And for one-and-twenty years the crone was seen no more, and then of a sudden she re-appeared at daybreak and bade her people put on their bright apparel because their King was coming with a young Queen; and after this she led them to Gay Street where she bade the folk to don their holiday attire, because their Lord was on his way with a fair Lady. And all those girls and boys, the dark and the light, felt the child of joy in their hearts again, and they went in the morning with singing and dancing to welcome the comers under the cherry-trees. I entreat you now, Mistress Joyce, for the second hair from your head. SECOND INTERLUDE The milkmaids put their forgotten apples to their mouths, and the chatter began to run out of them like juice from bitten fruit. Jessica: What did you think of this story, Jane? Jane: I did not know what to think, Jessica, until the very conclusion, and then I was too amazed to think anything. For who would have imagined the young Shepherd to be in reality a lord? Martin: Few of us are what we seem, Mistress Jane. Even chimney-sweeps are Jacks-in-Green on May-Days; for the other three-hundred-and-sixty-four days in the year they pretend to be chimney-sweeps. And I have actually known men who appeared to be haters of women, when they secretly loved them most tenderly. Joscelyn: It does not surprise me to hear this. I have always understood men to be composed of caprices. Martin: They are composed of nothing else. I see you know them through and through. Joscelyn: I do not know anything at all about them. We do not study what does not interest us. Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, you found my story worthy of study? Joscelyn: It served its turn. Might one, by going to Rackham Hill, see this same cherry-tree and this same shed? Martin: Alas, no. The shed rotted with time and weather, and bit by bit its sides were rebuilt with stone. And the cherry-tree Old Gerard chopped down in a fury, and made firewood of it. But it too had served its turn. For as every man's life (and perhaps, but you must answer for this, every woman's life), awaits the hour of blossoming that makes it immortal, so this tree passed in a single night from sterility to immortality; and it mattered as little if its body were burned the next day, as it would have mattered had Gerard and Thea gone down through the waters that night instead of many years later, after a life-time of great joy and delight. Joyce: I am glad of that. There were moments when I feared it would not be so. Jennifer: I too. For how could it be otherwise, seeing that he was a shepherd and she a lord's daughter? Jessica: And when it was related how she was to wed the Rough Master of Coates, my hopes were dashed entirely. Jane: And when they beat Young Gerard I was perfectly certain he was dead. Joan: I rather fancied the tale would end happily, all the same.