A FORGOTTEN TALE

‘ Say, what saw you on the hill,

Campesino Garcia?’

‘ I saw my brindled heifer there,

A trail of bowmen, spent and bare,

And a little man on a sorrel mare

Riding slow before them.’

‘ Say, what saw you in the vale,

Campesino Garcia?’

‘ There I saw my lambing ewe

And an army riding through,

Thick and brave the pennons flew

From the lances o'er them.’

‘ Then what saw you on the hill,

Campesino Garcia?’

‘ I saw beside the milking byre,

White with want and black with mire,

The little man with eyes afire

Marshalling his bowmen.’

‘ Then what saw you in the vale,

Campesino Garcia?’

‘ There I saw my bullocks twain,

And amid my uncut grain

All the hardy men of Spain

Spurring for their foemen.’

‘ Nay, but there is more to tell,

Campesino Garcia!’

‘ I could not bide the end to view;

I had graver things to do

Tending on the lambing ewe

Down among the clover.’

‘ Ah, but tell me what you heard,

Campesino Garcia!’

‘ Shouting from the mountain-side,

Shouting until eventide;

But it dwindled and it died

Ere milking time was over.’

‘ Nay, but saw you nothing more,

Campesino Garcia?’

‘ Yes, I saw them lying there,

The little man and sorrel mare;

And in their ranks the bowmen fair,

With their staves before them.’

‘ And the hardy men of Spain,

Campesino Garcia?’

‘ Hush! but we are Spanish too;

More I may not say to you:

May God's benison, like dew,

Gently settle o'er them.’