“And why, my pretty lass?”
“Because Robin went for to be uncivil and kiss the maid in the song. But she would have none of it and serve him right, for—
“She gave him a smack in the face, she did!
Ay, she did! Sure she did!
She gave him a smack in the face, she did!”
She trilled it out, defiant as a thrush at dawn, and I could have committed Robin’s crime but for respect to her innocence and Mr. Herrick’s hospitality. And sure never was a syllabub so delicate and warm as this, strained from the balm-breathing kine through sunburnt hands fresh rinsed with sparkling water from Dean Burn.
I drank that wine of Nature’s brewing nor could be satisfied. And when her pails foamed to the brim and Clover-lips and Pretty Primrose returned disburdened to their cropping, says I:
“Tell me, my pretty one, where are the great houses about these parts where dwell the fair and splendid ladies who excel you in nothing but their wealth? And do they come to the church o’ Sundays?”
“Anan, sir?” says she, bewildered.
“The ladies in silks and lawns and jewels,” I insisted. “Of whom I have read as shedding the lustre of their graces even on these wild and solitary meads.”