CHAPTER VIII

UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE


In the moment in which she sprang to her feet she saw that it was not
Hugon, and her heart grew calm again. In her torn gown, with her brown
hair loosed from its fastenings, and falling over her shoulders in heavy
waves whose crests caught the sunlight, she stood against the tree beneath
which she had lain, gazed with wide-open eyes at the intruder, and guessed
from his fine coat and the sparkling toy looping his hat that he was a
gentleman. She knew gentlemen when she saw them: on a time one had cursed
her for scurrying like a partridge across the road before his horse,
making the beast come nigh to unseating him; another, coming upon her and
the Widow Constance's Barbara gathering fagots in the November woods, had
tossed to each a sixpence; a third, on vestry business with the minister,
had touched her beneath the chin, and sworn that an she were not so brown
she were fair; a fourth, lying hidden upon the bank of the creek, had
caught her boat head as she pushed it into the reeds, and had tried to
kiss her. They had certain ways, had gentlemen, but she knew no great harm
of them. There was one, now--but he would be like a prince. When at
eventide the sky was piled with pale towering clouds, and she looked, as
she often looked, down the river, toward the bay and the sea beyond, she
always saw this prince that she had woven--warp of memory, woof of
dreams--stand erect in the pearly light. There was a gentleman indeed!

As to the possessor of the title now slowly and steadily making his way