The Revolt of Man

by Walter Besant

Then the young men appeared, and they began to talk about the games over their tea. Presently they pressed Lord Chester to sing. No one had a better voice, or sang with greater expression. He refused at first, on the ground of being tired of the words of all his songs, but gave way and sang, with a laughing protest at the sentiment of the song and the inanity of the words, the following ballad, just then popular:—

‘Through sweet buttercups, through sweet hay
Rolled in swathes by the southern wind;
Side by side they wended their way;
The sloping sun on their faces lay,
And dragged long shadows behind.

‘Eighteen he, and stalwart to see;
Muscles of steel and a heart of gold.
Cheeks hot-burning, and eyes down-dropped,—
What did he think when she suddenly stopped,
And gave him her hand—to hold?

‘She was but thirty; her lands around
Lay with orchards and cornfields spread;
Meadow and hill with the sunlight crowned,
Wealth and joy without stint or bound,
And all for the lad she would wed!

‘He listened in silence, as young men should,
While she pictured the life to come;
In tangled copse, in the way of the wood,
With new spring flowers and old leaves strewed,
She spoke of a love-lit home.

‘Only a year: and the hay again
Lies in swathes, like the weed on the shore;
Lone he wanders with troubled brain,
Crying, “When will she come again?”
Poor fool; for she comes no more.
Forgotten her troth; and broken her oath;
His love will return no more.

‘The air is not bad,’ said the singer, when he had finished, rising from the piano,’ but the words are ridiculous. As if he were likely to care for a woman eighteen years his senior!’

These words fell among them like a bomb. There was a dead silence. No one dared raise her eyes except the Professor, who looked up in warning.

Presently an old gentleman, who had been half asleep, shook his head and spoke.

‘The songs are all alike now. A young fellow gets made love to, and is engaged, and then thrown over. Then he breaks his heart: In real life he would have called for his horse and galloped off his disappointment.’