In Which the Bo'Sun Discourses on Love and Its Symptoms

Oho! for the warmth and splendor of the mid-day sun; for the dance
and flurry of leafy shadows on the sward; for stilly wayside pools
whose waters, deep and dark in the shade of overhanging boughs, are
yet dappled here and there with glory; for merry brooks leaping
and laughing along their stony beds; for darkling copse and sunny
upland,--oho! for youth and life and the joy of it.

To the eyes of Barnabas, the beauty of the world about him served
only to remind him of the beauty of her who was compounded of all
things beautiful,--the One and Only Woman, whose hair was yellow
like the ripening corn, whose eyes were deep and blue as the infinite
heaven, whose lips were red as the poppies that bloomed beside the
way, and whose body was warm with youth, and soft and white as the
billowy clouds above.

Thus on galloped Barnabas with the dust behind and the white road
before, and with never a thought of London, or its wonders, or the
gathering shadow.

It was well past noon when he beheld a certain lonely church where
many a green mound and mossy headstone marked the resting-place of
those that sleep awhile. And here, beside the weather-worn porch,
were the stocks, that "place of thought" where Viscount Devenham had
sat in solitary, though dignified meditation. A glance, a smile, and
Barnabas was past, and galloping down the hill towards where the
village nestled in the valley. Before the inn he dismounted, and,
having seen Four-legs well bestowed, and given various directions to
a certain sleepy-voiced ostler, he entered the inn, and calling for
dinner, ate it with huge relish. Now, when he had done, came the
landlord to smoke a pipe with him,--a red-faced man, vast of paunch
and garrulous of tongue.