THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
when it came about. But it is really impossible to talk to one's sweetheart, as she should be talked to, on horseback (unless you are both on the same horse) wherefore Sir Symon presently jumped down, and laying his arm delicately round Bertha's waist, had her most exquisite arms twined about his neck and so brought her to the ground. Then did he spread her a soft throne of ferns on the roots of a tree, and kneeling at her feet, began to intone the Hours of Paphos in a mellow and passionate voice, for they had said the secreta some time before. Perhaps you do not understand me and have never heard of these offices, and indeed they are no longer sung in the flaming old-fashioned manner; for the times are degenerate. Well this is how Sir Symon began—"Darling, when the sun ariseth he shines in through my window and finds me awake and pale for thinking of thee; and when he sinketh below the western hills he leaves me still enlightened with the rarer glories of thine eyes." "Las, dear love," answered Bertha, "far away below us are the level moors; but we are in a greeny dell of Wentwood Chase; so was my life before thou camest compared to what it now is. O my sweetheart how shall I love thee aright?" "Love me and the kisses of my mouth even as the meadows love the dew in August, as the stones love the ripple of the brook, as the cornfields love the harvest moon ruddily ascending or shaped in sickle wise." "Thou art my mighty glorious sun and I thine earth yearning for the rays of thy love." "Thou art mine evening star, shining in the glow of sun-
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