Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/132

 To a grove, then hard by, Palamon stalked with fearful foot.

The lark, the active messenger of day, had welcomed the grey dawn with its song; and the naming sun had risen, rejoicing the whole heaven, and drying up with his fiery streams the silver drops that hung upon the leaves; when Arcite, who was then, as I have told you, principal squire in the Royal Court of Theseus, arose and looked upon the cheerful day. Ever pondering on the object of his love, he mounted his steed, restless and starting like flame, and rode forth from Court a mile or two, till he came to the grove already mentioned, for the purpose of weaving a garland of woodbine and hawthorn, in honour of the merry month; and all the way he sang a roundelay in the clear sunshine. Having dismounted, he wandered up and down the spot near where Palamon, alarmed lest he should be discovered, lay cowering in a bush. Little was he aware that Arcite was so nigh at hand; and the other was as unmindful as his companion of the close witness to all his words and actions that was