"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.
"Well, well, Wamba's was a good song," Athelstane said.
"Nay, a wicked song," said Rowena, turning up her eyes as usual. "What!
rail at woman's love? Prefer a filthy wine cup to a true wife?
Woman's love is eternal, my Athelstane.
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