text:
Desert Air

N AN evening of last summer I was dining in London at the Carlton with two men. One of them was an excellent type of young England, strong, healthy, athletic, and straightforward. The other was a clever London doctor who was building up a great practise in the West End. At dessert the conversation turned upon a then recent tragedy in which a great reputation had gone down, and young England spoke rather contemptuously of the victim, with the superior surprise human beings generally express about the sin which does not happen to be theirs.

“I can't understand it!” was his conclusion. “It's beyond me.”

“Climate,” said the doctor quietly.

“What?”

“Climate. Air.”

Young England looked inexpressively astonished.

“But hang it all!” he exclaimed. “You don't mean to say change of air means change of nature?”

“Not to every one. Not to you, perhaps. Have you traveled much?”

“Well, I've been to Paris for the Grand Prix and to Monte”

“For the gambling. That's hardly traveling. Now I've studied this subject a little, quietly in Harley Street. I'm no traveler myself, but I have dozens of patients who are. And I'm convinced that the modern facilities for travel, besides giving an infinity of pleasure, bring about innumerable tragedies.”

He turned to me.

“You go abroad a great deal. What do you say?”

“That you're perfectly right. And I'm prepared to affirm that, in highly strung, imaginative, or over-worked people change of climate does sometimes actually cause, or seem to cause, change of nature.”

Young England, who was by no means highly strung or imaginative, looked politely dubious, but the doctor was evidently pleased.

“An ally!” he cried.

He glanced at me for an instant, then added:

“You've got a case that proves it, at any rate to you, in your mind.”

“Quite true.”

“Can you give it us?”

“Jove! let's have it!” exclaimed young England.

“Certainly, if you like,” I said. “I don't know whether you ever heard of the Marnier affair?”

Young England shook his head, but the doctor replied at once.

“Three years ago, wasn't it?”

“Four.”

“And it happened in some remote place in the Sahara Desert?”

“In Beni-Kouidar. I was with Henry Marnier in Beni-Kouidar at the time.”

“Go ahead!” said young England more eagerly.

“Poor Marnier was not an old friend of mine, but an acquaintance whom I had met casually at Beni-Mora, which is known as a health resort.”

“I send patients there sometimes,” said the doctor.

“The railway stops at Beni-Mora. To reach Beni-Kouidar one must go on horse or camel back over between three and four hundred kilometres of desert, sleeping on the way at Travelers' Houses, Bordjs as they are called there. Beni-Kouidar lies in the midst of immeasurable sands, and the air that blows through its palm gardens, and round its mosque towers, and down its alleys under the arcades is startling: dry as the finest champagne, almost fiercely pure and fresh, exhilarating—well, too exhilarating for certain people.”

The doctor nodded.

“Champagne goes very quickly to some heads,” he interjected.

“Beni-Kouidar has nothing to say to modern civilization. It is a wild and turbulent city, divided into quarters—the Arab quarter, the Jews' quarter, the freed negroes' quarter, and so on—and furthermore, is infested at certain seasons by the Sahara nomads, who camp in filthy tents on the huge sand dunes round about, and sell rugs, burnouses and Touareg work to the inhabitants, buying in return the dates for which the palms of Beni-Kouidar are celebrated.

“I wanted to see a real Sahara city to which the Cook's tourist had not as yet penetrated, and I resolved to ride there from Beni-Mora. When Henry Marnier heard of it he asked if he might accompany me.

“Marnier was a young man who had recently left Oxford, and who had come out to Beni-Mora only a week before to see his mother, who was going through the sulphur cure. He was what is generally called a 'serious-minded young man': intellectual, inclined to grave reading and high thinking, totally devoid of frivolity, a little cold in manner and temperament, one would have sworn: in fact, a type of a very well-known kind of Oxford undergraduate, the kind that takes a good tutorship for a year or so after leaving the University, and then becomes a schoolmaster or a clergyman. Marnier, by the way, intended to take orders.

“Now this sort of young man is not precisely my sort, and especially not my sort in the Sahara Desert. But I did not want to be rude to Marnier, who was friendly and agreeable, and obviously anxious to increase his already considerable store of knowledge. So 1 put my inclinations in my pocket and, with inward reluctance, I agreed.

“We set off with Safti, my faithful one-eyed Arab guide, and after three long days of riding, and talking—as I had feared—Maeterlink and Tolstoy, Henley and Verlaine (this last being utterly condemned by Marnier as a man of weak character and degraded life), we saw the towers of Beni-Kouidar aspiring above the shifting sands, the tufted summits of the thousands of palm trees, and heard the dull beating of drums and the cries of people borne to us over the spaces of which silence is the steady guardian.

“We were all pretty tired, but Marnier was specially done up. He had recently been working very hard for the 'first' with which he had left Oxford, and was not in good condition. We were therefore glad enough when we rode through the wide street thronged with natives, turned the corner into the great camel market, and finally dismounted before the door of the one inn, the 'Rendezvous des Amis,' a mean, dusty, one-story building, on whose dirty white wall was a crude painting of a preposterous harridan in a purple empire gown, pouring wine for a zouave who was evidently afflicted with elephantiasis. Yet tired as I was, I stepped out into the camel market for a moment before going into the house, emptied my lungs, and slowly filled them.

“'What air!' I said to Marnier, who had followed me.

“'It is extraordinary,' he answered, in his rather dry tenor voice. 'I should say like the best champagne, if I did not happen to be a teetotaller.'

“(The market, I must explain, was not at that moment in active operation.)

“After a bain de siege—we both longed for total immersion—and some weak tea in which I mingled a spoonful of rum, we felt better, but we reposed till dinner and once again Marnier, in his habitually restrained and critical manner, discussed contemporary literature, and what Plato and Aristotle, judging by their writings, would have been likely to think of it. And once again I felt as if I were in the 'High' at Oxford, and was almost inclined to wish that Marnier was the rowdy type of undergrad, who ducks people in water troughs and makes bonfires in quads.”

“H'm!” said the doctor, gravely. “Better, perhaps, if he had been.”

“Much better,” I answered. “At seven o'clock we ate a rather tough dinner in the small, bare salle-à-manger, on the red brick floor of which sand grains were lying. Our only companion was a bearded priest in a dirty soutane, the aumonier of Beni-Kouidar, who sat at a little table apart and greeted our entrance with a polite bow, but did not then speak to us.

“When the meal was ended, however, he joined us as we stood at the inn door looking out into the night. A moon was rising above the palms and gilding the cupolas of the Bureau Arabe on the far side of the Market Square. A distant noise of tom-toms and African pipes was audible. And all down the hill to our left—for the land rose to where the inn stood—fires gleamed, and we could see half-naked figures passing and repassing them, and others squatting beside, looking like monks in their hooded burnouses.

“'You are going out, Messieurs?' said the aumonier politely.

“I looked at Marnier.

“'You're too done up, I expect?' I said to him.

“His face was pale, and he certainly had the demeanor of a tired man.

“'No,' he answered. 'I should like a stroll in this wonderful air.'

“I turned to the priest.

“'Yes, Monsieur,' I said.

“'I come here to take my meals, but I live at the edge of the town. Perhaps you will permit me to accompany you for a little way.'

“'We shall be delighted, and we know nothing of Beni-Kouidar.'

“As we stepped out into the market Marnier paused to light his pipe. But suddenly he threw away the match he had struck.

“'No, it's a sin to smoke in this air,' he said.

And he drew a deep breath, looking at the round moon.

“The priest smiled.

“'I have lived here for four years,' he said. 'And cannot resist my cigar. But you are right. The air of Beni-Kouidar is extraordinary. When first I came here it used to mount to my head like wine.'

“'Bad tor you, Marnier!' I said, laughing.

“Then I added, to the aumonier.

“'My friend never drinks wine, and so ought to be peculiarly susceptible to such an influence.'

“Opposite to the aumonier's dwelling was the great dancing house of the town, and when we had bade him good night and turned to go back to the inn, I rather tentatively suggested to Marnier that perhaps it would be interesting to look in there for a moment.

“'All right,' he responded, with his most donnish manner. 'But I expect it will be rather an unwashed crowd.'

“A quantity of native soldiers—the sort that used to be called Turcos—were gathered round the door. We pushed our way through them and entered. The café was large, with big white pillars and a double row of divans in the middle and divans rising in tiers all round. On the left was a large doorway in which gorgeously dressed painted women, with gold crowns on their heads, were standing, smoking cigarettes and laughing with the Arabs; and at the end farthest from the street entrance was a raised platform, on which sat three musicians—a wild-looking demon of a man blowing into an instrument with an immense funnel, and two men beating tom-toms. The noise they made was terrific. The piper wore a voluminous burnouse, and as the dancers came in in pairs from the big doorway, which led into the court where they all live together, each in her separate little room with her own front door, they threw their door-keys into the hood that was attached to it. As soon as they had finished dancing they went to the hood and rummaged violently for them again. And all the time the piper blew frantically into his instrument, and rocked himself about like a man in a convulsion.

“We sat on one of the raised divans with coffee before us on a wooden stool, and Marnier observed it all with a slightly supercilious coldness. The women, who were dressed in different shades of red and were the most amazing trollops I ever set eyes on, came and went in pairs, fluttered their painted fingers, twittered like startled birds, jumped and twirled, wriggled and revolved, and inclined their greasy foreheads to the impenetrable spectators, who stuck silver coins on to the perspiring flesh. And Marnier sat and gazed at them with the aloofness of one who watches the creatures in puddle-water through a microscope. I could scarcely help laughing at him, but I wished him away. For to me there was excitement, there was even a sort of ecstasy in the utter barbarity of this spectacle, in the moving scarlet figures with their golden crowns and tufts of ostrich plumes, in the serried masses of turbaned and hooded spectators, in the rocking forms of the musicians, in the strident and ceaseless uproar that they made.

“And through the doorway where the Turcos—I like the old name—crowded, I saw the sand filtering in from the desert, and against the black leaves of a solitary palm tree, with leaves like giant Fatma hands, I saw the silver disk of the moon.

“'I vote we go,' said Marnier's light tenor voice in my ear. 'The atmosphere 's awful in here.'

“'Very well,' I said.

