He would sit under those two knotty
old oaks and begin to pluck the burrs from his jerkin. Then would
come his cheerful tanned followers, carrying the dappled burgher
they had ambushed; and, last, the pensive Jacques (so very like Mr.
Joseph Pennell in bearing and humour) distilling his meridian
melancholy into pentameter paragraphs, like any colyumist. A bonfire
is quickly kindled, and the hiss and fume of venison collops whiff
to us across the blue air. Against that stump--is it a real stump,
or only a painted canvas affair from the property man's
warehouse?--surely that is a demijohn of cider? And we can hear,
presently, that most piercingly tremulous of all songs rising in
rich chorus, with the plenitude of pathos that masculines best
compass after a full meal--
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude--
We hum the air over to ourself, and are stricken with the most
perfect iridescent sorrow. We even ransack our memory to try to
think of someone who has been ungrateful to us, so that we can throw
a little vigorous bitterness into our tone.
Yes, the sunshine that gilds our Salamis thickets seems to us to
have very much the amber glow of footlights.
In another part of this our "forest"--it is so truly a forest in the
Shakespearean sense, as all Long Island forests are (e.g., Forest
Hills), where even the lioness and the green and gilded snake have
their suburban analogues, which we will not be laborious to
explain--we see Time standing still while Ganymede and Aliena are
out foraging with the burly Touchstone (so very like that well-loved
sage Mr.
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