At the moment there was no human being in sight. He had the earth, it would appear, entirely to himself. Only furze-chats and yellow-hammers twittered in the gorse around him; little blue butterflies and brown underwings flitted over the heather. To the right it lay one great purple sheet, broken only by the gorse bushes. Their golden glory of April had long since passed away, but yellow flowers still lingered among their prickly shields. You know the old adage:
“When the gorse is out of bloom.
Kissing is out of fashion.”
To the left lay a stretch of long brown grass, dry and coarse. The wind, rustling softly through it, whispered of summer secrets. It came blowing softly, faintly, from the distant blue sea. Truly it was a day for whole-hearted enjoyment, for content, for reposefulness, for each thing and everything that goes to sum up entire happiness.
But if you imagine John to be in this restful mood, you are vastly mistaken. Three thoughts repeated themselves with about equal recurrence in his mind. The first was merely a name—Rosamund.
The birds twittered it, the wind whispered it, the faint understirrings in the heather took it up and repeated it with tantalizing insistence.
Rosamund, Rosamund, Rosamund.
A fair name truly; a poetical name. John, at the moment, might have emulated Orlando, who hung a very similar name on every tree. Only here there were no trees at hand, merely gorse bushes, and purple heather.
The second thought was a quotation. It ran through his head again and again.
“Never the time, and the place, and the loved one altogether.”