“I got up, but just then a girl, dressed in midnight purple embroidered with silver, came in from the doorway and began to dance alone. She was very young—fourteen, I found out afterward—and, in contrast to the other women, extremely beautiful. There were grace, seduction, mystery, and coquetry in her face and in all her movements. Her long black eyes held fire and dreams. Her fluttering hands seemed beckoning us to the realms of the thousand and one nights. I stood where I had got up and watched her.

“'I say, aren't we going?' said Marnier's voice in my ear.

“I cursed the day when I had agreed to take him with me, leaped down to the earth, and struggled toward the door. As we neared it the girl sidled down the room till she was exactly in front of Marnier. Then she danced before him, smiling with her immense eyes, which she fixed steadily upon him, and bending forward her pretty head covered with a cloth of silver handkerchief.

“'Give her something,' I said to him, laughing, as he stared back at her grimly.

“He thrust his hand into his pocket, found a franc, stuck it awkwardly against her oval forehead, and followed me out.

“When we were in the sandy street he walked a few steps in silence, then stood still and, to my surprise, stared back at the dancing house. Then he put his hand to his head.

“'Is the air having its alcoholic effect?' I asked in joke.

“As I spoke a handsome Arab, splendidly dressed in a pale blue robe, red gaiters and boots, and a turban of fine muslin, spangled with gold, passed us slowly, going toward the dancing house. He east a glance full of suspicion and malice at Marnier.

“'What's up with that fellow?' I said, startled.

“The Arab went on, and at that moment the faithful Safti joined us. He never left me long out of his sight in these outlandish places.

“'That is the Batouch Sidi, the brother of the Caïd of Beni-Kouidar,' he said. 'Algia, the dancer to whom Monsieur Henri has just given money, is his chére amie. But as the government has just made him a sheik, he dares not have her in his house for fear of the scandal. So he has put her with the dancers. That is why she dances, to deceive every one, not to make money. She is not as the other dancers. But every one knows, for Batouch is mad with jealousy. He cannot bear that Algia should dance before strangers, but what can he do? A sheik must not have a scandal in his dwelling.'

“We walked on slowly. When we got to the door of the 'Rendezvous des amis,' Marnier stood still again and looked down the deserted, moonlit camel market.

“'I never knew air like this,' he said, in a low voice.

“And once more he expelled the air from his lungs and drew in a long, slow breath, as a man does when he has finished his dumb-bell exercise in the morning.

“'Don't drink too much of it,' I said. 'Remember what the aumonier told us!'

“Marnier looked at me. I thought there was something apprehensive in his eyes. But he said nothing and we turned in.

“The next day I rode out with Safti into the desert to visit a sacred personage of great note in the Sahara, Sidi El Ahmed Ben Daoud Abderahmann. To my relief Marnier declined to come. He said he was tired and would stroll about the city. When we got back at sundown the innkeeper handed me a note. I opened it and found it was from the aumonier, saying that he would be greatly obliged if I would call and see him on my return, as he had various little curiosities which he would be glad to show me. Marnier was not in the inn, and, as I had nothing particular to do, I walked at once to the aumonier's house. As I have said, it was the last in the town. The dancing house was on the opposite side of the way, but the aumonier's dwelling jutted out a little farther into the desert, and looked full on a deep depression of soft sand bounded by a big dune, which loomed up like a couchant beast in the fading yellow light.

“The aumonier met me at his door, and escorted me into a pleasant room where his collection of Arab weapons, coins, and old vases, cups and various utensils, dug up, he told me, at Tlemcen, was arranged. But to my surprise he scarcely took time to show it to me before he said:

“'Though a stranger, may I venture to speak rather intimately to you, Monsieur?'

“'Certainly,' I replied, in some astonishment.

“'Your friend is young.'

“'Marnier?'

“'Is that his name? Well, I would not leave him to stroll about too much alone, if I were you.'

“'Why, Monsieur?'

“'He is likely to get into trouble. The people here are a wild and violent race. He would do well to bear in mind the saying of a traveler who knew the desert men better than most people—“If you want to be friendly with them and safe among them, give cigarettes to the men and leave the women alone.” I see a good deal, Monsieur, owing to the situation of my little house.'

“I looked at him in silence. Then I said:

“'What have you seen?'

“He led me to the door and pointed toward the great dune beyond the dancing house.

“'I saw your friend this afternoon talking there with one whom it is especially unsafe to be seen with in Beni-Kouidar.'

“'With whom?'

“'A dancer called Algia.'

“'Talking, Monsieur! Marnier knows no Arabic.'

“The aumonier pursed his lips in his black beard.

“'The conversation appeared to be carried on by signs,' he responded. 'That did not make it less but more dangerous.'

“I'm afraid I was rude and whistled softly.

“'Monsieur l'Aumonier,' I said, 'you must forgive me, but this air is certainly the very devil.'

“He smiled, not without irony.

“'I became aware of that myself, Monsieur, when first I came to live in Beni-Kouidar. But I am a priest, and—well, Monsieur, I was given the strength to say, 'Get thee behind me, satan.'

“A softer look came into his sunburnt, wrinkled face.

“'Better take your friend away as soon as possible,' he added; 'or there will be trouble.'

“That night I found myself confronted by a Marnier whom I had never seen before. The desert wine had gone to the lad's brain. That was certain. No intonations of the Oxford don lurked in the voice. No reminiscences of the Oxford 'High' clung about the manner. A man sober and the same man drunk are scarcely more different than the Marnier who had ridden with me up the sandy street of Beni-Kouidar the previous day and the man who sat opposite to me at dinner in the Rendezvous des Amis that night. I knew in a moment that the aumonier was right, and that I must get the lad away at once from the intoxicant which nature poured out over this far-away city. His eyes were shining feverishly, and when I mentioned Mr. Ruskin in a casual way he looked unutterably bored.

“'Ruskin and all those fellows seem awfully slow and out of place here,' he exclaimed. 'One doesn't want to bother about them in the Sahara.'

“I changed the subject.

“'There does n't seem very much to see here,' I said carelessly. 'We might get away the day after to-morrow, don't you think?'

“He drew his brows down.

“'The horses won't be sufficiently rested,' he said curtly.

“'Oh, yes; I fancy they will.'

“'Well, I don't fancy I shall. The long ride took it out of me.'

“'Turn in to-night, then, directly after dinner.'

“He looked at me with sharp suspicion. I met his gaze blandly.

“I mean to,' he said, after a short pause.

“I knew he was telling me a lie, but I only said, 'That's right!' and resolved to keep an eye on him.

“Directly dinner was over he sprang up from the table.

“'Good-night,' he said.

And before I could reply he was out of the salle-à-manger, and I heard him tramp along the brick floor of the passage, go into his room, and bang the door.

“The aumonier was getting up from his little table and shaking the crumbs from his soutane.

“'You are quite right, Monsieur,' I said to him. 'I must get my friend away.'

“'I shall be sorry to lose you,' replied the good priest. 'But—desert air, desert air!'

“He shook his head, half. wistfully, half laughingly, bowed, put on his broad-brimmed black hat, and went out.

“After a moment I followed him. I stood in the doorway of the inn and lit a cigar. T knew Marnier was not going to bed, and meant to catch him when he came out and join him. In common politeness he could scarcely refuse my company, since he had asked me as a favor to let him come with me to Beni-Kouidar. I waited, watching the moon rise, till my cigar was smoked out. Then I lit another. Still he did not come. I heard the distant throb of tom-toms beyond the Bureau Arabe in the quarter of the freed negroes. They were having a fantasia. I began to think that I must have been mistaken and that Marnier had really turned in. So much the better. The ash dropped from the stump of my second cigar, and the deserted camel market was flooded with silver from the moon-rays. I knew there was only one door to the inn. Slowly I lit a third cigar.

“A large cloud went over the face of the moon. A gust of wind struck my face. Suddenly the night had changed. The moon looked forth again and was again obscured. A second gust struck me like a blow, and my face was stung by a multitude of sand grains. I heard steps behind me in the brick passage, turned swiftly, and saw the landlord.

“'I must shut the door, M'sieu, he said. 'There's a bad sandstorm coming up.'

“As he spoke the wind roared, and over the camel market a thick fog seemed to fall abruptly. It was a sheet of sand from the surrounding dunes. I threw away my cigar, stepped into the passage, and the landlord banged the door and drove home the heavy bolts.

“Then I went to Marnier's room and knocked. I felt sure, but I thought I would make sure before going to my room.

“No answer.

“I knocked again loudly.

“Again no answer.

“Then I turned the handle and entered.

“The room was empty. I glanced round quickly. The small window was open. All the windows of the inn were barred, but, as I learned later, a bar in Marnier's had been broken and was not yet replaced when we arrived at Beni-Kouidar. In consequence of this it was possible to squeeze through into the arcade outside. This was what Marnier had done. My precise, gentlemanly, reserved, and methodical acquaintance had deliberately given me the slip by sneaking out of a window like a schoolboy, and creeping round the edge of the inn to the fosse that lay in the shadow of the sand dunes. As I realized this I realized his danger.

“I ran to my room, fetched my revolver, slipped it into my pocket, and hurried to the front door. The landlord heard me trying to undo the bolts and came out protesting.

“'M'sieu cannot go out into the storm.'

“'I must.'

“'But M'sieu does not know what Beni-Kouidar is like when the sand is blown on the wind. It is enfer. Besides, it is not safe. In the darkness M'sieu may receive a mauvais coup.'

“'Make haste, please, and open the door. I am going to fetch my friend.'

“He pulled the bolts, grumbling and swearing, and I went out into enfer. For he was right. A sandstorm at night in Beni-Kouidar is hell.

“Luckily Safti joined me mysteriously from the deuce knows where, and we staggered to the dancing house somehow, and struggled in, blinded, our faces scored, our clothes heavy with sand, our pockets, our very boots weighed down with it.

“The tom-toms were roaring, the pipe was yelling, blown by the frantic demon with his hood full of latchkeys, the impassible, bearded faces were watching the painted women who, in their red garments and their golden crowns, promenaded down the earthen floor, between the divans, fluttering their dyed fingers, smiling grotesquely like idols, bending forward their greasy foreheads to receive the tribute of their admirers.

“I ran my eyes swiftly over the mob. Marnier was not in it. I pushed my way toward the doorway on the left which gave on to the court of the dancers.

“Safti caught hold of my arm.

