"Let me introduce myself," said the girl, gaily. "Sir Marshal, at your service."
"And I am Sir Lancelot," he declared, modestly, "just returned from the Crusades, and glad to be back in merry England."
"Then, fair Sir Knight," said the marshal, "let me guide you to where Saint George is slaying the unbeliever in sport, as you have so often slain him in reality."
With more of such agreeable foolery, they made their way to where Saint George was indeed slaying every one around him, to the diversion of the spectators. For years afterwards the thought of the Dragon, with rainbow snaky locks, writhing in the throes of death, would bring to Timothy a smile of retrospective amusement.
It was a staging fit for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Pembroke was in the background, its grey walls overhung with ivy. A green elm spread its branches on one side of the open space, and on the other was a cherry-tree, a mass of pink blossoms, its soft petals carpeting the grass beneath.
There was no further question of finding Marian Hall. Sir Knight and his guide wandered about everywhere, and Timothy's friends would surely have doubted their eyes, could they have seen him taking in everything with the air of a happy child, while he stated his theories on Old English dances, and masques, and costumes.
At last he said: "Where is that fellow, Robin Hood, whom I saw in the procession? He must be shooting his arrows somewhere about the green."
"I believe he is," said the marshal, without enthusiasm, adding to herself, "How vexatious if I cannot keep him away from there. He will see her, of course, and my day's work will have gone for nothing."
"I should like to see him immensely," observed Timothy.
"It is a long walk," objected the marshal.