He had walked down to the river in the twilight hoping to hear the nightingale announce the spring under the full moon but what he found was a hen party: hovering near the bank, two punts side by side in which the girls had taken their places, wreaths on their heads, drinks stowed at their feet. At first, he was irritated, but something about the open, friendly gaze with which one of them looked up at him reminded him of a student of his wife’s, long ago in Alqualonde…
He gifted the bride-to-be with an impromptu epithalamium for the altar.