“'It is not safe to go in there on such a night, Sidi. There are no lamps. It is black as a tomb. And no one can tell who may be there. Nomads, perhaps, men of evil from the South. Many murders have been done in the court on black nights, and no one can say who has done them. For all the time men go in and out to the rooms of the dancers.'

“'Nevertheless, Safti, I must'

“I stopped speaking, for at this moment Batouch, the brother of the Caïd of Beni-Kouidar, came slowly in through the doorway from the blackness of the sand-swept court. There was a strange smile on his handsome face, and he was caressing his black beard gently with one delicate hand. He saw me, smiled more till I caught the gleam of his white teeth, passed on into the dancing house, sat down on a divan, and called for coffee. I could not take my eyes from him. Every movement he made fascinated me. He drew from his pale blue robe a silver box, opened it, lifted out a pinch of tobacco and began carefully to roll a cigarette. And all the time he smiled.

“A glacial cold crept over my body. As he lit his cigarette I caught hold of Safti and hurried through the doorway into the blackness of the whirling sand.”

Here I stopped.

“Well?” said young England. “Well?”

The doctor did not speak.

“Well,” I answered. “Algia danced that night. While she was dancing we found a dead body in the court. It was Marnier's. A knife had been thrust into him from behind!”

“Ah!” said the doctor.

“But—” exclaimed young England. “It was that fellow? It was Batouch?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Nobody ever found out who did it.”

“Well, but of course”

He checked himself, and an expression of admiration dawned slowly over his healthy, handsome face.

“I say,” he said. “To be able to roll a cigarette directly afterward! What infernal cheek!”

“Desert air!” I replied. “My dear chap—desert air!”

The doctor nodded.

title: Desert Air


text: Talk:Desert Air

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Desert Air


text:
Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/309

 knights in glittering steel, with bannerets; and as he rightly judged ladies also, and men following a-foot; all coming leisurely in brave array toward him, and sounding the horn by turns. And again Sir Symon was in doubt, namely as to whether he should run into the deep hollows of the wood and hide himself; or rather run to meet this gallant band; and his difficulty he solved by sitting down on the roots of a beech-tree as being a less troublesome method than either of the other two. This was certainly a moderate and contemplative conclusion and was perhaps the best he could have made; and to be short it served his occasions. For two knights rode on in front of the main body, whose business it was to keep a sharp look out for cut-throats, high and low tobies, banded robbers and other bad characters who are to be met with in large woods; I must crave pardon for calling these artists bad, but in fact they are not salutary for travellers. And the two knights spying out Sir Symon rode up to him cautiously, for there might possibly be more in him than met the eye, and more of him behind the trees; however no cross-bolts rapped their armour, and they halted opposite to the knight and began to ask him questions, in order to find out whether he were a rogue or an honest man; or, to be more precise, Silurian, and philosophical, whether there were more of roguery or of honesty niin [sic] him. But when he answered them courteously in fine phrases of Paris town, that he was of the d'Espalions, pointing to the blazon of his surcoat; they perceived at once that he was a good

title: Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/309


text:
Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/315

 neglect of duty stole the blessing from your head. O, Max, O, Max, bear witness to what I suffered!”

And he burst into tears, which Tine kissed away. She then took little Max to his bed, his mat of straw, and when she returned she found Havelaar in conversation with Verbrugge and Duclari, who had just come in. The conversation ran on the expected decision of the Government.

“I can quite well understand that the Resident is in a difficult predicament,” said Duclari. “He cannot advise the Government to carry out your proposals, for then would come to light. I have been in Bantam a long time, and know a good deal about it, more even than you, Mr. Havelaar! I was already in this neighbourhood when I was a subaltern, and in that position one comes to know things that the native dares not say to the officials. But if after a public inquiry all this should come to light, the Governor-General would call upon the Resident for an explanation, and ask him how it is that in two years he did not discover what was at once obvious to you. He must therefore seek to prevent such inquiry”

“I have realized this,” answered Havelaar, “and, awakened by his effort to induce the Adhipatti to make allegations against me, which seems to indicate that he will try to side-track the question, by, for instance, accusing of  I don’t know what, I have covered myself by sending copies direct to the Government. One of them contains the request to be called upon for an explanation, in case, perhaps, a pretence should be made that had done something wrong. Now if the Resident attacks, then in common justice no decision can be arrived at without first hearing me. One owes this even to a criminal, and as I have done nothing wrong ”

“There comes the post!” exclaimed Verbrugge.

Yes, it was the post! The post, which brought the following letter from the Governor-General to the -Assistant-Resident of Lebak, Havelaar.


text:
The Red Book Magazine/Volume 44/Number 2/Miranda, the Measles and Marmaduke

HAT'S the use, Billy?” said Miranda impatiently. “Oh, you know darn well, I like you—and we have a darn good time together—but the man I marry—”

“Alluding to Mr. William Harley Hamilton?” said that gentleman hopefully.

“No, Billy—but the man I marry— Oh, Billy, don't you see we know each other too darn well, in the first place?”

“I don't,” said Billy. “I never knew you liked cashew-nuts before this afternoon. I never knew I liked you just as well with your hair shingled. I—”

“Be serious, Billy! What on earth would be the fun of—of either of us marrying somebody they'd known all my life?”

“Well, I'd like it well enough—” Billy began, but she stopped him.

“Well, I wouldn't! The man I marry—”

“For Pete's sake, what does he have to be—a bass singer?”

“Well, he has to have a real sense of humor in the first place— Now, Billy, I know all about your line, but it isn't the same thing. And—and—he has to be intelligent—really intelligent—”

“Dr. Eliot?”

“Billy! But—he has to have some real appreciation of—oh, arts and things—and Billy, you know you don't even know who Jeritza is—”

“I do, too,” said Billy, grinning. “She's eggs. I saw her on the menu at the club the other day. 'Ooofs Jeritza (ten minutes).' But go on about this Masked Marvel. Does he have to have iron-gray hair and a whimsical smile and call himself Lover Man through six big installments of a woman's magazine?”

“N-no,” said Miranda, her eyes dreaming, “though, of course, an older man—but most of all, Billy—”

“Yuh?”

“There must be something strange about him.”

“Plaid spats?”

“Oh, no, no, no! Something strange—romantic—unexpected—”

“Well, I don't see anything so blame unexpected about Jimmy Gordon, except the way he never manages to pay the check at a party,” remarked Billy, from out of the bitterness of his trod-upon heart.

“Now, Billy!” said Miranda furiously.

“Oh, never mind,” said Billy, seeing he'd said too much. “Little Billy is on his way out into the night. But listen, Randie—”

“I am not going through all that with you, over again, Billy.” And by the exercise of some brusqueness she managed to get him to the door with the new proposal unspoken. When he was gone, she flopped into a chair, wearily.

She shouldn't have lost her temper—but really—the ninth time! And Billy's proposals were so alike! And Billy was sweet, but—good heavens, imagine marrying a man who knew the exact date when you had cut your first tooth! And anyhow, she wouldn't have lost her temper at all, if Billy hadn't brought up Jimmy Gordon.

Her eyes dreamed again. Jimmy Gordon: He was suave and older—almost twenty-eight—in every way the opposite of Billy. Not quite the mysterious hero of her imagination, but..... He was coming after dinner. Jimmy had never proposed to her—yet; but when he did, he would do it so differently from Billy. Yes, if Jim came this evening—and—and actually— And the last time she saw him he had certainly just been on the point of—

She stared solemnly at a neighboring sofa-pillow. Her life, as far as the matter of a first marriage, at least, was concerned, might very well be decided this very evening. Strange! And yet, she wished rather peevishly that it did not have to be just this evening. That irritating scene with Billy—and then— No, she hadn't felt really zippy all week. Her cigarette had an evil taste; her head was hot and dry—and now, suddenly, a vast bone-aching weariness lay upon her. She started up, alarmed. She'd never be able to last through the Underwood party, and the Schofield party, and the big dance at the Alstynes', if she kept on feeling like this. And Jim hated draggy girls. Oh, darn Jim! No, darn Billy! Darn everything! Darn—

“Dinner, Miss Miranda,” said Ellen cheerfully, from the doorway. Miranda shuddered at the thought, but she powdered her nose and went wearily into the dining-room.

Dinner did not improve her temper. Grandmother was in one of her trying moods.

She began by inquiring after Billy. Miranda's replies were short and sulky. Finally after a pause:

“Pity you don't marry him,” said Grandmother reflectively, in the peculiarly piercing voice of the intermittently deaf. “That is—if he's ever asked you—not that that seems to matter much these days, when the girls run after the men so much that it ought to be Leap Year all the time—”

This was too much. “Do you want my children to be rabbits?” said Miranda furiously.

“Hey?” said Grandmother, cupping her hand to her ear.

“Miranda, dear!” said Miranda's mother, but Miranda was in full career.

“Do you want my children to be rabbits?” she repeated fiercely. “Do you want them to have a father without a spark of imagination—or—or—intelligence—or anything but a grin? Billy indeed! Do you want them—oh—oh—” She choked.

Grandmother's retort was inconsequential but crushing. She turned to Miranda's mother. “Children!” she sniffed. “What that child needs is a good sound spanking! And if I were you, Polly Farley—”

“Oh—oh!” exclaimed Miranda, and crushing her napkin into a crumpled ball, she fled from the room in hot and childish tears.

Grandmother watched her indignant departure without a quiver. When the door had banged, she turned to Miranda's mother again.

“What that child needs is bed,” she said, chewing.

“But Mother dear,” said Mrs. Farley vaguely, “you just said a moment ago that what she needed—”

“Then I'm an old fool,” said Grandmother with relish. “That child's sick. Now, Polly, don't get into a fluster—she's strong—she'll get over it—even if that little rash she has does look like scarlet fever—”

“Scarlet fever!” cried Mrs. Farley breathlessly, and fled from the table.

IDN'T I tell you all along it was measles?” said Grandmother grimly, after the doctor had come and gone. “Used to call 'em German measles in my day when things weren't so hifalutin'. S'pose they call 'em Liberty measles now—or Pershing measles—” And she chuckled.

Miranda moaned.

“Now, darling,” said her mother soothingly, “he says it's a very light case—you'll be out in just a few weeks—”

“Do you good to lie on your back and try to think for a spell, too,” said Grandmother cheerily.

