When next he came a-pilfering so,
He should from her full lips derive
Honey enough to fill his hive.”
“ ’Tis a pure seed-pearl,” said I. “Small but Orient. And now, Mr. Delander my worthy friend, tell me where hides this shepherd of the enchanted pipe, for if, as you say, in Devon, then Devon I will not quit till with these tickling ears have I listened to his sweet pipings. And if Julia be his neighbour, as we may suppose— O, sir, speak by the cards and tell me true!”
“There is,” he responded, “in this His Majesty’s shire of Devon, a very savage forest, yet with no trees,—known as the Forest of Dartmoor. And well may I call it savage, for there do savages harbour that would make as little to slit a man’s throat and cast him in a slough as I to toss this nut-shell. Of the roads to these parts, least said soonest mended—sooner indeed than they. But know that around this execrable miscreant of a Dartmoor lie little lovely villages full of a sweet civility of flowers and hives of bees, and kine and pretty maids to milk ’em. And above all there is one called Dean Prior and of this the spiritual shepherd is Mr. Robert Herrick.”
“Sure his crook is wreathed with roses and the pretty lambs of the flock have nought to fear from their shepherd,” says I.
“I take your meaning, Mr. Tylliol, and yet—[he paused here with a peculiar sweet smile]—though you might decipher much from his verses of Julias, Dianemes, Perillas, and other charming ladies, and he is much accused as a loose liver, ’tis possible to read his riddle wrong. Go therefore and see him. I have known another who did this and returned surprised. Yet cross not Dartmoor on your life, but go softly below it where honest folk live. Also, a coach goes down two days hence within two miles of the village and with it a riding guard. Take your stout nag, and so God bless you and send you a happy meeting with a man not commonly to be accosted.”
’Twas in vain for me to beshrew and becall myself for the veriest ass between this and London, and doubtless I had flinched from so great an enterprise but that Mr. Delander poured verses more and more mellifluous into mine ears until at last I was as Ulysses, drunk with the fierce wine of the Sirens’ voices, and there being no mast whereto to bind me and Mr. Delander full of laughing incitements, I set forth to follow the track of music as a bee the track of the unseen rose’s perfume.
Of the roads I forbear to speak, and the harbourage by the way would willingly forget, but the air was sweet and fragrant with earliest summer and the fields yet gilt with cowslips and I spied a few late primroses lingering about the roots of trees in the shy copses. Also, an exceeding delicate flower like a silver star, that made sweet constellation in the lush grass. And could the courtesies of London be imported I know not where a man might better fleet the hours than in this warm and languid shire of Devon.
So, on the fourth day we observed a wild mountain stream, browner than October ale, that rushing danced to meet us, breaking in a thousand showers, spray, and rillets among its rocks—a lovely thing to see and hear—the youngest surely of the bright nymphs of the hills.