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with one of your family, as long as I live; so leaping off his back, and kicking off one boot into this ditch, and tother into thatIll take a dance, said Iso stay you here. A sun-burnt daughter of Labour rose up from the groupe to meet me, as I advanced towards them; her hair, which was a dark chesnut approaching rather to a black, was tied up in a knot, all but a single tress. We want a cavalier, said she, holding out both her hands, as if to offer themAnd a cavalier ye shall have; said I, taking hold of both of them. Hadst thou, Nannette, been arrayd like a duchesse! But that cursed slit in thy petticoat! Nannette cared not for it. We could not have done without you, said she, letting go one hand, with self-taught politeness, leading me up with the other. A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a pipe, and to which he had added a tabourin of his own accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as he sat upon the bankTie me up this tress instantly, said Nannette, putting a piece of string into my handIt taught me to forget I was a strangerThe whole knot fell downWe had been seven years acquainted. The youth struck the note upon the tabourinhis pipe followed, and off we boundedthe duce take that slit! The sister of the youth, who had stolen her voice from heaven, sung alternately with her brothertwas a Gascoigne roundelay. Viva la Joia! Fidon la Tristessa! The nymphs joind in unison, and their swains an octave below them I would have given a crown to have it sewd upNannette would not have given a sousViva la joia! was in her lipsViva la joia! was in her eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the space betwixt usShe lookd amiable!Why could I not live, and end my days thus? Just Disposer of our joys and sorrows, cried I, why could not a man sit down in the lap of content hereand dance, and sing, and say his prayers, and go to heaven with this nut-brown maid? Capriciously did she bend her head on one side, and dance up insidiousThen tis time to dance off, quoth I; so changing only partners and tunes, I danced it away from Lunel to Montpellierfrom thence to Pescnas, BeziersI danced it along through Narbonne, Carcasson, and Castle Naudairy, till at last I danced myself into Perdrillos pavillion, where pulling out a paper of black lines, that I might go on straight forwards, without digression or parenthesis, in my uncle Tobys amours I begun thus |
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