But Miranda refused to be comforted. Measles! She beat the pillow. And to miss all the parties—and Jim might be going away to Chicago soon and—oh! If it had only been something decently interesting! A long, racking illness—the family talking about her bed in hushed, solemn voices—Jim weeping outside the door—“O God, let my little girl live!”—at last a convalescent, spirituelle Miranda with huge eyes and wasted beautiful hands, the pathos of whose frail, heroic voice made even Grandmother sob with joy and pain! But—measles!

Besides, even a light case of measles can be quite uncomfortable for a while, as she soon found out.

There were letters, of course—and American beauties from Jim—and violets from Billy. They helped a little. But then there was a note from that cat Gretchen Day, telling just how wonderful the Underwood party had been, and how everybody was looking forward to the Schofields'. Jim was going to take Gretchen to the Schofields'. Shortly after the receipt of that note, Miranda's temperature went up a degree and a half.

And when the first few days of discomfort and mild fever had passed, it was worse than ever.

The vast, implacable boredom of convalescence set in, a boredom without visible reward, for she had never felt very ill. And she was not supposed to read much, and as for the radio! After listening attentively to three bedtime stories, a crop-report and the annual banquet of the Earmuff Manufacturers Association, she gave up in disgust. Outside, it was spring—there was a row of potted tulips in the window across the court, and now and then she could hear hand-organs playing far away. Inside was Grandmother, relentlessly reading Florence Barclay aloud, or now and then challenging her to a brisk, exciting game of cribbage. And Jim hadn't telephoned for two days—and it would seem like years before the silly doctor lifted the quarantine.

“Oh, Lord, if only anything would happen!” yawned Miranda, dolefully alone, one afternoon. Grandmother was taking a nap, and Miranda's one occupation for the last thirty minutes had been useless speculation as to which dress she might have worn to the Alstynes'. The window beside her bed was half-open—the air was warm and ingratiating—a girl across the way was trying on a delightful new hat in front of a mirror. Miranda could have bitten her.

“Oh, Lord!” she repeated as boredom grew upon her relentlessly.

Then suddenly she stared—wide-eyed—and stared again. There was something dangling in front of her window—something on a string.

It was—yes—a brightly painted tin monkey, revolving solemnly at the end of a long stout cord. She sat up in bed. Attached to the monkey's back was a little green box—and on its breast was a label: “Take Me In!” The cord swayed—the monkey swung in through the window and dropped at her bedside. She picked it up, wonderingly. How extraordinary! The little green box was addressed to her—“For Miss Miranda Farley, Apartment 21.”

Tremendously excited now, she managed to reach her nail-scissors and open the box. Inside was a single magnificent orchid and a plain white card with the typewritten inscription:

“Rx

“To be taken in a glass of water by the young lady who is ill in Apartment 21—with the respectful compliments of her neighbor in the apartment above, “M. B.”

“Well, of all the— But how perfectly delightful!”

She hastily seized pencil and paper and wrote:

“M. B.” Mr.? Mrs.? Miss? It must be Mr.

“Thank you ever so much—the orchid is simply charming. But you mustn't, you know, because I have measles and it's awfully contagious. “Miranda F.”

She tied the note to the tin monkey's tail and, chuckling, worked the cord. The monkey hitched up the string and finally disappeared. After a moment the cord tugged at her hand—she released it—it vanished. She lay smiling. What a nice adventure!

The cord returned, this time with a tiny weight on the end, and above the weight, a minute cardboard postal-box. A typewritten note stuck out of the letter slot.

“Thank you for liking the orchid. I have had every species of measle. Jerk the cord twice when you wish to continue conversation—three times when conversation must cease.

“Sincerely, “M. B.”

Two pink spots came into Miranda's cheeks. Whatever he was, he wasn't shy. But anything was better than lonely boredom.

She wrote hurriedly, “Are you animal, vegetable or mineral? And—have I ever been introduced to you?” and jerked the cord—twice.

“(A) Homo sum. (B) Certainly not,” came the answer.

“Well, then—”

“Why not?” said the postal-box unanswerably. Miranda pondered. “Because Grandmother will be here any minute now,” she wrote weakly.

“Grandmothers should be abated,” said the postal-box feelingly. “When wont [sic] she be there?”

Miranda smiled. “They leave me alone for dinner—at seven,” she wrote.

The answer was a crudely drawn little cartoon of men with stick-legs and arms pointing gleefully at an immense figure 7. Then the cord disappeared, and Miranda relaxed on her pillows, chuckling—and when Grandmother came in, suffered thirty-two pages of Florence Barclay with such sweet composure that Grandmother shook her head and said she must be going to have a relapse.

But Miranda continued to be sweet to Grandmother. There were reasons. For one thing, it was Grandmother who had rigorously set her face against the introduction of a trained nurse. A trained nurse would have ruined everything.

As it was, day after day, the cord ascended and descended, bearing missives and gifts. A dozen times the affair trembled on the verge of discovery—but the pink, preposterous gods that preside over courtship were always good. A code of signals was established—a potted hyacinth on the windowsill meant that Miranda was alone—its absence signified danger or Grandmother. Ingenuous signals—ingenuous flirtation—that any decent, respectable, small-town neighbors would have buzzed from door to door within a dozen hours. But the Sidon Arms was “An Apartment-house of Distinction” and heaven has smitten the occupants of such New York apartment-houses with a divine incuriosity as to their fellow tenants. Lucrezia Borgia may live above you, and St. Francis across the way, but all you are apt to know of either is that the are those funny people you see in the elevator occasionally. Which was fortunate for Miranda and the mysterious M. B.

The gifts and the notes were a problem. They had either to been secreted or ascribed alternately to Jim or Billy—and on the days when no packages from either of the latter came, it was difficult. Indeed, the sudden apparition of an immense box of lotto, due to Miranda's idle confession that her childhood had reveled in that aseptic pastime, led Grandmother to the acrid remark that that young Mr. Gordon must be losing his mind.

And the notes! There were getting to be so many of them and so personal. They overflowed an empty shoe-box, were cached in a bookcase behind the set of “World's Greatest Orations” that no one ever touched, and still they came—dozens of little pieces of typewritten paper, each with its new unexpected glimpse of that strange being, M. B.

It was funny, Miranda thought, how somebody you'd never even seen was the only person who really seemed to understand you—the only person who sent you the things you really wanted instead of the things he thought you ought to want. No one else would have sent that single orchid—or the little hollowed-out book with its hidden cargo of real liqueur-chocolates and the terse inscription “One a Day,” or the “Alice” that was an exact replica of you [sic] own long-lost and bitterly-mourned “Alice” or—oh, anything!

Suppose she was falling in love with somebody she'd never seen? Didn't lots of people? What people? Well—there must have been lots—and she was sure they were very happy, too. Wasn't M. B., through his letters, just the sort of person she'd always—always—and she blushed, and Grandmother said, yes, that had been an exciting chapter.

And yet, M. B. was strange. He knew who she was and what she looked like, or said he did. And she—she hadn't really done anything so schoolgirlish as ask for a picture of him, but it was a shock to receive three newspaper photographs, one of the Prince of Wales, one of an elderly Italian with the caption “Old Offender Jailed,” and one of a tattooed man, with the comment “Take your pick,” in response to a perfectly ordinary query as to his style of beauty.

He was older; she gathered that, though he wouldn't be definite. Forty? Fifty? If she only knew! And oh, why did he wear a beard? She had always sworn she would never marry a beaver, and when he wouldn't even tell what color it was! A short and blazingly funny little essay entitled “Man's Crowning Glory—by M. B.” had failed to soothe her feelings on the subject entirely. Of course, it was just because he was such an idealist—she could see that—but couldn't he sacrifice idealism for once? And then she remembered. His name! She could see the notes before her now.

First her rather stiltedly gracious, “Can't I know whom I have to thank for,” etc? and the cryptic reply “M. B.” And then her, “Yes—but—” and then printed large, by hand in extravagant capitals: “THE NAME IS—BUMP.”

“Bump?” she had queried dazedly. “Mr. Bump?”

Even larger—“BUMP!” He was so masterful.

She couldn't believe it. “Really Bump?”

“MARMADUKE BUMP.”

Oh, dear!

But then—she had found herself writing Mrs. Marmaduke Bump on scraps of paper—and after a while, one got quite used to it. One even began to like it.

“Granny,” she asked abruptly, “do you know who the people are who have the apartment just over us?”

“'And Lord Reginald said yearningly'—what's that, my dear?” said Grandmother, summoned back from literary heights.

Miranda repeated her query.

“Whipple's the name, I think,” snapped Grandmother, annoyed. “Sort of a thin, queer-looking young man.”

“Is he married?” asked Miranda.

“Can't be,” said Grandmother decisively “One of those set sort of bachelors. Now let me see—was his name Whipple?” She wiped her glasses. “Sometimes it seems to me as if it must have been Whipple—and sometimes—”

“Oh, Granny—was it—was it—Bump?”

“Bump? What are you thinking of, child? That isn't a name—it's a noise. No—it was Popple, I think—or was it—”

“Well, I think Bump is a very nice name!” said Miranda angrily.

Her grandmother looked at her curiously. “Don't you think I'd better take your temperature, dear?” she said with treacherous sweetness.

OR the rest of the afternoon Miranda was haunted by a phrase—“a set sort of bachelor.” But Marmaduke—she began to think of him as Marmaduke now—explained that evening that he had sublet the apartment temporarily from his friend Mr. Peebles, and all was well.

The last day of her quarantine came, and found Miranda regretful. The little typewritten notes were heaped high behind the set of “World's Best Orations,” and now there would be no more, for she was well. Billy—Jim—she would have to see them soon now, she supposed. She smiled dreamily Dear Billy, dear Jim—dear, commonplace, devoted boys! She was not for them; inscrutable Destiny had willed it otherwise. There was only Marmaduke now.

Mrs. Farley appeared at the door.

“Miranda dear, it's Jim Gordon on the phone; do you want to take it on the extension?”

“Oh, no, Mother—tell him I'm asleep—”

“But dear, suppose he—”

“Tell him—and Billy too, if he calls—that I can't talk to anybody tonight; and, Mother—”

“Yes, dear?”

