" "My company?" quoth the bowman, looking Beltane up and down with merry blue eyes, "why now do I know thee for a fellow of rare good judgment, for my company is of the best, in that I have a tongue which loveth to wag in jape or song.

Oft trolling some merry stave or turning with some quip or jape upon his tongue, but with eyes quick to mark the rhythmic swing of broad, mail-clad shoulders, eyes critical, yet eyes of pride.

Shakespeare, in his "Love's Labour's Lost," says "Judas was hanged on an elder," and the story is further alluded to in Piers Plowman's vision: "Judas, he japed With Jewen silver, And sithen on an eller, Hanged himselve.

For if we may not trust Sir John Maundeville who tells us that, "Fast by the Pool of Siloe is the elder tree on which Judas hanged himself ... when he sold and betrayed our Lord," Shakespeare says that, "Judas was hanged on an elder," and Piers Plowman records: Judas he japed With Jewish siller

Once moe the skie was blacke, the thounder rolde: Faste reyneynge oer the plaine a prieste was seen, Ne dighte full proude, ne buttoned up in golde; His cope and jape were graie, and eke were clene; A Limitoure he was of order seene, And from the pathwaie side then turnèd bee, Where the pore almer laie binethe the holmen tree, 'An almes, sir priest!'

jape, surplice.

And they supposed that he had raved or japed [jested].

Heard you not never how an actor's wife, Whom he (fond fool) lov'd dearly as his life, Coming in's way did chance to get a jape, As he was 'tired in his devil's shape; And how equivocal a generation Was then begot, and brought forth thereupon?

" "You have now," said one of us, seeking to brighten the growing embarrassment of the situation with a small jape.

Time draws his finger o'er the scene; But I cannot forget between The Thing to me you once have been Each sportive sally, wild escape, The scoff, the banter, and the jape, And antics of my gamesome Ape.