Shortridge High School - Annual Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

Page 28 text:

,,,.,,, IN PRGVENCE each hill and cut it into halves, as it went up one side and down the other. But a short journey away, not so much as half of a league, in a little hollow betwixt two hills there dwelt an ancient peasant and his wife on a small plot that his father, and his father's father, and his father before him, had held, all for the yearly rent of ten broad, silver groats, paid to the Marquis at Michelmastide. Now it befell that betimes this certain fine morning that my lord, the Marquis, had sent one of his pages to this part of the country-side to search for a beagle-hound that had been lost in the greenwood yester-morn when my lord chanced to go a-hawking thither. This young page had the airy ways that very young men are wont to have, but his cheeks were red as the heart of the gillyflower and his lips like unto cherries in June, and his black eyes danced like the jet beads on the holy friar's rosary, so you know that he was a right merry fellow withal, and lacked not spirit of daring. Men hight him Aubanel. He had stop ed to rest at the peasant's cot, and while he sat on the bench outside the door he diug his heels into the earth and hummed a little ditty, which sounded somewhat in this wise: ' 'When tender leafage doth appear, When vemal meads grow gay with flowers, And aye with singing loud and clear The nightingale fulfills the hours, l joy in him and joy in every flower And in myself, and in my ladye more. For when joys do inlclose me and invest My joy in her transcendeth all the rest. He had heard a gleeman chant it only that morning as the lady Yvette, daughter to the Marquis, passed by, and she had blushed, and dropped a rose as if by chance, and then gone on. The page Aubanel bare an ancient grudge against this same troubadour, Gui d'Uisel, because, long ago, Gui had roundly boxed his ears for singing a chanson so loudly that it awakened the troubadour from a refreshing nap. And still this grudge rankled sore within him. But while he was turning over pebbles with his heels and musing many thoughts in his mind of the aforesaid insult, of the long walk to the chateau, of the still recreant beagle, which, mayhap, was home before him, he perceived the old peasant approaching, filled with woe and making great dole. For now he would cry out 'alack and alas, and now he would smite his thigh with his palm, and call on the blessed saints, and weep. Thereat the page yawned somewhat and queried of the old

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TI-IE CA 5 TLE or VAQNQI LRAS I N P R Q V E N C E DURR FRIEDLEY 1 QJW4' WARRANT if you had been in Provence that spring morn- ing you would have deemed it a most lovely place, and one good to live in forever and ever. For the hathorne was blown, and the orchards were in blossom, and in all of the earth, even in sunny Spain, there is no place where the W' sprin air is softer or the fields more fair than in Provence. The land rejoiced and the people thereof, for now was come the season when the lords and the minstrels might wander withersoever they pleased, and when the poor man agai11 could go into the fields, and toil in the summer winds, and eiarn store for winter, and altogether that country seemed a very pleasant place to be awe in. The round, pointed towers of the fortress of the Marquis of Va ueiras showed twinkling grey in among the green, green- hills, and the little white road wound round 4'7-5 2 f' 052: 7w 'DVM' 5' '? v so cc ,,Vv br I . 39,33 ,. , O 1,- 6 - P A soo . me 0 Zggg' ,' X ego eo L Q -i 0er-90

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IN PROVENCE man the cause of his dolor, whereupon he stopped lamenting and told of it. How it chanced a short while back, that a certain troubadour, Gui d'Uisel, of high favour with the Marquis, had come possessed, through heritage, of the parcel of land neighboring to the peasant's vale, and that now this troubadour desired the little valley for his own estate, fsuch are the grasping ways of menj, and that he, relying on his standing with my lord, had caused a writ to be served upon the peasant. This set forth, that, whereas the peasant had of late felled five goodly yew-trees off the Marquis' ground, in order to make for himself an hostel for his stock, he had forfeited the lease of the land, and must remove. And that is why the old man, yclept Laurent, did lament so woefully, for he knew right well that the great troubadour would soon have the pleasant dale for his very own. But the page straightened up, and his black eyes danced as motes in the sunlight, for l ween that he saw a chance to repay the haughty Gui for that aforetime box on the ear. nl-low now, old man, quoth he, stint thy bewailings and fare to our gracious lord, the Marquis, bearing thy deed of tenure, and l trow right well thou wilt have redress. So saying, he quaffed a drink of clear brook water from a cup of cornel wood, and betook his way on the high-road towards the castle. And hey! but that was a morning like that of the saints in Paradise, for the sun shone blithelyg warmly, but not too warmg only where the little road wound into the glades of the woodland the sun came not. Here was cool, green shadow, and the morning's dew still wet on the leaves, and here a hare's track in the soft dry roadway, and there a little flat line that marked where a serpent had crossedg and one might hear the hare farther and farther off amid the basky foliage, but the serpent had fled and hidden away. So Aubanel fared onwards, thinking his own thoughts and seeming pleased withal, and presently he came under the high round towers of Castle Vaqueiras and went within. And oh! it was a wonderous castle, so fine with spoil of Turk and Saracen, and Moor and Greek that it would take from all Hallow's eve to All Souls' day to tell of it. But the page Aubanel heeded not the broidered arras, nor cloth of gold, nor Monkish missals, but went straight and found his master's beagle-hound already returned, tired and footsore, to his rightful kennel. So he sought out the Marquis and told him of his morning's search and of the writ against the poor peasant, and that it was the trou- badour who had caused the writ to be served. Now it had chanced that my lord Mar uis had seen my lady, his daughter, smile often upon the troubadour, and had heard the songs sung in return, and whereas he had once been fond of him of Uisel, he now