“I'm—I'm tired—and if you'll only just have Ellen bring dinner up, and nobody to sit with me while—”

“Of course, dear, but—”

“You're an angel!” said Miranda gratefully, and sank back. That night was to be her picnic with Marmaduke, and the thought of Grandmother as a possible third in the party had filled her with dread.

To any sensible convalescent, the bare idea of picnicking with an invisible companion upon food necessarily somewhat chilled by its transit through the air in a wicker basket would have been excessively distasteful, but to Miranda the cold and obviously delicatessen chicken, the glutinous spumoni, were ambrosia indeed. What portions of her regular dinner could be shared with Marmaduke, she shared; the rest she disposed of as best she might, with no sense of the wasteful absurdity of such a procedure. For she and Marmaduke were feasting together, in moonlight, upon stolen apples; and she had never known before how sweet bread eaten in secret can taste.

After dinner she smoked the cigarette she was not to be allowed till tomorrow and, up wherever he was, she knew Marmaduke was smoking too. Two companionable little red stars in the soft spring night.

She sighed, crushing out the end of her cigarette. They had talked a little, via the ever-ready cord, but on this night—their last night—if only they could have really seen each other for a minute!

Steps, far away. The family was coming. She jumped up—locked her door. She must say good-night, at least. She scribbled something, anything—jerked the cord—it traveled slowly up through the night to Marmaduke. It was over. Everything was over.

There was a pause. Wasn't he even going to answer? Then the cord descended again—but this time it bore no typewritten communiqué. A little box dangled at its end. A farewell present? Sweet of him!

She opened the box nervously. Inside, upon cotton wool, lay a small and violently carmine pincushion-heart of the sort that used to lie upon the top of golden-oak bureaus beside the burnt-wood handkerchief-box and the little gilt tray marked “Souvenir of Buffalo, N. Y.” And under the heart was a single sheet of paper bearing only the simple, magnificent query, “?”

Miranda stared at it for a moment, her own heart jumping. Then, swiftly, she smiled, and turning over the paper, wrote upon it, with an unsteady pencil, her succinct answer “!” hid the pincushion-heart tenderly under her pillow, jammed the paper back in the box, jerked the cord three times. The incredible missive wavered an instant against the window and disappeared; and Miranda, her eyes very bright, turned to answer the knocking at her door.

EXT morning, however, things were different. She slept badly, and when she arose, it was in that unruly mood familiar to gamblers and lovers, the mood of, “Oh, Lord, what have I done?” Of course it was all right; of course she was happy—very happy; of course she loved Marmaduke, but nevertheless, she was very prompt for breakfast, and after it, avoided returning to her room.

Of course she wanted to hear from Marmaduke—her fiancé— Oh, gee, he was her fiancé now, wasn't he? But suppose—suppose he was seventy; suppose he was married; suppose he was a bootlegger! Suppose! She was nervously trying to read in her mother's room, when Ellen came in.

“A gentleman to see you, Miss Miranda.”

The book fell to the floor. Oh, it couldn't be—it couldn't!

“To see me? A—a strange gentleman, Ellen?”

“Yes, Miss Miranda.”

“You're sure it's a strange gentleman, Ellen?”

A fleeting smile crossed Ellen's face. “He's all of that,” she said briefly.

“And his name—oh, Ellen—” But even before Ellen's reply of, “Well, Miss Miranda—he says it's Bump!” she knew.

“Will you see him, Miss Miranda?”

Miranda gulped. This was worse than the first time tobogganing—but she was game.

“Yes, Ellen. Tell him to wait,” she said, through shut teeth.

Miranda came timidly into the living-room. The stranger, stiffly seated on the farthest chair, arose. Yes. It was Marmaduke. It could be no other.

A burly figure, dressed in an antique cutaway and forty if he was a day—an overpowering, dreadful figure with enormous, flashing spectacles, a wild, luxuriant beard, red as a maple in autumn, that ran riot like an untended garden. Her glance traveled horrifiedly down to his feet—he was wearing light fawn spats. She shuddered and closed her eyes.

She heard a thick, joyful cry: “My bride! My bride!” Then his arms were round her. She struggled for an instant feebly, and was still. She felt herself picked up like a doll, carried over to the sofa, seated firmly upon knees—his knees. She moaned, enduring a brief but very whiskery kiss. Then suddenly he released her. She heard a curious, ripping sound, and startled, opened her eyes.

Billy Hamilton brought his right hand from behind his back. Clutched in it was something large and red and furry. She stared at it uncomprehendingly. Then she stared at Billy, intently, angrily.

“Oh, darling—do forgive me!” pleaded Billy remorsefully. “But I thought it was only sporting to play the thing through!”

“Billy!”

“And so I borrowed Uncle George's cutaway—and the specs—and it's only a false beard, dearest—”

“ ! And—oh, gosh—you—Marmaduke—”

“There never was any Marmaduke but me!”

“And you wrote all those—those letters—and sent those presents and—”

“Every darn one,” said Billy. “Well—dammit—you said you wanted to marry somebody strange and romantic and different— And Tod Peebles said he'd lend me his apartment. And so—”

“And you let me believe all the time! And you let me— Oh, Billy—I hate you—I simply hate you—”

“No, you don't,” averred Billy stoutly. “You love me, angel! And I love you. And—”

And after some time had elapsed, Miranda agreed.

In fact, some time later she was saying: “Oh, Billy—you are wonderful—but why couldn't you have, before?”

“You never let me get started,” said Billy firmly. “You always thought I was so darn practical and everything. It was only good old Marmaduke that—”

“Good old Marmaduke,” echoed Miranda tenderly. “But, Billy—how did you ever get the time?”

“Changed my vacation,” said Billy “Furness was willing to swap.”

“You poor sweet thing!”

“Rats,” said Billy. “Wasn't it worth it? Besides—they'll just have to give me two weeks—when we—”

“Darling,” sighed Miranda, and rested her head on his shoulder. “Let's make it soon! Oh, dear—I don't suppose I am being fair to Jim Gordon—but I don't care!”

“Oh, I wouldn't worry about Jim,” said Billy, chuckling. “Jim's got hold of something that will take up his exclusive attention for the next few weeks, all right.”

“Why, Billy—what on earth has happened to Jim?”

“Well, angel,”—and Billy laughed,—“you haven't been the only invalid. Gretchen Day came down with them right after the Alstyne party—”

“Came down with—”

“Uh-huh! And Jim took her to the party, you know, and I just heard this morning that they'd taken him to the hospital with the finest little case of measles you ever saw!”


text: Talk:The Red Book Magazine/Volume 44/Number 2/Miranda, the Measles and Marmaduke


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38 (Shorthouse 2010) and further manipulated with Adobe Photoshop CC (2018). Coordinates, when not included on data labels, were estimated based on locality information available to create maps. Specimens that were not examined by KAA but are still based on reliable identifications by JJD or others are excluded from material examined but included in maps and listed in Tab 1 of Suppl. material 1.

Morphological terms, including those for genitalia, follow Razowski (2008) with the exception of the “aedeagus”, for which we instead use “phallus” per Kristensen (2003); and “transtilla”, for which we instead use “labis” (plural “labides”) in Clepsis per Razowski (1979). Wing pattern terminology is illustrated in Fig. 1. In addition, we propose the term “presaccular gap”, defined as the region between the saccular margin and the longitudinal fold of the valva (“plications” sensu Horak 1984; Fig.2), which is taxonomically useful in many species of Argyrotaenia. Some additional terms used in the treatment of Mictocommosis, Mictopsichia, and Rubropsichia come from Razowski (2009).

For the purposes of the present paper, we define the Caribbean to include the Lucayan Archipelago; the Greater Antilles, including the Cayman Islands; and the Lesser Antilles, excluding Trinidad & Tobago and the Leeward Antilles because these islands lie on the South American continental shelf.

In a few instances, data labels were discovered to be incorrect. In these cases, corrected province names or coordinates have been placed in brackets immediately following the verbatim label data.

In the taxonomic treatment and figures, genera and species are arranged by similarity to facilitate comparisons. The taxonomic and regional checklists are arranged alphabetically for ease of navigation.

Keys to all genera and species known from the Caribbean are provided and based primarily on genitalia. The adults and genitalia of all described Caribbean Archipini


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 Christian and a virtuous gentleman; and if a due and melodious accent, a pleasant smile, and a good coat are not sufficient evidences of virtue and a good heart underneath, I profess I know not what are. In fine Sir Symon prayed the knights to take him before their lord, who they let him know was no less than Ivo Fitz-Baderon, Earl of Estrighoil, and Lord of Netherwent on the Marches of Wales. And when he drew near to and met this nobleman as he rode at the head of his band, Symon perceived that this was indeed a great lord and worshipful, for, in the words of the old poem, there was:

A ramping lyon on his breast;

Five golden lilies gay

About it were, and for his crest

He bore a raven aye.

