Jam Satis

You may go walk, and give me leave a while,
My lessons make no music in three parts.
                 TAMING OF THE SHREW


Whether the dark pool really showed Sir Marmaduke Thistlewood or
not, at the moment that his son desired that his image should be
called up, the good knight was, in effect, sitting nodding over the
tankard of sack with which his supper was always concluded, while
the rest of the family, lured out of the sunny hall by the charms
of a fresh summer evening, had dispersed into the gardens or hall.

Presently a movement in the neighbourhood made him think it
incumbent on him to open his eyes wide, and exclaim, 'I'm not
asleep.'

'Oh no! you never are asleep when there's anything you ought to
see!' returned Dame Annora, who was standing by him with her hand
on his chair.

'How now?  Any tidings of the lads?' he exclaimed.

'Of the lads?  No, indeed; but there will be bad tidings for the
lads if you do not see to it!  Where do you think your daughter is,
Sir Duke?'

'Where?  How should I know?  She went out to give her sisters some
strawberries, I thought.'

'See here,' said Lady Thistlewood, leading the way to the north end
of the hall, where a door opened into what was called the Yew-tree
Grove.  This consisted of five rows of yew-trees, planted at
regular intervals, and their natural mode of growth so interfered
with by constant cutting, that their ruddy trunks had been obliged
to rise branchless, till about twelve feet above ground they had
been allowed to spread out their limbs in the form of ordinary
forest trees; and, altogether, their foliage became a thick,
unbroken, dark, evergreen roof, impervious to sunshine, and almost
impervious to rain, while below their trunks were like columns
forming five arcades, floored only by that dark red crusty earth
and green lichen growth that seems peculiar to the shelter of yew-
trees.