scattered its fruit about the feet, all sweet, all fresh in their newness, all a delight, even, alas, the worst of them: that of the tree of life seems just within the reach, and the burdens of the world are as yet on other men's backs. Even if the Porter's Knot, which all must bear sooner or later, is already on the shoulder, the light heart of four-and-twenty is untroubled. It believes, in its optimism, that it will tumble the load of carks and cares into the first ditch, and live in freedom ever after!
To Stephen La Mothe's four-and-twenty with the spirit of eighteen the world of that May day was God's good world, and what better could it be than that! If a full-leaved cherry tree, its ripening clusters rosy red and waxen yellow against the dense greenery, flung shade across the road he paused in his tramp, squared his shoulders, and drank a deep breath of the cooler air; if the blazing sun sucked up a subtle, acrid smell from the hot dust stirred by his feet he snuffed it up greedily and found it good to live. A hawk in the air, a thrush whistling from a hazel bush as only a thrush can whistle, the glorious yellow of a break of whin, all were a delight.
"Heigh ho! Love is my life!
Live I in loving, and love I to live!"
he sang, and broke into a whistle almost as blithe as the thrush itself that he might think more freely. Commines' gibe had come back to him, and for pastime he would make a verse of his love song, let Ursula de Vesc's eyes be blue, grey, or black!
"Live I in loving, and love I to live,"
was a good line, a line Francois Villon himself could not have bettered, but how should the next line run?
"Heigho! Sweetest of strife!"
Strife! The word jarred the context, but where would he get a better?
Wife? Rife? Worse! both worse! Sweetest of strife—of strife—strife,