And beside him rode his daughter Bertha, of whom I will speak more hereafter, and behind him ladies, knights, esquires, pages, men-at-arms, and serving men, and, to be short, it was a right brave array glittering with gold and silken stuff and stronger steel and dark eyes of maidens strongest of all. And when Sir Symon came before the Lord Ivo Fitz-Baderon, he bowed low and craved leave to address him: which being granted he thus began. "You see before you, my lord, a poor, banished, and luckless knight, whom envy and severity have driven away from his country and who is now forced to lie like a robber in

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 woods and mountains and secret places, and to live like a wild-beast rather than a gentleman; and all this to his great hurt, sorrow, and ennuy. Wherefore I humbly crave your help and aid, and for ever I will be your liege man and warray against all your enemies." And the Earl, a noble of a large heart and some sense, seeing that Sir Symon was a well made man whose arm might come useful, replied by bidding one of the men at arms give the knight his horse, and then made him ride at his side, while he asked him a few questions and made sure that he wore his own coat and that his genealogy was a tolerably long one. As to the reasons which brought Sir Symon across the water the Earl left them alone, knowing that knights of the best kind sometimes have to leave their homes rapidly and pick up a living roughly in odd places. Soon they reached the utmost height of the hill and came before the gate of Struggle where was the Ranger of Wentwood and his men bowing low; for you must understand that Earl Ivo intended to lie here some weeks and to kill a good many fat bucks or whatever he could find even if it chanced to be a marten or a fox. And since I have said that there had been great rains for some time before, I will tell you that things had been terribly dull at Estrighoil; there had been yawning from dawn to dusk and melancholy listening to the plash of the rain and the rattle of the vanes as they swung round from south to west and from west to south. Some people, I know, think Dullness a young deity born late and in our own days, and conceive that the lords of the old

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 time had so many battles, sieges, storms, rebellions, jousts and tournaments to attend to that they never were idle; but this is not the truth. Some of them amused themselves in dull times by looking after the morals of their subjects and hanging folks by the neck, but this made them unpopular because the common people have no patience with anybody who tells them they are doing wrong and tries to raise them heaven-ward. Earl Ivo certainly, an easy-going, merry, old lord who knew he was made of clay himself, was not the sort of man to take advantage of others' flaws and cracks, and never strangled anyone unless he was obliged to, even in rainy weather. But his temper, it must be confessed, used to get terribly short, and his odd profane expressions in which he mixed up all sorts of things, made the gargoyles laugh; but then they had plenty to do and spouted water all day and all night. And Bertha his daughter and her ladies were in not much better case; being bored and ready to say yes to anything, or to anybody that would invent some new entertainment for them. The which is a very dangerous state for maidens to be in; and if I were master of a house of them, I would myself draw my mouth into queer shapes, squint, and play the fool to make them laugh: but I hope I shall never have very many to look after. Some of the knights and pages did their best to amuse the poor girls by making love to them; but somehow they were not in the humour for it, and only yawned at the very finest speeches and the most passionate orations. The fool also had done his best and was more suc-

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 cessful for a while, since he was no ordinary jester or concocter of stale jokes; but a man of subtle and curious wit who played with a merry sadness on the black keys of this our Mortal Life, and drew therefrom quaint harmony that made one cry and laugh at the same time. But the lords and ladies grew weary of him also and called him hard names, since they were all in that cheerful humour which tires and grows sick of everything, and conceives the worst torment of Hell to be an everlasting Dullness. On the whole therefore, it was rather fortunate, when the drip, drip, drip of the rain ceased and the sun shone down through the high windows of the hall casting many a glorious tincture of blazonry on the floor and on the arras. Without much consideration or brow-knitting Earl Ivo determined to hold a hunting month at Struggle, and told Bertha to gather her gear together, which she did very willingly, loving the greenwood and the woodland air. Perhaps you would like to know what Bertha was like, and if this be so I will endeavour to satisfy you; though in my own opinion all young maids are just like—that is, to them that like them. However this was the fashion of her, and this is the kind of girl that makes a Silurian's lips pucker up into an O, his right arm bend into a curve, his heart beat fast, and his mouth water. Understand then that her hair (to begin where one should begin) was like an old bronze medal that has been dipped a moment into aqua fortis, and shows here like red gold, there well-nigh black, and here, there and everywhere all man-

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 ner of glints and shadows between the two extremes. Of forehead there was not much, for forehead we ask not, and shall not cry "gra'merci" if you exhibit to us one never so lofty and well compacted; but what eyebrows and lashes, and below what eyes—black, or say rather, like two deep wells at noonday, with stars shining in them, and in these wells many were drowned, and all swore there's none such pleasant death as drowning. Her nose was a special nose, neither too long nor too short, too flat nor too high, too thin nor too thick, but had just that little turn at the end which virtuosi in noses declare to be desirable. For these gentlemen aver that this dainty button says as much as "I'm a woman and not an angel," and is a sure sign of those charming imperfections which make ladies perfect. As for Bertha's mouth it was (to be honest with you) the only member of her that could be taxed or censured. Why? For that it was incomplete and not perfect nor sufficient in itself, being so choicely and rarely contrived with concave and convex parts that it was evidently devised to fit into another piece of like workmanship, if nature had turned out any at all comparable with it. Of her chin I must maintain that it was a chin dear, delicate, and intolerably precious, with dimples playing at Barley Break across it, as sunshine quivers across the rippling water of a pebbly brook, when it has to pass through many leaves, and lights now here, now there, according as the breeze stirs the boughs high or low, to right or left. And what a figure had this noble maiden! One must not go closely into these

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 thither he must come, but because man is not to stay there, as other creatures are; man in his natural form is carried to the contemplation of that place which is his home, heaven. This is man's prerogative; but what state hath he in this dignity? A fever can fillip him down, a fever can depose him; a fever can bring that head, which yesterday carried a crown of gold five feet towards a crown of glory, as low as his own foot to-day. When God came to breathe into man the breath of life, he found him flat upon the ground; when he comes to withdraw that breath from him again, he prepares him to it by Jaying him flat upon his bed. Scarce any prison so close that affords not the prisoner two or three steps. The anchorites, that barked themselves up in hollow trees, and immured themselves in hollow walls; that perverse man, that barrelled himself in a tub; all could stand or sit, and enjoy some change of posture. A sick bed is a grave, and all that the patient says there is but a varying of his own epitaph. Every night's bed is a type of the grave. At night we tell our servants at what hour we will rise; here we cannot tell ourselves at what day, what week, what month. Here the head lies as low as the foot; the head of the people as low as they whom those feet trod upon; and that hand that signed pardons is too weak to beg his own, if he might have it for lifting up that hand. Strange fetters to the feet, strange manacles to the hands, when the feet and hands are bound so much the faster, by how much the cords are slacker; so much the less able to do their offices, by how much more the sinews and ligaments are the looser. In the grave I may speak through the stones, in the voice of my friends, and in the accents of those words which their love may afford my memory; here I am mine own ghost, and rather affricht my beholders than

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 instruct them; they conceive the worst of me now, and yet fear worse; they give me for dead now, and yet wonder how I do when they awake at midnight, and ask how I do to-morrow. Miserable, and (though common to all) inhuman posture, where I must practise my lying in the grave by lying still, and not practise my resurrection by rising any more.

Y God and my Jesus, my Lord and my Christ, my strength and my salvation, I hear thee, and I hearken to thee, when thou rebukest thy disciples, for rebuking them who brought children to thee; Suffer little childrven to come to me, sayest thou. Is there a verier child than I am now? 1 cannot say, with thy servant Jeremy, Lord, I am a child, and cannot speak; but, O Lord, I am a sucking child, and cannot eat; a creeping child, and cannot go; how shall I come to thee? Whither shall I come to thee? To this bed? I have this weak and childish frowardness too, I cannot sit up, and yet am loath to go to bed; shall I find thee in bed? Oh, have I always done so? The bed is not ordinarily thy scene, thy climate: Lord, dost thou not accuse me, dost thou not reproach to me my former sins, when thou layvest me upon this bed? Is not this to hang a man at his own door, to lay him sick in his own bed of wantonness? When thou chidest us by thy prophet for lying in beds of ivory is not thine anger vented; not till thou changest our beds of ivory into beds of ebony? David swears unto thee, that he will not go up into his bed, till he had built thee a house. To go up into the bed denotes strength, and promises ease; but when thou sayest, that thow wilt cast Jezebel into a bed, thou makest thine own

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 comment upon that; thou callest the bed tribulation, great tribulation. How shall they come to thee whom thou hast nailed to their bed? Thou art in the congregation, and I in a solitude: when the centurion's servant lay sick at home, his master was fain to come to Christ; the sick man could not. Their friend lay sick of the palsy, and the four charitable men were fain to bring him to Christ; he could not come. Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and Christ came to her; she could not come to him. My friends may carry me home to thee, in their prayers in the congregation; thou must come home to me in the visitation of thy Spirit, and in the seal of thy sacrament. But when I am cast into this bed, my slack sinews are iron fetters, and those thin sheets iron doors upon me; and, Lord, I have loved the habitation of thine house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth. 1 lie here, and say, Blessed are they that dwell in thy house ; but I cannot say, 1 will come into thy house; I may say, In thy fear will I worship towards thy holy temple, but 1 cannot say in thy holy temple. And, Lord, the zeal of thy house eats me up, as fast as my fever; it is not a recusancy, for I would come, but it is an excommunication, I must not. But, Lord, thou art Lord of hosts, and lovest action; why callest thou me from my calling? In the grave no man shall praise thee; in the door of the grave, this sick bed, no man shall hear me praise thee: thou hast not opened my lips, that my mouth might show thee thy praise, but that my mouth might show forth thy praise. But thine apostle's fear takes hold of me, that when 1 have preached to others, I myself should be a cast-

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 away ; and therefore am I cast down, that I might not be cast away. Thou couldst take me by the head, as thou didst Abacue, and carry me so; by a chariot, as thou didst Elijah, and carry me so; but thou carriest me thine own private way, the way by which thou carriedst thy Son, who first lay upon the earth, and prayed, and then had his exaltation, as himself calls his crucifying, and first descended into hell, and then had his ascension. There is another station (indeed neither are stations, but prostrations) lower than this bed; to-morrow I may be laid one story lower, upon the floor, the face of the earth; and next day auother story, in the grave, the womb of the carth. As yet God suspends me between heaven and carth, as a meteor; and I am not in heaven because an earthly body clogs me, and I am not in the earth because a heavenly soul sustains me. And it is thine own law, O God, that if man be smitten so by another, as that he keep his bed, though he die not, he that hurt him must take care of his healing, and recompense him. Thy hand strikes me into this bed; and therefore, if I rise again, thou wilt be my recompense all the days of my life, in making the memory of this sickness beneficial to me; and if my body fall yet lower, thou wilt take my soul out of this bath, and present it to thy Father, washed again, and again, and again, in thine own tears, in thine own sweat, in thine own blood.

