Then Martin kicked his heels against the tree and sang idly: When cuckoos fly in shoes And foxes run in gloves, Then butterflies won't go in twos And boys will leave their loves. "A silly song," said Joscelyn. Martin: If you say so. For my part I can never tell the difference between silliness and sense. Jane: Then how can a good song be told from a bad? You must go by something. Martin: I go by the sound. But since Mistress Joscelyn pronounces my song silly, I can only suppose she has seen cuckoos flying in shoes. Joscelyn: You are always supposing nonsense. Who ever heard of cuckoos flying in shoes? Jane: Or of foxes running in gloves? Joan: Or of butterflies going in ones? Martin: Or of boys-- Joscelyn: I have frequently seen butterflies going in ones, foolish Joan. And the argument was not against butterflies, but cuckoos. Martin: And their shoes. Please, dear Mistress Joan, do not look so downcast, nor you, dear Mistress Joscelyn, so vexed. Let us see if we cannot turn a more sensible song upon this theme. And he sang-- Cuckoo Shoes aren't cuckoos' shoes, They're shoes which cuckoos never don; And cuckoo nests aren't cuckoos' nests, But other birds' for a moment gone; And nothing that the cuckoo has But he does make a mock upon. For even when the cuckoo sings He only says what isn't true-- When happy lovers first swore oaths An artful cuckoo called and flew, Yes! and when lovers weep like dew The teasing cuckoo laughs Cuckoo! What need for tears? Cuckoo, cuckoo! As Martin ended, Gillian raised herself upon an elbow, and looked no more into the green grass, but across the green duckpond. "The second song seems to me as irrelevant as the first," said Joscelyn, "but I observe that you cuckooed so loudly as to startle our mistress out of her inattention. So if you mean to tell us another story, by all means tell it now. Not that I care, except for our extremity." "It is my only object to ease it," said Martin, "so bear with me as well as you may during the recital of Young Gerard." YOUNG GERARD There was once, dear maidens, a shepherd who kept his master's sheep on Amberley Mount. His name was Gerard, and he was always called Young Gerard to distinguish him from the other shepherd who was known as Old Gerard, yet was not, as you might suppose, his father. Their master was the Lord of Combe Ivy that lay in the southern valleys of the hills toward the sea; he owned the grazing on the whole circle of the Downs between the two great roads--on Amberley and Perry and Wepham and Blackpatch and Cockhill and Highdown and Barnsfarm and Sullington and Chantry. But the two Gerards lived together in the great shed behind the copse between Rackham Hill and Kithurst, and the way they came to do so was this.