"Kisses, will ye?" cried the Rough Master of Coates, "here's kisses for ye!" "Ha, ha!" cried the guests, "more kisses, more kisses for him that kissed the bride!" And then they all struck him at once, kicking and beating him without mercy, till he lay prone on the earth. When he had fallen, the Rough shouted, "Away to the Wildbrooks, away!" And he seized Thea in his arms, and rushed along the brow of the hill, and all the company followed in a confusion, and were swallowed up in the night. But Young Gerard raised himself a little, and groaned, "The Wildbrooks--are they going to the Wildbrooks?" "Ay, and over the Wildbrooks," said Old Gerard. "But they're in flood," gasped Young Gerard. "They'll never cross it in the spring floods." "They'll manage it somehow. The Rough--did you see his eyes when you--? ho, ho! he'll cross it somehow." "He can't," the boy muttered. "The April tide's too strong. He will drown in the flood." "And she," said Old Gerard. "Perhaps she will swim on the flood," said Young Gerard faintly. And he sighed and sank back on the earth. "Ay, you'll be sore," chuckled the old man. "You had your salve before you had your drubbing. Lie there. I must be gone on business." He took up his staff and went down the hill for the last time to Combe Ivy, to purchase his freedom. But Young Gerard lay with his face pressed to the turf. "And that was the bridegroom," he said, and shook where he lay. "Young shepherd," said a voice beside him. He looked up and saw the hooded crone, come out of the hut. "Why do you water the earth?" said she. "Have not the rains done their work?" "What work, dame?" "You've as fine a cherry in flower," said she, "as ever blossomed in Gay Street in the season of singing and dancing." "Singing and dancing!" he cried, his voice choking, and he sprang up despite his pains. "Don't speak to me, dame, of singing and dancing. You're old, like the withered branch of a tree, but did you not see with your old eyes, and hear with your old ears? Did you not see her come up the green hillside with singing and dancing? Oh, yes, my cherry's in flower, like a crown for a bride, and the spring is all in movement, and the birds are all in song, and she--she came up the hillside with singing and dancing." "I saw," said the crone, "and I heard. I'm not so old, young shepherd, that I do not remember the curse of youth." "What's that?" he said moodily. "To bear the soul of a master in the body of a slave," said she; "to be a flower in a sealed bud, the moon in a cloud, water locked in ice, Spring in the womb of the year, love that does not know itself." "But when it does know?" said Young Gerard slowly.