MOST mighty and most merciful God, who, though thou have taken me off of my feet, hast not taken me off of my foundation, which is thyself'; who, though thou have removed me from that upright

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 form in which I could stand and see thy throne, the heavens, yet hast not removed from me that light by which I can lie and see thyself; who, though thou have weakened my bodily knees, that they cannot bow to thee, hast yet left me the knees of my heart, which are bowed unto thee evermore. As thou hast made this bed thine altar, make me thy sacrifice; and as thou makest thy Son Christ Jesus the priest, so make me his deacon, to minister to him in a cheerful surrender of my body and soul to thy pleasure, by his hands. I come unto thee, O God, my God, I come unto thee, so as I can come, I come to thee, by embracing thy coming to me, I come in the confidence, and in the application of thy servant David's promise, that thou wilt make all my bed in my sickness : all my bed; that, which way soever I turn, I may turn to thee; and as I feel thy hand upon all my body, so I may find it upon all my bed, and see all my corrections, and all my refreshings to flow from one, and the same, and all, from thy hand. As thou hast made these feathers thorns, in the sharpness of this sickness, so, Lord, make these thorns feathers again, feathers of thy dove, in the peace of conscience, and in a holy recourse to thine ark, to the instruments of true comfort, in thy institutions and in the ordinances of thy church. Forget my bed, O Lord, as it hath been a bed of sloth, and worse than sloth; take me not, O Lord, at this advantage, to terrify my soul, with saying, Now I have met thee there, where thou hast so often departed from me; but having burnt up that bed, by these vehement heats, and washed that bed in these abundant sweats, make my bed again, O Lord, and enable me, according to thy command, to commune with mine own heart upon my bed, and be still. To provide a bed for all my former sins

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 matters, but know that Bertha was of a most exquisite taille, which matched her face in every respect, and would have made Madam Phryne feel spiteful. But now I have said all these nice things about this nice girl, I am compelled in common honesty to tell you that those fine eyes of hers were roving eyes which glanced here, there and everywhere, and when joined to her smile, were known to have made Canons and Archdeacons stutter and lose their places. And while Earl Ivo, and Bertha, knights, esquires, pages, and Sir Symon d'Espalion were nourishing themselves and irrigating their throats in the hall at Struggle, my lady looked once or twice so sweetly and shyly on the stranger that he forgot all his troubles in a moment, and understood that he was in for a pretty sharp attack of love. He resigned himself to the disease quietly, knowing that on the whole love is an amusing affair enough, full of various experiences and novelties, and sometimes not without solid profit, if it be judiciously conducted. As for Bertha she dropped her lashes once too often; since Sir Symon was a blade of keener metal than any she had dealt with, and she found him before long to be a doctor in that science of which all profess to know a piece; and they that talk least of it often know most. However Sir Symon had other things to think of that evening, for Earl Ivo proposed to take him into his service, to give him a new surcoat twice a year and as much meat and drink as a gentleman ought to have— e a sustenir le devant dit Symon taunt come il vivera en managermanger [sic] e en beovere avenaunte-

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 whilst I lie upon this bed, and a grave for my sins before I come to my grave; and when I have deposited them in the wounds of thy Son, to rest in that assurance, that my conscience is discharged from further anxiety, and my soul from further danger, and my memory from further calumny. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who did and suffered so much, that thou mightest, as well in thy justice as in thy mercy, do it for me, thy Son, our Saviour, Christ Jesus.

T is too little to call man a little world: except God, man is a diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than the world; than the world doth, nay, than the world is. And if those pieces were extended, and stretched out in man, as they are in the world, man would be the giant, and the world the dwarf; the world but the map, and the man the world. If all the veins in our bodies were extended to rivers, and all the sinews to veins of mines, and all the muscles that lie upon one another, to hills, and all the bones to quarries of stones, and all the other pieces to the proportion of those which correspond to them in the world, the air would be too little for this orb of man to move in, the firmament would be but enough for this star; for, as the whole world hath nothing, to which something in man doth not answer, so hath man many pieces, of which the whole world hath no representation. Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far as to consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach from east to west, from earth to

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98 distinctly: 12 (I. ii. 200)

doit: 39 (II. ii. 34)

dolour: 25 (II. i. 19)

dowle: 57 (III. iii. 65)

drollery: 55 (III. iii. 21)

dry: 8 (I. ii. 112)

earth'd: 34 (II. i. 242)

ecstasy: 59 (III. iii. 108)

eld'st: 77 (V. i. 186)

engine: 30 (II. i. 168)

entertainment: 23 (I. ii. 462)

envy: 14 (I. ii. 258)

estate: 62 (IV. i. 85)

event: 8 (I. ii. 117)

eye: 27 (II. i. 58)

fall: 36 (II. i. 304)

fearful: 23 (I. ii. 465)

feater: 35 (II. i. 281)

featly: 19 (I. ii. 379)

fellow: 48 (III. i. 84)

fish'd for: 28 (II. i. 110)

flat-long: 31 (II. i. 188)

flote: 13 (I. ii. 234)

foil: 46 (III. i. 46)

foison: 31 (II. i. 170); 63 (IV. i. 110)

foot: 23 (I. ii. 466)

footing: 65 (IV. i. 138)

forth-rights: 54 (III. iii. 3)

fraughting: 4 (I. ii. 13)

freely: 62 (IV. i. 85)

freshes: 51 (III. ii. 77)

frippery: 68 (IV. i. 228)

from: 6 (I. ii. 65)

gaberdine: 39 (II. ii. 41)

gilded: 81 (V. i. 280)

given fire: 72 (V. i. 45)

glasses: 13 (I. ii. 240)

glut: 3 (I. i. 65)

go: 49 (III. ii. 23)

good: 1 (I. i. 3)

good life: 58 (III. iii. 86)

good time: 28 (II. i. 100)

goss: 66 (IV. i. 180)

hands: 83 (Epil. 10)

heavy: 32 (II. i. 202)

hests: 15 (I. ii. 274)

hint: 9 (I. ii. 134)

hoodwink: 67 (IV. i. 206)

inch-meal: 38 (II. ii. 3)

infest: 80 (V. i. 246)

inherit: 44 (II. ii. 188)

inquisition: 5 (I. ii. 35)

invert: 47 (III. i. 70)

issued: 6 (I. ii. 59)

it: 31 (II. i. 170)

Jack: 67 (IV. i. 198)

justify: 75 (V. i. 128)

key: 7 (I. ii. 83)

kibe: 35 (II. i. 284)

kinds: 58 (III. iii. 88)

lakin: 54 (III. iii. 1)

lest: 45 (III. i. 15)

letters: 30 (II. i. 157)

like: 57 (III. iii. 66)

lime: 69 (IV. i. 248)

line: 67 (IV. i. 193)

line-grove: 70 (V. i. 10)

liver: 61 (IV. i. 56)

loathness: 29 (II. i. 137)

lorded: 8 (I. ii. 97)

main-course: 2 (I. i. 40)

make: 39 (II. ii. 32)

matter: 33 (II. i. 238)

meanders: 54 (III. iii. 3)

measure: 35 (II. i. 267)

meddle: 5 (I. ii. 22)

merchant: 25 (II. i. 5)

Mercy: 83 (Epil. 18)

merely: 3 (I. i. 61)

mettle: 31 (II. i. 189)

Milan: 8 (I. ii. 109)

minion: 63 (IV. i. 98)

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 ment come a gental homme a peut—as it stands in the indenture drawn up by Master David, the Earl's scrivener. I do not think it necessary to tell you all the particulars of this document; because you might grow rather weary, and besides, (to speak the truth) the learned disagree as to the quantity of oats that Sir Symon's horses were to eat a day, and I should be sorry to put any false notions into your heads on this important point. But you may depend on it that the knight agreed pretty quickly to this offer, as he would have done in any case, but now all the more since he had farsed the indenture in his own mind with another item, namely "e en amur," for a gentleman requires something more besides meat and drink and two robes yearly. This agreement dated, witnessed, signed and sealed, Sir Symon made himself very agreeable to everybody by telling the newest tales that were being relished in Gascony; regular candle-time relations, the which raised such deep roars of laughter that the oak-trees of Wentwood heard the sound and have been laughing among themselves ever since, though silly people call it sighing. As if a stout old oak, sound to the heart, and devoid of care, ever did anything so foolish as to sigh! But these numskulls think the whole world is in the dumps as they themselves are. And from that day began the pleasantest time Sir Symon had in his life; for the sun, that puissant Lord Marcher, swept the clouds right away into Severn Sea and ruled in a Lordship of perpetual azure. Then was it pleasant to ride beneath the branches beside

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 Bertha and her ladies, and to study the sweet varieties of maidenhood, the which is indeed an enchanting thing—when it happens to be in a good temper. But we may be sure Sir Symon had changed his dress and smartened himself up, for he knew that ladies have almost as much liking for a surcoat rightly embroidered and cut to the fashion as for the Theological Virtues, and much more than for the first two Evangelical Counsels, though they think that the third, Obedience, is becoming in a husband. But while Sir Symon made good cheer for all the girls, he kept his choicest fare for Bertha, and little by little wove his incantations round her till her girlish soul was quite hushed and submissive under the sweetest and strangest of all spells on earth. There are many methods and systems in this curious magic, and I suppose everybody puts some little originality into his love-making; but one thing is very certain, namely that love is a thing which does not grow stale: a doctrine which is clearly proved by the persistence and obstinacy of the human race in this pursuit. I suppose it is more than five thousand years since the first kiss came off; concerning which you may read in the books written by the Rosy Cross Fraternity, and therein you will find the Ubi and Quando, and Relatio of it. But it is wonderful to think how much kissing has been going on ever since, and not a sign, so far, of its going out of fashion. And after Bertha and her knight had ridden a good many times side by side and he had said a number of pretty things which she had answered with glances that slid out of her

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 heaven; that do not only bestride all the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once: my thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery! I their creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, any where; and any one of my creatures, my thoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, and overgoes the sun in one pace, one step, every where. And then, as the other world produces serpents, and vipers, malignant and venomous creatures, and worms, and caterpillars, that endeavour to devour that world which produces them, and monsters compiled and complicated of divers parents and kinds; so this world, ourselves, produces all these in us, in producing diseases, and sicknesses of all those sorts; venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases, and manifold and entangled diseases, made up of many several ones. And can the other world name so many venomous, so many consuming, so many monstrous creatures, as we can diseases of all these kinds? O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches! How much do we lack of having remedies for every disease, when as yet we have not names for them? But we have a Hercules against these giants, these monsters; that is, the physician: he musters up all the forces of the other world to succour this; all nature to relieve man. We have the physician, but we are not the physician. Here we shrink in our proportion, sink in our dignity, in respect of very mean creatures, who are physicians to themselves. The hart that is pursued and wounded, they say, knows an herb, which being eaten, throws off the arrow: a strange kind of vomit. The dog that pursues it, though he be subject to sickness, even proverbially, knows his grass that recovers him. And it may be true, that the drugger is as near to man as to other creatures; it may be that obvious and present

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 simples, easy to be had, would cure him; but the apothecary is not so near him, nor the physician so near him, as they two are to other creatures; man hath not that innate instinct, to apply those natural medicines to his present danger, as those inferior creatures have; he is not his own apothecary, his own physician, as they are. Call back therefore thy meditations again, and bring it down: what is become of man's great extent and proportion, when himself shrinks himself, and consumes himself to a handful of dust; what is become of his soaring thoughts, his compassing thoughts, when himself brings himself to the ignorance, to the thoughtlessness, of the grave? His diseases are his own, but the physician is not; he hath them at home, but he must send for the physician.

