om and a sky in stars. For men, dear maids, live by the daily
bread of their dreams; on realizations they would starve.

At last came the winter that preceded Young Gerard's twenty-first year.
With the stripping of the boughs he stripped his heart of all thoughts
of seeing her again till the green of the coming year. The snows came,
and he tended his sheep and counted his memories; and Old Gerard tended
his sheep and counted his coins. The count was full now, and he dreamed
of April and the freeing of his body. Young Gerard also dreamed of
April, and the freeing of his heart. And under the ice that bound the
flooded meadows doubtless the earth dreamed of the freeing of her
waters and the blooming of the land. The snows and the frosts lasted
late that year as though the winter would never be done, and to the two
Gerards the days crawled like snails; but in time March blew himself
off the face of the earth, and April dawned, and the swollen river went
rushing to the sea above the banks it had drowned with its wild
overflow. And as Old Gerard began to mark the days off on a tally,
Young Gerard began to listen on the hills. When the day came whose
midnight was to make the old man a freedman, Thea had not appeared.

On the morning of this day, as the two shepherds stood outside their
shed before they separated with their flocks, their ears were accosted
with shoutings and halloos on the other side of the copse, and soon
they saw coming through the trees a man in gay attire. He had a
scalloped jerkin of orange leather, and his shoes and cap were of the
same, but his sleeves and hose and feather were of a vivid green, like
nothing in nature. He looked garish in the sun. Seeing the shepherds he
took off his cap, and solemnly thanked heaven for having after all
created something besides hills and valleys. "For," said he, "after
being lost among them I know not how many hours, with no other company
than my own shadow, I had begun to doubt whether I was not the only man
on earth, and my name Adam. A curse of all lords who do not live by
highroads!"

"Where are you bound for, master?" asked Old Gerard.

"Combe Ivy," said the stranger, "and the wedding."

Old Gerard nodded, as one little surprised; but to Young Gerard this
mention of a wedding at Combe Ivy came as news. It did not stir him
much, however, for he was not curious about the doings of the master
and the house he never saw; all that concerned him was that to-day, at