"Very well, Sir Timothy Lawn, upon my word! Quite prettily done, indeed!. You must have been taking lessons of Signor Sweetbriar, the royal parson. Now do run and bring me a glass of geranium-dew—I protest I have drank scarcely a drop all the evening."
"Not one word, then, for your poor lover and true knight," sighed Sir Timothy, in a tone of the deepest despondence.
"I did not come here to listen to school-boy nonsense," said the lady Dewbell, with a haughty and impatient motion of the head. "I came to get a glass of geranium-water. But, as you decline obliging me to that extent, I suppose I must e'en get it for myself. Good-night to you, Sir Timothy! Pleasant dreams!" and she disappeared.
The knight was for a moment confounded; then rising slowly, he pointed to a bright star that shone directly above him, winking and winking with all its might, as much as to say, "what a green-horn you are!" and swore an oath that no fairy should ever henceforth have power over his heart, till she who had so wantonly scorned and insulted him should beg to be forgiven. As he was turning sadly away, to seek his solitary chamber in the upper branch of a bachelor's button, on the other side of the brook, the elf-clown Puck stood before him, looking as demure as puss herself.
"Well, fool," said the knight, somewhat impatiently, "how long hast thou been listening here?"
"As long as my ears, your worship," replied the urchin, undauntedly, "and they were long enough to hear that your worship's valiancy is a very much over-praised commodity—since a maiden's dainty veil of knitted night-air has proved too strong for him."
"The knight he sued, and the knight he sighed,
But he went away without supper or bride."
"Silence, imp! or I 'll make thine ears, of which thou hast had such pestilent service, shorter by a span."
"No, I thank your valiancy! my ears do very well as they are. And I came to do you a good turn by offering you the use of them. But as your worship is so high and dry in Dundrum Bay, as we say at sea, I'll e'en get back to my nap in the hazle copse again."
"Nay, good Puck, I meant thee no harm, as thou knowest well enough. Since thou knowest my innermost grief, let me hear thy fool's advice in the matter."