Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/308

 2 88 Hijiojy of Domcjlic Marnier s come nearer the table;" but flie only moved further oflf, and nearer the brink of the river, with her back turned to the water. He repeated his invitation hi a more angry tone, in reply to which, to Ihowher ill-humour, llie drew further back, with a quick movement of ill-temper, through which, forgetting the nearnefs of the river, flie fell into it, and was drowned. The hulband, pretending great grief, fent for a boat, and proceeded up the llream in learch of her body. This excited fome furprife among his neighbours, o fuggelled to him that he Ihould go down the flream, and not up. "Ah!" laid he, "you did not know my wife — llie did everything in contradiftion, and I tirmly believe that her body has floated againft the current, and not with it." Even among the ariflocratic clafs the garden M'as often the place for giving audience and receiving friends. In the romance of " Garin le Loherain," a melfenger fent to the count Fromont, one of the great barons, finds him fitting in a garden fiarrounded by his friends — Troinm Fromont jeant en un jardin ^ Enwron lui a-vo'it de Jes amhis. — Roman de Garin, i. 2S2. A favourite occupation of the ladies in the middle ages was making garlands and chaplets of flowers. In the " Lai d'Ariftote" (Barbazan, iii. 103, 107), king Alexander's beautiful millrels is defcribed as defcending early in the morning, walking in the garden alone, and making herfelf a chaplet of flowers. In another fabliau, publiflied in Germany by Adelbert Keller, a Saracenic maiden defcends from her chamber into the garden, performs her toilette at the fountain there, and then makes herfelf a chaplet of flowers and leaves, wiiich flie puts on her head. So Emelie, in Chaucer's "Knights Tale," — Ickthed luas jche frejjh for to de-vyfe. Hire yoliue (yellow) heer loai broivdid in a trejje Byhymde hire bak, a yerde long^ I geJJ'e. And in the gardyn at the fonne uprijie (sun-rise) Sche lualketh up and doun ivheer as hire Ufte ; Sche gaderethjloures, part ye ivhyte and reede. To make a ccrtcyn gerland for hire heede. And as an aungel he-venly fche fcng. A little further on, Arcyte goes at daybreak into the fields to make him a chaplet.