Where do you tarry?
Whiles here I stay for you
Waiting to marry.
Hey, young love! Ho, young....”
The song ended in a scream. Unheard, unsuspected, the stripling had crept forward through the trees. At the top of her backward swing he had caught her about the waist in his strong young arms. There was a momentary flutter of two black legs amid an agitated cloud of petticoat, then the rope swung forward, and the nymph was left in the arms of her young satyr. But only for a moment. Out of that grip she broke in a fury—real or pretended—and came to earth breathless, with flushed cheeks and flashing eye.
“You give yourself strange liberties, young Randal,” said she, and boxed his ears. “Who bade you here?”
“I ... I thought you called me,” said he, grinning, no whit abashed by either blow or look. “Come, now, Nan. Confess it!”
“I called you? I?” She laughed indignantly. “’Tis very likely! Oh, very likely!”
“You’ll deny it, of course, being a woman in the making. But I heard you.” And he quoted for her, singing: