Read Sir John: "Cupid invaded Hell, and boldly drove Before him all the hosts of Erebus, Till he had conquered: and grim Cerberus Sang madrigals, the Furies rhymed of love, Old Charon sighed, and sonnets rang above The gloomy Styx; and even as Tantalus Was Proserpine discrowned in Tartarus, And Cupid regnant in the place thereof.
"Thus Love is monarch throughout Hell to-day; In Heaven we know his power was always great; And Earth acclaimed Love's mastery straightway When Sylvia came to gladden Earth's estate:-- Thus Hell and Heaven and Earth his rule obey, And Sylvia's heart alone is obdurate.
"Well, well," sighed Sir John, "it was a goodly rogue that writ it, though the verse runs but lamely! A goodly rogue!
"He might," Sir John suggested, tentatively, "have lived cleanly, and forsworn sack; he might have been a gallant gentleman, and begotten grandchildren, and had a quiet nook at the ingleside to rest his old bones: but he is dead long since. He might have writ himself armigero in many a bill, or obligation, or quittance, or what not; he might have left something behind him save unpaid tavern bills; he might have heard cases, harried poachers, and quoted old saws; and slept in his own family chapel through sermons yet unwrit, beneath his presentment, done in stone, and a comforting bit of Latin: but he is dead long since."
Sir John sat meditating for a while; it had grown quite dark in the room as he muttered to himself. He rose now, rather cumbrously and uncertainly, but with a fine rousing snort of indignation.
"Zooks!" he said, "I prate like a death's-head. A thing done hath an end, God have mercy on us all! And I will read no more of the rubbish."
He cast the packet into the heart of the fire; the yellow papers curled at the edges, rustled a little, and blazed; he watched them burn to the last spark.
"A cup of sack to purge the brain!" cried Sir John, and filled one to the brim. "And I will go sup with Doll Tearsheet."
* * * * * SEPTEMBER 29, 1422 "Anoon her herte hath pitee of his wo, And with that pitee, love com in also; Thus is this quene in pleasaunce and in loye."
Meanwhile had old Dome Sylvia returned contentedly to the helpmate whom she had accepted under compulsion, and who had made her a fair husband, as husbands go. It is duly recorded, indeed, on their shared tomb, that their forty years of married life were of continuous felicity, and set a pattern to all Norfolk. The more prosaic verbal tradition is that Lady Vernon retained Sir Robert well in hand by pointing out, at judicious intervals, that she had only herself to blame for having married such a selfish person in preference to a hero of the age and an ornament of the loftiest circles.