“There be buzzards in eagles’ nests,” Wamba said, who was lying stretched before the fire, sharing the hearth with the Thane’s dogs.  “There be dead men alive, and live men dead.  There be merry songs and dismal songs.  Marry, and the merriest are the saddest sometimes.  I will leave off motley and wear black, gossip Athelstane.  I will turn howler at funerals, and then, perhaps, I shall be merry.  Motley is fit for mutes, and black for fools.  Give me some drink, gossip, for my voice is as cracked as my brain.”

“Drink and sing, thou beast, and cease prating,” the Thane said.

And Wamba, touching his rebeck wildly, sat up in the chimney-side and curled his lean shanks together and began:—­

“Love at two score.

“Ho! pretty page, with dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber’s shear,
All your aim is woman to win—­
This is the way that boys begin—­
Wait till you’ve come to forty year!

“Curly gold locks cover foolish brains,
Billing and cooing is all your cheer,
Sighing and singing of midnight strains
Under Bonnybells’ window-panes. 
Wait till you’ve come to forty year!

“Forty times over let Michaelmas pass,
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear;
Then you know a boy is an ass,
Then you know the worth of a lass,
Once you have come to forty year.

“Pledge me round, I bid ye declare,
All good fellows whose beards are gray: 
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow, and wearisome, ere
Ever a month was passed away?

“The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper and we not list,
Or look away and never be missed,
Ere yet ever a month was gone.

“Gillian’s dead, Heaven rest her bier,
How I loved her twenty years syne! 
Marian’s married, but I sit here,
Alive and merry at forty year,
Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.”

“Who taught thee that merry lay, Wamba, thou son of Witless?” roared Athelstane, clattering his cup on the table and shouting the chorus.

“It was a good and holy hermit, sir, the pious clerk of Copmanhurst, that you wot of, who played many a prank with us in the days that we knew King Richard.  Ah, noble sir, that was a jovial time and a good priest.”

“They say the holy priest is sure of the next bishopric, my love,” said Rowena.  “His Majesty hath taken him into much favor.  My Lord of Huntingdon looked very well at the last ball; but I never could see any beauty in the Countess—­a freckled, blowsy thing, whom they used to call Maid Marian:  though, for the matter of that, what between her flirtations with Major Littlejohn and Captain Scarlett, really—­”

“Jealous again—­haw! haw!” laughed Athelstane.

“I am above jealousy, and scorn it,” Rowena answered, drawing herself up very majestically.