THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE
ONE FINE morning in July, just as the shadows were equal all round the world (or at all events in Gwent, and that is sufficient for our purposes) and the clocks of our holy faith were confessing in a variety of manners that it was noonday; the Fair Folk of Wentwood Chase were amusing themselves by the spectacle of a young knight, wandering about under the greenwood in a perplexed and vagrant fashion, as if he did not exactly know whitherwards to go or what to do with himself. What the Fair Folk thought of him, I can't tell you, because I am unhappily unlearned in the language of Færy, and have read none of their Chronicles, Memorabilia, Annals, or Commentaries; but I have reason to think they approved of him because he chanced to wear a green surcoat and was a proper man besides. On this green vestment were blazed three golden stags in pale; and to speak the truth they paced through herbage of a faded and autumnal sort, which bore the russet vestiges of many a storm of wine, and had undoubtedly done good service in its day. From my mention of the knight's coat you will have guessed, of course, that he was of the d'Espalions of Gascony, and this is indeed the fact; and he of whom I tell you bore the name of Sir Symon d'Espalion and thus was the son of a
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