And I didn't; for who could hope to compete with the sun, who was making the whole dewy world shake with laughter at his brilliancy, or with the birds, any one of whom was a poet at least equal to Herrick? Presently we found ourselves at four crossroads, with a four-fingered post in the centre. We had agreed to leave our destination to chance. We read the sign-post. "Which shall we choose?" I said,-- "Aucassin, true love and fair, To what land do we repair?" "Don't you think this one," she replied, "this one?--To the Moon!" "Certainly, we couldn't find a prettier place; but it's a long way," I replied, looking up at the sky, all roses and pearls,--"a long way from the Morning Star to the Moon." "All the longer to be free," cried Nicolete, recklessly. "So be it," I assented. "Allons--to the Moon!" CHAPTER VIII THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON Two friends of my youth, with whom it would be hopeless to attempt competition, have described the star-strewn journey to the moon. It is not for me to essay again where the ingenious M. Jules Verne and Mr. William Morris have preceded me. Besides, the journey is nowadays much more usual, and therefore much less adventurous, than when those revered writers first described it. In the middle ages a journey to the moon with a woman you loved was a very perilous matter indeed. Even in the last century the roads were much beset with danger; but in our own day, like most journeys, it is accomplished with ease and safety in a few hours. However, to the latter-day hero, whose appetite for dragons is not keen, this absence of adventure is perhaps rather pleasurable than otherwise; and I confess that I enjoyed the days I spent on foot with Nicolete none the less because they passed in tranquil uneventfulness,--that is, without events of the violent kind. Of course, all depends on what you call an event. We were not waylaid by robbers, we fed and slept unchallenged at inns, we escaped collision with the police, and we encountered no bodily dangers of any kind; yet should I not call the journey uneventful, nor indeed, I think, would Nicolete. To me it was one prolonged divine event, and, with such daily intercourse with Nicolete, I never dreamed of craving for any other excitement. To walk from morning to evening by her side, to minister to her moods, to provide such entertainment as I might for her brain, and watch like a father over her physical needs; to note when she was weary and too proud to show it, and to pretend to be done up myself; to choose for her the easiest path, and keep my eyes open for wayside flowers and every country surprise,--these, and a hundred other attentions, kept my heart and mind in busy service. To picnic by some lonely stream-side on a few sandwiches, a flask of claret, and a pennyworth of apples; to talk about the books we loved; to exchange our hopes and dreams,--we asked nothing better than this simple fare.