HAVE not the righteousness of Job, but I have the desire of Job; I would speak to the Almighty, and I would reason with God. My God, my God, how soon wouldst thou have me go to the physician, and how far wouldst thou have me go with the physician? I know thou hast made the matter, and the man, and the art; and I go not from thee when I go to the physician. Thou didst not make clothes before there was a shame of the nakedness of the body, but thou didst make physic before there was any grudging of any sickness; for thou didst imprint a medicinal virtue in many simples, even from the beginning; didst thou mean that we should be sick when thou didst so? when thou madest them? No more than thou didst mean, that we should sin, when thou madest us: thou foresawest both, but causedst neither. Thou, Lord, promisest here trees, whose firuit

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 shall be for meat, and their leaves for medicine. It is the voice of thy Son, Wilt thou be made whole ? That draws from the patient a confession, that he was ill, and could not make himself well. And it is thine own voice, Is there no physician ? That inclines us, disposes us to accept thine ordinance. And it is the voice of the wise man, both for the matter, physic itself, 7The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise shall not abhor them, and for the art, and the person, the physician cutteth off a long disease. In all these voices, thou sendest us to those helps which thou hast afforded us in that. But wilt not thou avow that voice too, He that hath sinned ageainst his Maker, let him fall into the hands of the physician ; and wilt not thou afford me an understanding of those words? Thou, who sendest us for a blessing to the physician, dost not make it a curse to us to go when thou sendest. Is not the curse rather in this, that only he falls into the hands of the physician, that casts himself wholly, entirely upon the physician, confides in him, relies upon him, attends all from him, and neglects that spiritual physic, which thou also hast instituted in thy church: so to fall into the hands of the physician is a sin, and a punishment of former sins; so, as Asa fell, who in his disease sought not to the Lord, but to the physician. Reveal therefore to me thy method, O Lord, and see whether I have followed it; that thou mayest have glory, if I have; and I pardon, if I have not, and help that I may. Thy method is, In time of thy sichkness, be not negligent: wherein wilt thou have my diligence expressed? Pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. O Lord, I do; I

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 eyes like summer lightning from an ebon sky; it fell out that they rode one day before all the rest, and roamed even farther, till the sound of voices and laughing was broken and died into silence. And now the only sounds were a gentle rustling as the boughs above swayed to and fro in the southern wind, and that continual murmur of summer time, which tells us of the labour of the bees. And the voices of Bertha and Sir Symon were hushed also, but they rode very close together and seemed to lean toward one another; so that Gwyn-ap-Neath the King of Færy who happened to be going the same way, held his little sides for laughing and poked his little Prothonotary hard in the ribs, to make him understand there was a joke. You will wonder perhaps that the knight did not set about his business in earnest, finding himself thus alone with his dear lady; but the reason is that love is fearful; though at the same time it is most hardy; the which is a dogma to be believed without any questions, cavils, or argumentations. But before long, finding they were far away from their fellows he leant toward Bertha and kissed her on the cheek, without asking leave or license, whence we may perceive that the field was ready for the crop, the fagots for the torch, the bread for the oven, and, in effect, Bertha's cheek for her lover's lips. For indeed she made no remonstrance whatever, only a crimson dawn of Very Love flushed from her breast to her forehead; and since she had been anxiously expecting some such pleasant occurrence for the last mile, it would have been foolish to scream

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 pray, and pray thy servant David's prayer, Have mevcy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are vexed : 1 know, that even my weakness is a reason, a motive, to induce thy mercy, and my sickness an occasion of thy sending health. When art thou so ready, when is it so seasonable to thee, to commiserate, as in misery? But is praying for health in season, as soon as I am sick? Thy method goes further: Leave off from sin, and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness. Have I, O Lord, done so? O Lord, I have; by thy grace, I am come to a holy detestation of my former sin; is there any more? In thy method there is more: Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour, and make a fat offering, as not being. And Lord, by thy grace, I have done that, sacrificed a little of that little which thou lentest me, to them for whom thou lentest it: and now in thy method, and by thy steps, I am come to that, Zhen give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him; let him not go f?'om thee, Jor thou hast need of him. 1 send for the physician, but I will hear him enter with those words of Peter, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole ; 1 long for his presence, but I look that the power of the Lord should be present to heal me.

MOST mighty and most merciful God, who art so the God of health and strength, as that without thee, all health is but the fuel, and all strength but the bellows of sin; behold me under the vehe mence of two diseases, and under the necessity of two physicians, authorized by thee, the bodily, and the

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 spiritual physician. I come to both, as to thine ordinance, and bless and glorify thy name, that, in both cases, thou hast afforded help to man by the ministry of man. Even in the new Jerusalem, in heaven itself, it hath pleased thee to discover a tree, which is a tree of life there, but the leaves thereof' are for the healing of the nations. Life itself is with thee there, for thou art life; and all kinds of health, wrought upon us here, by thine instruments, descend from thence. Thou wouldst have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Take from me, O Lord, her perverseness, her wilfulness, her refractoriness, and hear thy Spirit saying in my soul, Heal me, O Lord, for I would be healed. Ephraim saw his sichkness, and Judah his wound; then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb, yet could not he heal you, nor cure you of your wound. Keep me back, O Lord, from them who misprofess arts of healing the soul, or of the body, by means not imprinted by thee in the church, for the soul, or not in nature for the body. There is no spiritual health to be had by superstition, nor bodily by witchcraft; thou, Lord, and only thou, art Lord of both. Thou in thyself art Lord of both, and thou in thy Son art the physician, the applier of both. itk his stripes we are healed, says the prophet there; there, before he was scourged, we were healed with his stripes; how much more shall I be healed now, now when that which he hath already suffered actually is actually and effectually applied to me? Is there any thing incurable, upon which that balm drops? Any vein so empty as that that blood cannot fill it 7 Thou promisest to heal the earth ; but it is when the inhabitants of the earth pray that thou wouldst heal it. Thou promisest to heal their waters, but their miry

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 places, and standing waters, thou sayest there, thou wilt not heal. My returning to any sin, if I should return to the ability of sinning over all my sins again, thou wouldst not pardon. Heal this earth, O my God, by repentant tears, and heal these waters, these tears from all bitterness, from all diffidence, from all dejection, by establishing my irremovable assurance in thee. Thy Son went about healing all manner of sicknesses. (No disease incurable, none difficult; he healed them in passing). Virtue went outof him, and he healed all, all the multitude (no person incurable), he healed them every whit (as himself speaks), he left no relics of the disease; and will this universal physician pass by this hospital, and not visit me? not heal me? not heal me wholly? Lord, I look not that thou shouldst say by thy messenger to me, as to Hezekiah, Behold, I will heal thee, and on the third day thouw shalt go wp to the house of the Lord. 1 look not that thou shouldst say to me, as to Moses in Miriam's behalf, when Moses would have had her healed presently, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut up seven days, and then return ; but if thou be pleased to multiply seven days (and seven is infinite), by the number of my sins (and that is more infinite), if this day must remove me, till days shall be no more, seal to me my spiritual health, in affording me the seals of thy church; and for my temporal health, prosper thine ordinance, in their hands who shall assist in this sickness, in that manner, and in that measure, as may most glorify thee, and most edify those who observe the issues of thy servants, to their own spiritual benefit.

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S sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sickness is solitude; when the infectiousness of the disease deters them who should assist from coming; even the physician dares scarce come. Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itself. Mere vacuity, the first agent, God, the first instrument of God, nature, will not admit; nothing can be utterly empty, but so near a degree towards vacuity, as solitude, to be but one, they love not. When I am dead, and my body might infect, they have a remedy, they may bury me; but when I am but sick, and might infect, they have no remedy, but their absence, and my solitude. It is an excuse to them that are great, and pretend, and yet are loath to come; it is an inhibition to those who would truly come, because they may be made instruments, and pestiducts, to the infection of others, by their coming. And it is an outlawry, an excommunication upon the patient, and separates him from all offices, not only of civility, but of working charity. A long sickness will weary friends at last, but a pestilential sickness averts them from the beginning. God himself would admit a figure of society, as there is a plurality of persons in God, though there be but one God; and all his external actions testify a love of society, and communion. In heaven there are orders of angels, and armies of martyrs, and in that house many mansions; in earth, families, cities, churches, colleges, all plural things; and lest either of these should not be company enough alone, there is an association of both, a communion of

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 when it came about. But it is really impossible to talk to one's sweetheart, as she should be talked to, on horseback (unless you are both on the same horse) wherefore Sir Symon presently jumped down, and laying his arm delicately round Bertha's waist, had her most exquisite arms twined about his neck and so brought her to the ground. Then did he spread her a soft throne of ferns on the roots of a tree, and kneeling at her feet, began to intone the Hours of Paphos in a mellow and passionate voice, for they had said the secreta some time before. Perhaps you do not understand me and have never heard of these offices, and indeed they are no longer sung in the flaming old-fashioned manner; for the times are degenerate. Well this is how Sir Symon began—"Darling, when the sun ariseth he shines in through my window and finds me awake and pale for thinking of thee; and when he sinketh below the western hills he leaves me still enlightened with the rarer glories of thine eyes." "Las, dear love," answered Bertha, "far away below us are the level moors; but we are in a greeny dell of Wentwood Chase; so was my life before thou camest compared to what it now is. O my sweetheart how shall I love thee aright?" "Love me and the kisses of my mouth even as the meadows love the dew in August, as the stones love the ripple of the brook, as the cornfields love the harvest moon ruddily ascending or shaped in sickle wise." "Thou art my mighty glorious sun and I thine earth yearning for the rays of thy love." "Thou art mine evening star, shining in the glow of sun-

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