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The Cid began his courtship by shooting his lady-love's pigeons, and putting her into a pet and a frenzy. The Cid knew what he was about. Of course, there are limits. I would not advise, for instance, a fat elderly gentleman, bald, carbuncled, dull of wit, and slow of speech, to hazard that particular method, lest he should find himself the worse of his experiment.
The lover, an American man of means, is startled out of his sensuous, inactive life in Venice by his lady-love's scorn for his indolence. She begs of him to perform any task that will prove his persistence and worth.
It was impossible to hold out longer, with all the leaves quivering in that soft air, and the little birds hiding away among them, chirping to each other, and setting a sweet example to the lovers. Of course an ardent man, very much in love, is not likely to rest content with the touch of his lady-love's hand after he has been kept in quarantine four or five days.
A hundred instances might be taken. The croaking noise of the rooks is, in itself, as hideous as the whole hell of sounds in a London railway tunnel. Yet it uplifts us like a trumpet with its coarse kindliness and honesty, and the lover in 'Maud' could actually persuade himself that this abominable noise resembled his lady-love's name.
I will try to compass my purpose by the simple climbing of a tree, and to that end all I could need from you is a stout lift and a good word. Then we proceed in the established way of making signs over a wall. All this I explained to you fully. I would not have you think I am about to bombard my lady-love's house."
After a few graceful wheels and curvets, we take our ground. We stoop over our saddle. 'Tis but to kiss the locket of our lady-love's hair. A touch of the spur in the gallant sides of Pegasus, and we gallop at the great brute. "Cut off his ugly head, Flibbertygibbet, my squire!"
The young fisherman was found one morning at his lady-love's door without a head, and the bleeding trunk told no tales. "Of course, for a while, she was distracted and so on; but when the first shock of her grief was over, my father carried her off, and forcibly made her his wife. Fierce hatred, I told you, was mingled with his fierce love, and before the honeymoon was over it began to break out.
The door opened, and the "old bag of bones," as Ormiston irreverently styled his lady-love's ancient domestic, made a sign for them to follow him. Leading the way down along a corridor, he flung open a pair of shining folding-doors at the end, and ushered them at once into the majestic presence of the sorceress and her magic room. Both gentlemen doffed their plumed hats.
In a little while I turned into the inn-yard again. There had come a lull. Instead of the noisy place it was an hour or two before, the yard was perfectly still and empty, except for the carriages that stood here and there. Perhaps there was a servants' table-d'hote just then. I was rather pleased to find solitude; and undisturbed I found out my lady-love's carriage, in the moonlight.
When I urged on them that the custom would be more honored in the breach than the observance, they replied that it was established from time immemorial, and could not be dispensed with. Subsequently, however, Sejugah allowed that heads were very difficult to obtain now, and a young man might sometimes get married by giving presents to his lady-love's parents.
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