“Cream of cowslips,” says he, “for the meadows whence it was drawn are gilt with their fragrant blossoms and the leisurely cows lie among them and crush their sweetness as well as devour it. And if you condescend later to taste it with a crust of Mrs. Prue’s bread and her marmalet of crab-apples, you shall say it is good honest country fare if simple.”
I rose content from a meal excelling all the varieties of rich men’s tables, and on his proposal we sat a while under his honey-suckle bower to look upon the prospect and digest our meat seemly, while Mrs. Prue moved softly about the house clearing and cleansing.
And seeing the moment favourable, I adventured a question much in my mind.
“Sir, in your divine and honey-golden verse, recited to me by our common friend, Mr. Delander, you speak with opprobrium of this rude Devonshire. Yet here I come and find you set amid delights of soul and body such as a king might envy. Is it true that you, looking on these sweet hills and meadows, this singing riveret and the hues and scents of your garden, can wish yourself in the noise and foulness of towns? Resolve me this doubt, for, trust me, it perplexes me.”
He smiled a little.
“Why, sir, is a poet wiser than another that he should not long for the rainbow a field away? You are to take notice that when I lived in London I abused the smells and sights and craved for country quiet. And now I have it ’tis the other way about. But in all good soberness this is the better life and I know it. Here is the eye enlarged to beauty, the ear attuned to music celestial, and the company, though not choicely good, is innocent, and if evil, hath no tinsel to hide its native ugliness.”
He paused a moment as though to digest his thoughts and added:
“Here we rise with Chanticleer and make the lamb our curfew, and the day’s small cares ended and our souls committed to the Keeper who sleeps not, we slumber discharged of griefs. And if our food be plain the seasoning is thanks.
“God, to my little meal and oil
Add but a bit of flesh to boil,